What I learnt on work experience #2

It's quarter to midnight atm, which makes it perfect blogging time, right?

Anyway, continuing on with my cool story about work experience...

So the first impressionable person taught me that life is a poverty pit and medicine is a fine way of getting out. I think that's true, and I already gave that spiel about how immoral monetizing the healthcare system is, yada yada... but I truly respect this person and think they're quite right, in a literal sense.

Then let's talk about the second impressionable person I met. That was someone completely different, with a different world view and strong opinions. I felt that person was someone who'd literally argue with me all day over a mundane point, just because he got caught up in the moment. They were rather uncomfortable around me, which I guess I understand, given my age and naivety and a bunch of other things--- but still, they taught me things I don't think I would've learnt from anywhere else.

So this was someone who chose to study medicine after years of work doing some other thing, and this was one of those people every med school entrance exam hoped to find. True passion, honest motives, with an ambition of hoping to make the world a better place. And MAN people like that give me pressure. You just talk to them, and you realize, "this person is a better person than what I'll ever be." Then I start feeling really uncomfortable and awkward, and I tend to stay silent because I don't know what to say, and that if I express my thoughts I'm going to be trampled by their moral high-horse.

I couldn't help myself though- they were really kind to me, and I wanted to know them better. It's sort of like how you crave for the warmth of sunlight even though you know it burns your eyes. I wanted to be that good, I wanted to be what they were. So during casual conversation, I was honest about how I wasn't that keen on studying medicine in the first place- but I don't hate it. And as long as I don't hate it I can convince myself to keep going, to find a way out of the "poverty-pit", and everything will be alright. I think that person was shocked to start with, but they did all that was in their power to reserve judgment of me- and that sort of made me hate myself more.

See I already have problems with people who are just... better than I am, so I harbor a natural disdain for them. I try and convince myself that there is no way someone can be that genuine, and it's all a facade. The rule is generally true, and then I feel better when I uncover their flaws etc--- but here was someone, for all their flaws, was still better than everything I was- and I can only hate myself because I can't bring myself to hate them.

Anyway, from this better-than-me human being, I learnt that your background really shapes who you are, and you can be as moral as you want when you ignore everything ugly and broken in this world. You just don't understand why people do things and you start doubting the core of humanity, and you feel like a saint because everyone else is just so wrong. But from this person I saw that it was possible to be who you were without judging people for all their wrongs, and that it was possible to be tolerant and accepting without understanding their struggles and hardships. You didn't need to walk a mile in their shoes, you don't even have to imagine what they've been through... you can still be you, with all your values and moral codes and everything you were raised with and taught--- but in the end, you accept someone for who they are.

And that concept is something so incredible to me, I'm not sure I'd ever be able to achieve it myself.

There you have it, then. That's about 70% of the stuff I learnt on placement, that nobody would've taught me or told me otherwise. Reality is quite harsh, isn't it? The rest of the stuff I learnt came from various other impressionable people- I studied the subtleties of bureaucracy, political correctness, economics and philosophical values. All that, combined with the clinical skills I was meant to learn, became entirely overwhelming. I'm glad I took out the time to blog about these things- gives me a chance to recollect my thoughts.

I think I'm really fortunate to have met someone who made me want to be a better person.