I truly believe I got called to study medicine for more reasons than just becoming a doctor. The amount of stuff I’ve learnt outside the classroom/hospital wards since I’ve been here is unmeasurable. So let me tell you all a little about perception today.
Before entering medical school, practically each of us was a champion in our local domains. You’d hear people recounting stories of prize giving days when they’d clear all the prizes and their homes would be filled with awards and gifts from their secondary school glory days – then we get to medical school and it humbles the life out of you. It’s like it’s built purposely with that aim. You can read night and day and still be unsure of what the board will say when results come out – and this is the person that As came to as naturally as breathing back in secondary school.
This culture shock has the power to break a person, even if you have relatives in the medical field to assure you that it’s perfectly normal what’s happening to you, sometimes it just isn’t enough and you begin to question yourself as to whether you really are smart enough. In that moment, all the years of academic success vanishes into thin air and your left with a cloud of doubt – all whilst pretending all is well for all your friends and family that remember you as the “brainy one”. It’s physically draining and day by day you shrink into a shell of unsureness, and the well of self-doubt that you’ve made a home in sinks deeper till the sky becomes a bleak dot far, far away.
That’s where perception comes. It’s your own perception that put you down in that hole. Your perception helped you to forget all the successes you’ve achieved and focus negatively on a setback that is programmed to happen in the field you signed up for.
One thing that medical school has taught me that I’ll never forget is that in everything you do, God has to be the centerpiece. There is too much to lose if He isn’t. What if you got to your oral exams and all the examiners decide to ask you in-depth questions on only the topics you didn’t know much about? Or if your assigned patient’s mood turned the other way during your clinical exam and thy decide to lie about their symptoms when you asked only to confess before the examiner! We all know that even if you pass the theory, once the clinical exam doesn’t go well, it’s all over. There’s too much to leave to “chance” so why not give it to God?
I’d like to challenge you, whether you’re a medical student or not, to check your perception of yourself – right now. Ask yourself honest questions and make sure you answer them. If you don’t see and bring out the good in you, who will?
Half full?
