Whenever others ask about whether I’m enjoying medical school, I’ll typically answer that it’s great and that I’m really happy. But there’s more to it than that - while medical school can be enjoyable, it can also be extremely exhausting.
Medical students often compare themselves to machines - devices which do not get tired and which lack emotions. Much like these machines, medical students will often spend hours and hours each day at their desks flipping through flashcards and question banks while memorising content.
I am guilty of this.
Last semester, I received a call from an ex-schoolmate the week before my final examinations. Over the call, I learned that one of my friends had taken his life in March 2020. I was dumbfounded and decided to pay a visit to his family and check up on them. After the visit, I came home feeling numb and tossed and turned in bed until the next morning.
Then, I simply carried on studying - I watched my lectures at double speed, took a short break to exercise and returned to flip through my flashcards. I did not talk to many people about my feelings, and also did not mention that I had just lost someone dear to me. I continued studying to distract myself from the pain and loss of my good friend, and only after my examinations did I finally switch off and collapse from exhaustion.
Here I am now - fully human again - feeling loss against a backdrop of worries about getting through medical school. At times, I feel waves of emotions - fear, guilt, hurt and sadness - reminders that I am a terrible machine.
Yes, I want to succeed and graduate as a doctor. But I am not made of steel and wires. I am still human - exhaustible, prone to error and filled with emotions. For me, acting like a machine was a facade and a means of masking my pain and emotions.
As I was growing up, I believed that success brought happiness. I thought that having many accolades, good results in medical school and friends was enough. However, I still did not feel content even after achieving those things. I continued to strive for more. This made me lose sight of the people and the blessings that actually mattered such as my family and friends.
So, the next time I look at my classmates and friends, I would not ask how they are managing their studies. Instead, I would wonder and ask whether the medical student behind the machine was doing alright. For those embarking on their journey to become a clinician overseas, do treasure the time spent with your loved ones rather than taking it for granted - after all, life is incredibly fragile.
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Kwong Yee is a third-year medical student at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and is also the vice-president of the Singapore Medical Society of Ireland (SMSI) and captain of the RCSI Squash Team. He aspires to specialise in cardiology after graduation, and recently worked together with other members of SMSI to produce a mental health booklet for migrant workers placed under quarantine in Singapore. The booklet can be accessed here: https://www.smsireland.org/smsi-cares.
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