battered ego

Before you read on, let me apologize to you, my worthy audience, in the event my incessant gripes about my studies exhaust your ears and tolerance for any more medically-related nonsense.

Anyway It's been a while since my over-inflated self-esteem suffered a puncture or two until these recent months. The failed GP block and now the intensive paediatrics attachment back home in Singapore. I have to admit, prior to this, I have never (during the course of my 21 years of existence) felt this insecure about my own abilities, not till I started this 5 week attachment at the local university Hospital :P

I have this damn young Registrar (I reckon he must have studied at Raffles Institution or something) who seems to have a knack of attacking exchange students (like moi) with endless questions. Could well possibly be the fact that he is a self-confessed fanatic of the hit medical TV series House MD.

Like the devilishly good-looking sarcarstic narcisstic tv character, he chooses to emulate House's brain-storming style, by picking on students round the table to come up with lists of differential diagnoses for classic clinical signs, berating us students for not knowing the simple things.
''not knowing this basic stuff? Thats terrible!!''
''I am already spoon-feeding you too much information. You are in 4th year already, you guys should know how to find out and organize information already!''

And me, being the least knowledgeable of the lot, have been singled out several times for
''don't hurhurhur..... keep smiling all the time when you think you can get away with not knowing the answers''
between outbursts of
''Miss GlasGAU, what have you been doing the past 2 weeks? Partying all day???''
''So what do they actually teach you in Glasgow?''

Sheer humiliation, hard on the ego.
The fact that I'm a girl, and not one of the local medics didn't seem to hinder him from withholding any ounce of harsh criticism and judgement. My come-back blur grin and sheepish smile didn't seem to have much charming effect on him whatsoever. Instead, he shot this disdainful gaze back at me. *Lesson learnt: When it comes to the real world out there, you just have to keep a straight face and deal with the good, the bad and the ugly.

Not that he knows my real name anyway, he addresses me as "Miss GlasGAU, the one with big eyes'', giving me this feeling that I am just some brainless flower-vase amongst the local medical geeks, who in stark comparison, seem to spend every minute of their lives mugging and roaming the wards to maximize every opportunity of diagnosing a disease.

Welcome to the world of the Singaporean Medics. Where being mediocre or average just ain't good enough because striving for perfection is the norm. You have to be either dead hardworking or dead brilliant. And stylishly kiasu-competitive, because it is an unspoken and yet essential skill needed to survive the ordeal of numerous exams, weekly ward assessments and critical case write-ups. It seems to me like medicine back here ain't perceived as a discipline, but a lifestyle that saturates every spare weekend, mundane lunchtime conversation, and pathetic holiday break.

Do these people actually ever have much of a life outside their studies? A fruitful day at the hospital means leaving the doors around 6pm plus, and for those who aren't tired, they stay till 11pm for night rounds with the medical officers. All students have to turn up early next morning, which typically starts off with an 8 am tutorial. That doesn't seem to leave much time for chilling out does it?

I questioned a fellow female medic, who seemed really amiable, friendly and chatty. The fashionable well-groomed svelte chio-bu/Leng Loi definetely did not look like your stereotypical book-bound and passive south east asian nerd/geek.
''So...any nice plans for the December holidays?'' I asked
She smiled then laughed, ''Oh we don't have much of a holiday here. We have a 7-day break after this paediatrics posting then I've got to mug for my pathology exams in January.''

So I decided to be cheeky and question about her personal life, '' Hey, by the way, just out of curiosity, are you attached to any one of the medics here?''

She nodded wistfully and replied, ''Not at the moment actually, I've been very busy and I haven't found the right one just yet. 2/3 of the people in our year are unattached anyway.''

And that last statement concluded my theory about over-worked hard-driven book-mugging Singaporeans. Looks like the joke is on me too! LOL (except for the fact that I don't mug as hard as these peeps).

Nevertheless, its just 1 more week of humiliation to go!......before I get a real decent break.