The Question Everyone Should Ask Themselves, Part Two

If you haven't read Part One of this post, I strongly recommend you do before reading this.

In my last post, I promised to ask you a question that everyone should ask themselves before they die. I know I joke about kids reading my blog, but the truth is I don't have many young readers (well, besides the Beliebers who occasionally send me hate mail for my Justin Bieber memes). Most people who come here have graduated or are studying for a degree.

I bet you've worked hard to get here you are now. I want you, for a moment, to think about that journey. To remember your hardest, darkest hours, as well as your greatest triumphs. I want you to recall some of the faces you remember from those times. To feel the pain, the sweat, and the joy that all those moments brought you.

Now. Considering all you've endured to be where you are today. I want you to look back on it all and ask yourself -

Was it worth it?

Did you end up exactly how you thought you would end up, all those years ago? Are you doing what you imagined you'd be doing?

Do you love what you do?

One of my drama directors back in Cambridge asked us this once. He said at the end of every play, he'd ask his cast and crew this question. And his goal as a director was to make their experience so enjoyable that they answered yes.

Let's face it - I didn't want to be a doctor. If I could go back in time, before I went to med school, and do something different, I would. Because I may be a good doctor now. But I could have been a great something else.

But I lacked the courage to chase my dreams. In my second year, a friend of mine from another college failed many papers. When he went to see his Director of Studies to arrange resits, his DoS told him frankly, "I've seen this pattern of results before. It usually means that deep down inside, you don't really want to do medicine." My friend took his advice, and left medical school. He is now earning a six-figure salary at a law firm in London, and wakes up every day knowing he loves what he does.

I envy him.

But like Darth Vader said to Luke, "It is too late for me, son." But not for you. You can still change your life. So ask yourself today, "Was it worth it?"

I sincerely hope the answer is yes.

The Question Everyone Should Ask Themselves, Part One

I was going to put up a post with a bunch of stuff that made me laugh in the past few days. But some very serious issues have been eating at me for a while now, demanding to be written down. I can't ignore them much longer.

I don't care who you are or what you do for a living. I want you to answer a question. A question that everyone should ask themselves at some point in life.

First, if you can, watch this video. It shows CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta, a successful broadcaster and brain surgeon, giving the commencement address to the graduating class of the University of Michigan last week. He's funny, he's engaging, but he has some very important life lessons to teach.

It's 20 minutes long, but it may change your life.

 

 Notice how he breaks every lesson down. Write them down. Remember them. This man got a standing ovation from 40,000 people that day.

Now I want you to come back tomorrow, whether you watched it or not. Because I will ask you a very important question. A question every person in this world should ask themselves before they die.

Excuse Me Whilst I Go Graduate

So I haven't put up a post in a while, and haven't even responded to the angry comments and hate mail building up in my inbox. This is because I flew back to England to attend my M.A. graduation ceremony in Cambridge University - yes, I am now Dr Angry Medic M.A. (Cantab).

Ridiculously handsome, right? And you thought I was joking about my good looks.

Not that any of you care - it's also an excuse for me to catch up with old friends, get ridiculously drunk, fall asleep on a random roadside in Cambridge and spend the next morning running away from the same University proctors that I insulted years ago on my blog. (Not that I, uh, actually did any of that. Oh no. --Editor)

Anyway, proper post and photos are on their way. Thanks for all your kind comments on Facebook (I know you just want free medical leave certificates out of me. --Ed.)

What I Did Right After Getting Finals Results

The email I sent immediately after getting results. Okay so my exam co-ordinator's name isn't really Awesomesauce, but she is AWESOME. SAUCE. 
I've taken a lot of crap from some of Imperial's admin departments, but she's God's gift to administrative services. (And speedy email replies -  these two emails were like 45 seconds apart. Which begs the question - how in God's name does she type so fast?)

In my last post I mentioned that what I did right after getting my results was send an email to my university asking for confirmation that these were really exam results and they weren't playing a massive April Fool's joke on me as revenge for all the times I fell asleep in lectures. You guys thought I was joking, right? I wasn't. Here's the proof. These images are a little doctored* to protect anonymity, but they are original, complete with crappy Imperial College email client background.

Seriously. I couldn't believe it. I thought they were trolling me one last time. Only after getting that second email did I finally start to celebrate (and by "celebrate" I may or may not mean lying on the ground in a fetal position crying my eyes out screaming "IT'S FINALLYYY OVERRRR". Cough. These are emotional moments, okay?! --Editor).

*AHAHA seewhatIdidthere? "Doctored", cos this was the email that told me I'd become a doctor, geddit geddit? Yes? No? Hello? Hi mom!

