MMSA

The medical student life feels much akin to being on the wrong side  of a firing squad. Singled out by some impatient consultant with an impossible question, we feel the eyes of fellow students, doctors and patients alike fall upon us and we die a little bit inside. All the knowledge we so avidly absorbed the night before vaporises instantly in the flashpoint and we’re left dumb, searching frantically for any cue, feeling all alone in the world, hoping and dreading at the same excruciating time for the axe to fall.

 

In truth you can’t be blamed for thinking that talking to one of us students might be the most depressing experiences you’ll ever have to go through. We grumble on Mondays’ about lectures and moan on Fridays about cancelled tutorials. Nothing is safe from our cynicism! But much of this is in fact just a smoke screen. If you just listen long enough you’ll eventually hear each and every one of us say, “This is exactly where I belong.”

 

And no wonder! We’ve become addicted to the nerdy highs we get when we put on scrubs for the first time or get that ankle jerk just right! Every patient and every MRI still has that power to evoke mental oohs and aahs. We can’t help to be drawn in, to fall in love with the mystery of the human body and the unpredictable nature of the human mind, although obsessively fitting weird diseases with whatever vague symptoms we wake up with in the morning might become a common side effect …

 

Despite all these amazing things, we still moan and grumble. Perhaps it’s the only way we know how to cope with the immense responsibility. Maybe it’s an instinctive drive to keep us grounded in reality. Though one thing is for certain … once we taste this life, there is no going back!