the future to come....

I have read the post of a good friend of mine at his blog, regarding the future of medical profession at Malaysia and in general, in the whole world.

He mentioned on the comparison between doctor's salary around the world and the future of Malaysian doctors have if they were to work in government sector. The truth is that in Malaysia, there are not enough doctor around and most of the senior doctors are already working in the luxurious private sector.

So, that left the junior doctors in which they are still lacking in expertise and experience, to handle the vast number of patients at the government hospital. This scenario are common in developing countries around the globe and in the case of Malaysia, it is quite worse indeed. Fresh doctors that have graduated from either the local or oversea universities are told to work as much on-call as they can yet the payment are not worth it. That is what have happened in the past and this are not going to change much in the future. That is my future that I can predict for now.

That made me contemplate back on my purpose to pursue my future career in this medical field. Why do you want to be a doctor? This question is one famous question that most medical students were asked during the interview. I have been asked this question when I am applying for medicine by JPA officer and I still remember my answer till now.

If you were to seek wealth in medicine, yes you can but to tell the truth, it is rather difficult if you were on government scholarship but if you were to seek in helping the society, the possibilities are endless.

That post made me deep in contemplation again. For every person that choose medicine as their future career, the journey are full with thorns, challenges, stress, internal and external conflicts, depression, hopelessness etc. Despite that, these people who had chosen medicine as their career are expected to be good doctor. Some definitions of a good doctor is that the doctor must always give hope to patient regarding their illnesses and always be an optimistic person.

Is that possible? For doctors that facing with hopelessness in themselves to give hope to other people...

The journey is long and some have failed miserably yet some have conquered this journey with success. When the going is tough, the tough gets going. To which of those categories I do belong, I am still searching for an answer...