Why I Want to be a Doctor

A doctor! A healer! A time-honoured ancient profession. Why Medicine? I am in awe of Medicine's capabilities and evolution. Multiorgan transplantation, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), robotic laparoscopic surgery, positron emission tomography (PET), stem cell research, etc. The list goes on. Medicine is a vocation that I have long dreamt of practising. The idea of being able to help ill people and relieve the physical and mental problems of the sick moves me. I have always envisioned myself doing that. I want to study medicine, for the simple reason that I would like to 'help' people. That may seem like an overrated word but it is the essence of my interest in medicine.Medicine, I think, is both a science and an art. Its science based on method, process, analysis and emperical evidence while its art thrives on innovation, lateral thinking and creativity. The best doctors therefore are equally right and left brained individuals who balance the orthodoxy and tradition of medicine with an originality and inventiveness. Hippocrates, the greatest physician of his time rejected illness to be caused by superstitions, evil spirits and disfavor of the gods but believed in a physical and rational explanation. Doctoring is never just a 'job', it is a way of life catalyzing the wonder of healing. A friend of my father, Professor Chua Kaw Beng visited us shortly after his work on the discovery of Nipah Virus in 2002. Professor Chua is a pediatrician turned virologist who received the Charles C Shepard Science Award (USA) for his effort on the Nipah Virus in 2005.I was inspired by his story of venturing into the jungle at dawn to collect bat urine specimens for his work with his team. Their elation with the confirmation from Centre of Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta that it was a new virus is certainly touching. Medicine deals with people, not just cases or numbers. I have had the good fortune of doing a clinical attachment with my father who is a consultant general surgeon in