Do you have what it takes to be a doctor?

Assalamualaikum & hello,

          Pretty much now, especially in this week, I read and heard a lot about "doctors are not made, they are chosen". Have you heard about it? I read articles about in facebook. Mostly about being a doctor you must sacrifice a lot of things to ensure your patients get the best treatment care. Sacrifice your sleep, your youth, time with family and the lists go on..

This evening, my PBL facilitator which is my Pathology lecturer told us, even in medical school we tried to make the students cope with their future job. So, there were less holidays in typical medical school settings and sometimes even if you have the holidays, you still required to study & do revisions. Nerdy right? 

So I always have this question popped in my head, especially when I see my peers can answer questions like diarrhea (quotes from the deen), "Am I gonna be a competent doctor?"

Throwback to my foundation years... 

There was one day, where all of the students we required to stay in the hall and we were exposed to the choices of degree courses in my university. Oh god, I can't stop reminiscing this story over and over again. So, at that time, the deen / vice deen (sorry I can't remember who) went on stage to promote about medical course which everyone was kinda wanting to hear about it.

He asked on the stage, "Whoever wanted to pursue in Medic, PLEASE STAND UP!"

You won't believe me if I say, almost everyone stands up (3/4 of the hall). Can you imagine why I stopped wanting to be a doctor for a while during foundation year? Cause the competition is real & fierce. 

So whenever I thought back about the story, I feel motivated because Allah has provide me the chance for me to be a medical student. And now, it's time for me to work hard to be a competent doctor. 

Do you have what it takes to be a doctor?
Yes or no, you gotta work for it!

Nak ambil medic tapi tak straight As SPM? Ini kata Dr Aimir Ma'rof!

Shared from his personal facebook

Kesinambungan daripada karangan saya mengenai SPM tempoh hari. (you can read here)

Ada yang memberi komen, perkara yang berlaku pada saya itu mustahil pada masa kini. Zaman dan senario sekarang sudah lain. Betul, memang saya setuju. Malah terbaca pula hari ini kenyataan Menteri Kesihatan bahawa kemungkinan tiada penempatan 'housemanship' diberi untuk lepasan universiti yang punya keputusan SPM tidak melepasi kelayakan minimum jurusan perubatan.

Now there goes my career. I should have been fired!

To a certain degree, yes I agree. If you enter bogus medical school through backdoor channel just because you or your parents want you to become a doctor but you have minimum entry qualification, your degree is questionable of course. But what if you work hard like everyone else through proper channel and in the process, who knows maybe you perform much better than your colleagues who previously have better SPM result than you? So to me, that is a kind of a knee jerk solution for a much bigger problem.

The process of 'creating' a doctor should not start after you receive the degree, but should start way back even before you choose to do medicine. I still believe that whether you can be successful as doctor or not is not entirely based on how much A you get in your SPM.

Being a doctor starts from inside your heart first. The head or brain will follow. So that is why I think ALL candidates who want to enter medical school should be interviewed, like a job application process. For example, if the students themselves not 100% interested, but being forced by parents, that should be the first reason to reject the application. I have spoken to some of my friends and you can also ask administration staff in private colleges, who is more excited to become a doctor? The candidates or the parents?

Interview (by a proper conjoined national medical body, not only the college/university) can let you gauge the attitude of the candidates, the passion to serve and most importantly the will to sacrifice and put others before oneself. That is what medical profession is about. And your number of As, or any paper qualification for that matter, cannot guarantee that!

You do that not after the degree is obtained. Not when they start dropping like fly during housemanship. You do this as early as before they even think of joining medical programme. Then maybe you can minimize the issue of demanding 8 hours of working and 6 hours of sleep!

Entah la, ini pendapat saya sahaja. As we all know, opinion is meaningless with no scientific basis and value at all. I know I am wasting my time writing all this. I should have write scientific papers instead.

So let me end with this.

Not all students can become a doctor.

Not all straight A students should become a doctor.

Not all NOT straight A students cannot become a doctor.

Because to repeat myself, I am the living proof of that!

My comment :

Way to go Dr! I hope I can meet a supportive MO like him one day and a good doctor as well, InsyaAllah ;)