The Angry Medic Becomes The Angry Doctor

My graduation at Imperial College London, October 2011.  What's that you say? 

Your mother could Photoshop better than me? Oh, shaddap.

Yes, that's right folks. Amidst stunned looks of disbelief, screams of fainting ladies and angry curses muttered by my med school lecturers, I finally graduated as a doctor in October 2011. Why the long wait to update? Cos I've been sitting here for the past few months pinching myself repeatedly asking myself if I didn't just dream the whole thing.
(I'm only joking. Partly. --Editor)

It wasn't easy. The finals were tough, and I didn't think I did as well as I ended up doing. I had a LOT of help along the way, and sitting the exams was a truly humbling experience. I could never, never have done it without the help of a few key people whom I hope to thank in coming posts (in a completely serious and non-humorous manner. Cough. Why are you looking at me like that? --Ed.) In fact, the first thing I did when I got the results email was contact the exams co-ordinator right away asking if the results were real. No, really. Don't tell my mom.

Also, now that I'm safely far far away, I can finally reveal the university I've been terrorising studying at for the past 3 years after Cambridge:

Geddit geddit? Cos it's Imperial College, and the bad guys in Star Wars are Imperials, 

so it's funny cos I drew Imperials in Imperial, hahaha...

okay so I haven't done this for a while, okay? Leave me alone.

So yeah. I'm a real doctor now. 

How does it feel? Is it worth it? Short answer: I'm scared shitless. Long answer: That's for another post, the second part to my Cambridge graduation post. (MWAHAHA now you have to come back and read more of my crap if you want to find out! Or you could...not come back. Probably healthier in the long run. --Ed.)

If you've been here before, thanks for staying with me all these years. I'll write again soon about graduation and what it's like to be a Real Doctor (in two words: scared shitless. Oh wait, did I say that already? --Ed.). Happy Chinese New Year!

Graduation Day at Cambridge University

26th-28th June was Graduation Weekend at Cambridge University.

Getting to graduation, for me, has been one long struggle; from dodging the hardbound copies of Gray's Anatomy hurled at me by angry professors to actually passing the exams to finding the correct damn graduation gown hood with the correct damn fur lining culled from the correct damn near-extinct species of Mickey Mouse-shape-toothed Siberian tiger. (Extract from actual Graduation Day notice to students: "The Praelector will strictly enforce the dress code on graduation day for all students and you will not be allowed to graduate if, for example, your socks are the wrong colour*.")

But I made it. I made it through 3 years of getting a ego-battering every day, of trying to survive in the midst of people who were so obviously superior to me, and who often didn't like me due to my different sense of humour, my different accent, and my general weirdness. So I don't have any regrets as I look back on this place one last time before I leave it.

Cambridge taught me many things, and although I didn't agree with its education system, I can't deny that it IS very good. (If getting your head forcibly crammed with theoretical jargon by researchers who see the light of day less often than Amy Winehouse appears in public respectably and seeing patients twice a year is your idea of a good pre-clinical education, that is. --Ed.) Maybe not for me, but generally. (So says the Times, anyway. Okay, okay, I'll stop with the schizophrenic double-talk already. --Ed)

So on to clinical school! I visit Cambridge often enough that people see me more often than when I actually studied there, but it'll be great to proceed to clinical school and start finally killing patients uhm, making a difference in people's lives (and all that other crap you wrote in your personal statement when you applied. Don't pretend nobody knows where you got it from! --Ed)

So yeah. I'm back, folks. And if you think my adventures at clinical school are going to be any less funny-in-a-sickening-schadenfreude-way, read on and (hopefully) laugh. (Unless you live within my clinical school's NHS catchment area, of course. In which case the next time your doctor asks if it's okay if a medical student takes your blood, FOR GOD'S SAKE SAY NO. --Ed.)

*One of my classmates unfortunately forgot to read this fine print on the Graduation notice, and was told his socks were the wrong shade of black for the ceremony. Yes, you read that right; Cambridge praelectors are trained to recognise DIFFERENT FRIGGIN' SHADES OF BLACK. Luckily for him his dad wore the correct colour of socks, and he was forced to trade socks with his dad 10 minutes before the Graduation Parade.

If there's one thing I've learnt at Cambridge, it's to ALWAYS read the bloody fine print on anything. One final-year student read the rules in so much detail he found a 16th-century regulation that allowed all candidates sitting for his exam to demand one leg of roast ham and a glass of wine during the paper. Unfortunately for him he hadn't read far enough; upon asking for his food and wine in the exam hall his demands were met, but he was then fined for not wearing a sword. Guess you can't win 'em all. Still want a copy of the prospectus?