IMMINENT DOCTOR

It’s all coming to an end in the next few weeks. I will be examined to be found fit to practice as a doctor and here I am growing cold feet. Having hid behind the sentence “we’ve not been taught” for how long now, hmm…I think three years of clinical training, I will step out there and someone will ask me what to do about a certain symptom and what would I have to say? People are already asking me to diagnose and treat their ailments. I quickly tell them I am not covered under the law to do that as a student. Soon this excuse will no longer be tenable. What do I do? Am I really ready to go out there and practice as a doctor? I mean whosoever invented medical training to last for just six years must have been a bit low on the IQ scale. What does he expect me to know, DM, HT, Neoplastic diseases, Ob/Gyn, Paediatrics and an endless list of symptoms and their combinations I have not heard in all the years I have been a student. Anyway I am still a student of medicine and like our teachers tell us, learning never ends in medicine.
Counting down to the day is so thrilling, so breathe taking; I mean I will be addressed as ‘Dr.’ by all and sundry, including my teachers. Yet the responsibility I am about to take on is so enormous. It calls for my time and money, it calls for personal self-sacrifice, many sleepless nights and many days of agitation, consoling encouraging and praying for the patients. The shared pains and moments of agony yet to come, the days of rejoicing and the many “thank you” to come. Do I look forward to deciding who dies and who lives? The gory sights to come, many nights of suspense, hours untold in the theatre, battles to be won and to be lost? Do I really look forward to all these challenges that lay before me as a young, green horned doctor. I seek to know within me if I am really ready for all these.These are the many thoughts barging through my mind, an imminent doctor. I encourage myself to keep count of the days as each goes by, trying to look at the brighter side of it all. Sooner than later I will forget my fears and anxiety, become more adept at what I do and learn to bear the deaths of my patients when the inevitable happens; would be able to decipher which may survive and which may not. Years of practice is meant to add this ‘feather’ to my cap, till then I am a green horned, seeking solace in the shadows of my seniors in the profession. The vistas of success clearly open up before me, before my very eyes the hurdles make themselves obvious; now I am fey or how else will you describe my see