Medicine as a career can be vastly rewarding but not without challenges and the life of a doctor can be exceptionally frustrating and at times, very distressful. Pursuing a career in medicine means not only do we have to work industriously for five to seven years in the medical college but then continue with strenuous lifestyle for years faced with yet more grinding training and exams, long hours of diligent duty in hospital wards and helping people through some of the most difficult and personal experiences of their lives.
Life is a doctor has numerous and continued challenges only matched by the positive reasons that medical students commit for choosing an uphill task in medicine. Choice in medical career may be instilled by altruism, because of academic achievement in the sciences, or because of the admiration for relatives or family friends already working in the field but most are also attracted by the potential for a steady career, a healthy income and a respected status in society. Many in the society believe that becoming a doctor is more than a career – it’s a life choice and that doctors shouldn’t be able to shirk the hard work while keeping the status that doctors command.
Today I shall start with my own experience and reflect on how I became a doctor. In this context I must mention my father whose journey of becoming a doctor ignited my dream of becoming a medical/surgical practitioner. My father, I believe was an exceptional person. When I was 11-years-old, I overheard a conversation between my uncle, my cousin and my father regarding what I ought to do when I grow up. My cousin being at the University of Dhaka insisted that as I am so good in maths, I should become an engineer, my uncle being a civil servant wanted me to be CSP (Civil Service of Pakistan) officer. My father didn’t say what he wanted me to be but told me his story of how he was misled into not going to Kolkata Medical School in early 1940s when he was offered a place to study medicine there. My grandfather died when my father, I think, was only two. My widowed grandmother was an extremely capable and hard working lady who successfully raised her children, making sure at the same time that her farmers who used her land property cleared their taxes in due time, not an easy task for a widowed lady in those days. Once my father was offered a chance in Kolkata to study medicine, my grandmother went to her second cousin whose son was at the time studying in Kolkata. Her cousin laughed at her explaining that living costs in Kolkata and studying medicine were so expensive that she must have been crazy to even dream of sending her son to that city. My grandmother was told that it will be very costly and was misinformed about the tuition costs for studying medicine there, which were a lot more than what it actually required. So she returned home heartbroken and told her son that he was not going to medical school. This piece of history from my father’s life made me decide to become a doctor.
When I was only 13-years-old. I was riding on the front bar of a bicycle being paddled by my older cousin. We were headed to my maternal grandparents' house about seven or eight miles from the town we lived in when a bull was racing towards us from the other side of the road. By the time we noticed it, it was too late. I was left unconscious after the collision. Although my family and friends were very worried about me at the hospital, I still remember that there was a surgeon stitching my head wound and I was attempting to scream. Then I looked at him and his calm, composed and confident smile helped me calm down. But a very strange thing kept happening after that day; I kept seeing myself in the surgeon's place every time I thought about it.
People rightly become sceptical of such an exaggerated description of a revelatory moment and the ignited desire to become a doctor or a surgeon to be precise. It is surely not enough to convince ourselves that we have the motivation for medicine by simply saying that we do.
Enhancing the understanding of the role of a doctor can be achieved through interacting with medical students and doctors, learning from someone's own or close friends' or relatives' experience of being a patient. Hands-on work experience in a caring role such as helping elderly members in the neighbourhood, volunteering in the local hospital or working with disadvantaged children in special schools being set up in recent times can be exceptionally useful in comprehending what a career in caring for people may involve. Taking part in club activities and social events, fund raising campaigns, games and sports and other community activities may contribute to develop useful qualities for achieving a successful career in medicine.
Professor Raqibul Mohammad Anwar is a practising colorectal surgeon at RAHETID, a global partner organisation of the Royal College of surgeons of England in Dhaka. He also works for Bart’s and The Royal London Hospital in England. He is a retired colonel from the Royal Army Medical Corps of the British Army and a convener of examinations and an ambassador of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
