M.B.B.S

It’s my last week of study break before I start gearing up for the merciless final exams in March.

It’s called the MBBS. Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery.

So I thought it’d be nice to bring Grandpa Zhou out for dinner. Tomorrow is when I start my surgical internship. From here on, life will mean early (I mean 5ish to 6am kind of early) mornings and possibly 14-hour work-days, followed by studying for my finals in and through the nights… every night… not to mention the 36-hour sleepless calls at hospital once a week for the next one month. From here on, there will be no looking back. There’ll be no more long endless cycling rides, no more flute playing, no more frivolous time to waste. There is only one goal- to be a good doctor and do the best for my finals.

5 years of work in 5 months. That’s a lot of work. And I just realised why sometimes, doctors marry doctors, or why the medical community can be pretty insular. Who else understands with such great clarity and empathy of what “busy” means, and what “I’m tired” means. “Busy” means not having had more than 5 hours of sleep for months, perhaps not having a single off day for weeks. “I’m tired” means I spent the night taking blood for an endless list of patients, answering calls of sometimes unhelpful nurses and responding to belligerent superiors… instead of sleeping, like everyone should be. It means 36-hours of on-your-feet serving and a home to go to later where you only want to sleep in. To someone else, not replying an email or a text message may just be plain rude, or show an inability to prioritise one’s time; to someone who understands, it means you nearly crashed trying to finish your work to be a responsible healthcare professional. How do we tell you we still love you when we don’t spend time with you? How is it possible to study all day?

The M.B.B.S is a jealous thing.

From tomorrow, life will be different. January and February will be crazy. As my senior told me today: Eat. Pray. Study. That will be all. Is it worth it? Yes. Absolutely. Other people don’t understand how serious we are when we mean we study all day. What is all day? If you’re in medical school, you’ll probably understand- it’s probably what you did some time back to get here.

Wake up at 6am. Study till noon. Eat. Study till dinner. Eat. Pray. Sleep.

I wanted to take Grandpa Zhou out before this season started.

4 friends or rather, 2 couples joined us. Ronald and Ethel is a couple I met through my Creative Writing community- Ronald, a law student, was inspired by Uncle Tay’s story and his community work in Social Justice and hence is excited about a project he has to inspire youth to reach out to the elderly in our society who fall through the cracks.

Glorijoy is my junior in medical school. She and her boyfriend, SJ, have a real heart for people, and SJ is one who donated all his Chinese New Year red packet money from his relatives to Grandpa Zhou’s medical fees for a year.

I’ve been living near this famous restaurant all my life and never tried it before!

I should have taken a photo of the gorgeous food

before we starting eating…

but this tells you how good it was!

All right, here goes. MBBS, here I come.

And to the rest of the world, thank you for understanding our lack of sociability for the next few months or so. We still love you and life, and we’ll be back in April.

But for now, toodles!