Remembering why I chose medicine

The reason I was not finding great satisfaction was that I was searching in all the wrong places

I was reaching the end of my third year of residency training in the largest emergency medicine specialist program in Singapore. Shifts to me were no longer fraught with uncertainty and doubts. I had developed confidence in managing most, if not all, of my patients independently. My focus had changed and it was about efficiency as I tried to keep up with the never‐ending flow of patients, in a department that continuously kept track of the number of patients each doctor saw.

At that point in my career, instead of focusing on honing my clinical skills, I felt that I had to move on to other goals — achievements that would actually matter to my career in the long run.

I had to do research; I had to publish and keep up with my colleagues with their umpteenth publication in a peer‐reviewed, high impact factor journal. That was not enough. Artificial intelligence (AI) had entered the realm of medicine, and the latest brouhaha was over AI's ability to replace humans in triaging patients more effectively. Had I missed the proverbial boat? I contacted my friends who were working in the computer science industry with thoughts of exploring the potential of automating processes further, by having patients enter their presenting complaints into mobile devices and using AI to determine the diagnosis and treatment. I dreamed of a day when doctors would not see another patient, and my inventions would provide the best outcomes.

The path was clear as day: my road to success was in the extracurricular activities I undertook. My quality improvement projects and research studies thrust me into the limelight and led to opportunities for positions I did not know I wanted. I saw them as my greatest achievements, from invitations to hospital committees to being nominated as chief resident, where I would be the appointed leader of my entire training program. It felt right; my career was headed for greater things.

But it was an unending effort — someone else always had a better project, a better study, a better opportunity. My mood quickly descended from the initial euphoria and I could not remember the last time I felt so dejected and deflated. Was I bound for mediocrity?

An annual spring cleaning — a Chinese tradition to welcome the Lunar New Year —unearthed the personal statement I had written more than 10 years ago to gain entry into medical school. In it, I wrote of service and of kindness; of empathy, the human spirit and the human condition; of the death of a friend and my passion for bettering lives; of the personal touch and of healing.

I read it over and over again; where was my passion for research in these paragraphs? Where were the passages on discovering new science and becoming the chief resident? I searched hard and tried to read between the lines, but they were nowhere to be found. I searched within myself and it was then that I realised with startling clarity that my new aspirations were not in the personal statement I wrote years ago. However, the ideas I articulated in that statement still resonated strongly with me. The reason I was not finding great satisfaction was that I was searching in all the wrong places; research and organisational transformation are crucial, but these lofty ambitions did not spur me along this journey. No, it was the promise of the simple yet beautiful connection formed when one human being helps another.

I went on my next shift with a new certainty in my mind. And when I said, “how can I help you today?” it was exactly as I imagined it when I wrote my personal statement years ago.