End of road?

Honestly, getting rejected from NUS Med was not expected.

After working hard for so many years and affirmation from so many people, I always believed I would get into the course and become an awesome doctor. The feeling of rejection... Well, it does hurt. For one, I will not be in the same course as 10+ other awesome people who have been working very hard alongside me in high school to become doctors. The very first feeling I got was that of being left behind. Like everyone you knew was going on an awesome trip and I was the only one that missed the flight. It also felt like the end of a dream. Well, I still have options such as going to Aus to study and fighting with juniors for LKCSOM and HKU has not replied me yet. But about this doctor dream, it will be another post why I have most probably decided to give it up. There are some people I need to talk this through first.

I have been exploring quite a bit about my new course, pharmacy, and I am glad to say, it isn't as bad as I envisioned it to be afterall. I'm glad that somehow, despite all the angst from getting rejected, I decided to do one logical thing: call up the NUS Pharmacy Dept to ask about their programme. I told the Prof very honestly that I was rejected from Medicine and I did not really have an interest in Pharmacy from what I understood in their programme. Thankfully, the Prof was rather patient and willing (very very willing actually; the whole conversation lasted about 20 min with me asking only a few questions) to tell me about the different modules and what pharmacy was actually about. He helped me to understand that Pharmacy was not just chemistry and synthesising new compounds but involved many aspects of what I was interested in medicine such as pathology as well. Pharmacy too, would not leave me with only the job of working in guardian or counting pills and there were many options beside retail pharmacy (which is working in guardian, unity and what not). Pharmacists are taking on a more prominent role in hospitals today. Certain hospitals now have outpatient clinics run by pharmacists themselves without doctors around. Basically, I was convinced that Pharmacists could help people and make a difference in health care too which is rather similar to my original motivation to do medicine- using the knowledge and skills I have to serve others. Pharmacy is going to roll out a residency programme too. I guess a few years down the road, I will still be happy being a pharmacist.

¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecc 3:11

Time will tell, I believe, what God will have in store for me for the upcoming years. In the mean time, to quote Steve Jobs, 'So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.'

Cheers!