Decisions, Doubts and Dilemmas - pt 3

No man is an island.

Clichéd as this phrase may sound, the truth of it can’t be denied. No one can function without fellow human beings. That’s why we need company.

Family. Friends. Acquaintances. Colleagues. Neighbours.

The One. The “I do”, the partner of your life.

Maybe this dilemma sounds shallow to you. Maybe it sounds insignificant, or even ridiculous.

My housemates presented the question:

Studying to be a doctor, you’re graduating(those under JPA scholarship) when you’re approximately 26 years old. After that is 2 years of housemanship, where you spend most of your 24 hours in the hospital. If you want to pursue a specialist or surgical degree and after that a sub-specialist, you’ll end up around 37 years old.

For males? Single and available with money. Attractive, no?

For females? Oops!

Will you have time to marry and have kids? Will you be a good wife and mother? Will your spouse understand your life? Are you willing to sacrifice hours for work, or to sacrifice work for family?

Our solution: Buy a big house for the single old ladies in the medical field and live together. xD

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Choosing this path, I’ve had my moments of doubt. I’ve pondered on this choice of mine far too frequent, I’ve asked questions unanswered and I’m still unsure whether I've made the correct decision.

But walking on, I realised that I’ve never regretted wanting to be a doctor.

And maybe this will make all the difference.

Decisions, Doubts and Dilemmas - pt 2

Family. Parents. Siblings.

They raised you. They grew up with you. They were there for you, from the time you learned how to talk, to the time you outgrew your first set of teeth, moving on to when you graduated primary school and then completed your secondary education, until now.

Always being there for you. Through thick and thin, ups and downs.

Which brings me to the 2^nd situation I’ve been left by my friend to ponder with:

There’s an accident and you’re on the spot. You find out that your mom is in the car(just an example!!!), badly wounded. So badly that you know that there is no hope to save her. And there’s another person in the car, a stranger, badly wounded too but can be saved if prompt action is taken.

Who will you try to save?

Maybe the correct choice to make is to save the one who has a chance of survival, but will you do it?

Truth be told, I’ll try to save the one who’s my family. Even if I know there’s no hope of saving, I’ll still try. Even if there’s no breathe left inside the person, I’ll still try to resuscitate. Even if she’s dead, I’ll hug the body and sob with grief, rather than focus on saving the other person.

Or as my friend joked

“Even if she is decapitated, I’ll be preoccupied in finding her head or any missing part of her body, than saving the other person.”

Or is it a joke?

In this kind of situations, is it logical, to be saving the one beside while your loved one is dying or dead without you even attempting to do anything? If it is so, isn’t it cruel, to be so logical?

A doctor, or a daughter?

Decisions, Doubts and Dilemmas - pt 1

This blog post is inspired by a conversation with a friend, House season 6 episode 3 and this Note
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“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

And that has made all the difference, hasn’t it?

The choice to study my ass off for years and then to come out, still ignorant as hell. The choice to sacrifice hours of personal life or time with my family. The choice of countless sleepless nights and trading my sanity in for someone else’s.

The choice of studying medicine, of the pursuit to be a doctor.

The choice to a life of dilemmas.



My brother once presented me with a situation:

Adolf Hitler is being admitted to the hospital due to an unknown disease a few weeks after the attack on Austria and you’re the attending doctor then, in charge of saving his life. What is your call?

What can you do? What should you do?

Or, what WILL you do?


Do your work as a doctor, uphold your oath and save Hitler. After that, go back to your work everyday as if nothing happened. As if the niggling conscience at the back of your mind isn’t there, as if the guilt isn’t there, as if you haven’t leave the lives of thousands to be torn apart.

OR

Fake a misdiagnosis and murder him, breaking your oath and saving all those lives. But then live everyday knowing that you’ve intentionally killed someone, and let the guilt eat you up, the decision dragging you down from day to day, affecting your work performances and your life.

What is your call?



My answer then was to put him into a coma. Simple, right? The gray area, not killing him, but not letting him kill anyone else either for the matter.

But isn’t that just running away from the situation? Who am I to say that putting a person into a coma intentionally is not as bad as condemning the person to death? Or maybe it is worse, as you rob him of the dignity he might otherwise have gained by death?

Morals. Principles. The courage to carry out your decision. And a strong mind and heart to endure the self torture that are to come for years hence. The “what if’s”.


One, or millions?

A doctor, or a human being?



But who are you to decide what’s right and what’s wrong?

Extract: have a little faith - Mitch Albom

The prayer - and the word "one" - were integral to the Reb's beliefs. One, as in the singular god. One, as in the God's creation, Adam.

"Ask yourself, 'Why did the God create but one man?'" the Reb said, wagging a finger. "Why, if he meant for there to be faiths bickering with each other, didn't he create that from the start? He created trees, right? Not one tree, countless trees. Why not the same with man?"

"Because we are all from that one man - and all from that one God. That's the message."

Then, why, I asked, is the world so fractured?

"Well, you can look at it this way. Would you want the world to look all alike? No. The genius of life is its variety."

"Even in our own faith, we have questions and answers, interpretations, debates. In Christianity, in Catholicism, in other faiths, the same thing - debates, interpretations. That is the beauty. It's like being a musician. If you found the note, and you kept hitting that note all the time, you will go nuts. It's the blending of the different notes that makes the music."

The music of what?

"Of believing in something bigger than yourself."

But what if someone from another faith won't recognize yours? Or wants you dead for it?

"That is not faith. That is hate." He sighed. "And if you ask me, God sits up there and cry when that happens."