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Why Do You Want to Be a Doctor?

Surviving an Interview for Medical School

By Ella DoolittlePublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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"I want to help people."

If you feel medicine is the life journey you would like to take, then at 17 years old you are expected to explain yourself to a professional (under strenuous interview circumstances). Often, the first words from a candidate's mouth are, "I want to help people." True? Often. Clichéd? Most definitely. But there is something to be said for this little 'buzz phrase.'

I can't remember the exact moment in my life where I decided I wanted to be a doctor, but I do know it was very early on. I considered visiting hospitals as a day out, spent my early education engrossed in all things science, but above all, I always wanted to help people.

I experienced my first loss of a family member at five years old. I would visit my grandfather in hospital along with my mother and grandmother, grapes in hand, because apparently that's a gold standard of British etiquette. I knew grandad had a "bad back," and that the doctors were helping him (I'm now aware that this was the result of spinal metastasis from prostate cancer). Of course when he passed away and my parents gently explained that he had gone up to Heaven, I was very upset, but I didn't question why this had happened. All I had known was that it was peaceful, and it was grandad's time to go.

I lost my other grandfather at age 16. After months of not eating much and losing weight (and what I now assume to be undisclosed changes in bowel habit), grandad was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. He underwent gruelling chemotherapy treatment with palliative intent (in medicine this means non-curable and the treatment aim is to alleviate symptoms as opposed to get rid of the disease) and spent his last weeks at home. We would visit as a family and see the deterioration before our eyes until eventually his condition became too much for his body to bear. 16 years is no age of maturity at all, but there's certainly a larger degree of insight in comparison to only just being in primary school. It wasn't peaceful, and it wasn't grandad's time to go.

So when I was asked why I wanted to be a doctor, "I want to help people" was all I had to work with. And it was true; I do want to help people. What I've also engaged with throughout my life so far (admittedly a short 24 years) is finding a sense of purpose. I've never had any particular skills growing up — dancing is not my forte, as much as I enjoy singing at the top of my lungs my mother has previously told me (very kindly) that she wishes I wouldn't, and don't even get me started on art. What I did have though, according to the powers that be who oversee the education system, was an academic mindset and potential. Now, this may seem very self-indulgent, but knowing I had this capability meant I couldn't rest until I'd gained all the use I could out of it. I felt a sense of what I'd liken to an overwhelming responsibility; if I had the potential to succeed as a doctor, then there was nothing else to say on the matter: that is what I would aim for.

Reflecting on the death of my grandfathers, I tormented myself with the idea that more could have been done. This wasn't to say there had been any neglect from medical staff, but surely there is progress to be made in how we treat people. Not diseases... people. Interestingly, if you throw "medicine" into a search engine, you become inundated with images of medications, pills and potions. Is that really what medicine is? Prescribing pills, sending patients off on their way and feeling like you'd achieved something? That's certainly not what it means to me. When it really comes down to it, medications never really made that much of a difference to my grandads. I mean yes, they probably bought them more time, but did they improve quality of life? When you think about chemotherapy and all the 'extras' that come with it, then medications probably did the opposite. The things that really make a difference are those actions that are motivated by treating a person and not a disease. Empathy, compassion and holistic care. Quite frankly, there isn't enough of it, although I do feel like as time passes things are advancing in the right direction. Gone are the days of 'doctor say, patient do', and we find ourselves in a new era that focusses around shared decision-making with the patient, addressing their individual needs, fears and desires.

I recounted all of this in what I imagine to be an embarrassingly garbled and disorganised answer to the question of "why do you want to be a doctor?" and miraculously, the interviewer was satisfied, although it was late in the afternoon, and I daresay he was mind-numbingly bored of the same answer from every single candidate. So I made it through and I've practically finished medical school, which brings us to the here and now.

This was just the beginning of my journey, but I have so much further to go and I'm hoping to take you with me. Which brings us to the here and now, impatiently waiting to being working as a junior doctor and, consistently as ever, searching for a purpose.

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About the Creator

Ella Doolittle

A doctor on a journey to share life experiences and an insight to a medical career in the NHS.

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