The Journey: 1. Falling in love with medicine

On duty as a medic

For quite some time now, I've absolutely hated my tendency to constantly overthink and worry about the worst-case scenario. I've despised thinking out of the box and being neurodivergent. Then, eventually, I discovered medicine. It was always a truth deep inside me that I wanted to work in a field that would allow me to help people, I just hadn't found "the one" yet. I explored working in humanitarian law for a while, which is still something I do like, but not necessarily what I want to do with my life. Obviously, I explored medicine a bit and at first, I was convinced I was too much of a worrier to become a doctor, although I knew I had a keen interest for health. Life had a way of showing that in fact, medicine is one of the only discipline in which my usually dreadful overthinking and « worst-case scenario/outside the box » thinking is actually my main asset ! Medicine in real life isn't about trying to get a perfect fit between illness and patient, most are imperfect diseases and abnormal cases. You need a human touch and a capacity to improvise, to see what's the worst thing that could happen and prepare for it. What’s more beautiful than having a career that enables you to turn your worst part of yourself as your main strength? 

I discovered that there's a pretty cool loophole in my anxiety: if someone needs help more than I do, I'll become the most cool-headed girl ever with leadership and trust in my abilities. Back in my early high school years, I was out with friends for a birthday party. We were walking at the pier when I saw a man acting weirdly. My friends simply wanted to keep walking, they were afraid of him. I personally felt in my gut that something was wrong in another way... I called the police and moment later, while the officers were on their way, the man jumped down in the freezing cold water. Just in time, the police and emergency responders arrived to get him our of the water. Officers told me the guy would probably be dead if I hadn't called. All along, I simply thought about how I would have wanted somebody to do the same for me if I had been in that situation and how I would have felt if I had learned the other day that the guy had died and that I could have done something to prevent that... I can somewhat pinpoint that moment as the one when I decided that medicine, especially trauma, was actually for me. 

Another reason why it's trauma surgery and not another specialization that appeals to me the most, although I'm not closed to other options, is that it's one of the few specializations that can allow me to operate on people, create meaningful relations with the patients and still not be too sensitive in the operation room, as most of the times, in trauma surgery, you operate and then you actually learn to know the patient more personally in your follow-ups. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, I also have a keen interest for humanitarian aid and trauma survey can be super useful in humanitarian relief. My dream job, after my studies, would actually to be a part of Doctors Without Borders and therefore combine the two fields I love the most. Whilst working with DWB as a surgeon, I would not only get travel opportunities, but the possibilities to create a meaningful and long-lasting positive impact around me. In addition to that, a lot of DWB doctors are also advocate for easy access to healthcare, a universal standard of care and help during crisis around the globe. Finally, as DWB pride themselves to say, emergency response is a great way to force medical innovation and standardize medical ethics. I would be proud to be apart of this.

And that was the first step in my journey to become a doctor: falling in love with medicine.