Success vs. Excellence

This was part of the sharing i gave in a short session with some UP Medical Students last month.

The moment I learned I wasn’t accepted to my Med school of choice, I thought I’d be disappointed, but surprisingly, I wasn’t. I realized God has other plans. That’s what I wanna share with you guys, how having a real relationship with the Lord made my medical school and training a ‘not-so-smooth’ yet meaningful experience.

So what brought you to medicine? to UP? For me… it was AMBITION. But you know what? I realized there’s something more…there SHOULD be something more. Something and someone greater who kept me going. Kung ambition lang, I wouldn’t have survived med school. (the anti-PBL doctors made it really hard for us to continue med-sch; I have classmates who literally dropped out from 3rd yr, entered 1st yr again, in order to go back to the traditional curriculum). I personally struggled, they said our outcome would go ‘palpak’ coz we’l never get a good grasp of the real stuff. All these criticisms, even some personal criticisms coming from relatives who are big time doctors were really discouraging!

But anyway, I prayed; He was the one who placed me in med sch at the time UST was going into a transition, and who am I to question His plans. Surprisingly, the curriculum worked for me! This was my very style of studying! And the Lord gave me a good start. So what brought you to UP College of Medicine? you have your own reasons, but I do hope that that’s just for starters…

there should be more than just the ambition to be a doctor. There should be meaning and a purpose in that dream of yours.

Tayo kasi, very idealistic. We look for meaning and purpose, trying to see, where in the world will there be a need for us. Where we will fit in and where at the same time we will find satisfaction in the work. Naku, mahirap, when you reach clerkship (senior year), all those ideals of yours will suddenly disappear. Gone is the young doctor, wanting to save & serve patients.

The only thing that worked for me in finding the purpose of being here started from having a personal relationship with God. Give it a try! Squeeze-in that Bible into your study sessions. (hmm, maybe after every few chapters of Harrison, after that chapter on nephritic/nephrotic, or after that verrrryyy long chapter on Lupus!)

Finally here comes clerkship…you feel so excited, heto na! This is what I’ve been waiting for – the real thing! And then during my first duty….oh no…just when I was waiting for someone to call me doctor, I didn’t get any. Instead, we we’re called miss, nurse, ma’am, and get all kinds of statement from patients like: estudyante ka palang diba? Miss,miss,pa-BP nga! Wala bang totoong doctor dito? Miss,magkano ba ang CBC? Wala bang titingin sa akin? (hello! I just did a complete Physical Examination on you head to toe, plus all the orifices of ur body! and you call that ‘walang tumitingin!!”). Little did the patients know that they wont even get a complete physical examinuation from a ‘real’ doctor whom they are looking for! And then suddenly,you see yourself pushing stretchers, wheelchairs and even oxygen tanks, something the nurses in our hospital’s charity wards doesn’t even do!

You know what? After my first duty; I told myself, it seems like I didn’t learn any medicine. What then have i learned? Humility!
2nd day? Even more humility! Mega-dose. This time, something more—humiliation. Because I was young, inexperienced, textbook trained, and proud.

We drain the urine, every hour, no spillage. You fail to report the urine output… then if the patient dies, blame’s on you. Nagututlak ng 02 tank…Do peritoneal dialysis, for almost 24 hrs. Ambubagging the whole night in a dying patient who’s relatives hasn’t arrive yet, and we literally had to shop around for free medicines all night. It was easy to lose all those compassion when you’re sleepy and tired. Be prepared, learn to be humble, or else you’ll learn humility the hard way when you get to do all sort of things as senior students!

But with the Lord, once in a while, you get an eye-opener (a rebuke actually!) He reminds me that these people are no different from me. By nature, we humans are all sinners. I am a sinner whom Jesus died for…these patients are also people whom Jesus died for. When Christ died, He died once and for all, walang pinipili, para sa lahat. And just as I was saved by believing in Jesus as my personal Lord and saviour, these patients are also people in need for a savior. The same God who had a plan for me also have a plan for them. Just like I have many needs, these patients have needs too, and the God who supplies my needs, will supply theirs too.

You, me, our patients …we all need a saviour. Pare-pareho lang tayo.

It’s just that, I was given the privilege to reach out to them because of my training in medicine. That as a medical student I should be grateful, for He is using me as the immediate source of help. Yes, immediate. Such as? giving Oxygen even thru hours of ambubagging, even to the point of your whole hand being numb and weak. I am being used by God to keep them from renal failure thru manual Dialysis. Or in draining the hospicare bag, I obtain the accurate fluid balance.

Big time reminders talaga yun, sometimes nakaka-guilty. Being tired and sleepless ware the perfect excuses for having such attitude. I often forgot all these things. To be honest, I’m not very consistent in spending time with God during those times, I love to rest and sleep. But those reminders just doesn’t pop out from somewhere, the little half-asleep+half-awake time I spent in reading (minsan nga ‘staring’ nalang) the bible and prayer really helped a lot.

Next, how would you define success? Isn’t it funny, that we who are in the medical training are never “successful enough” ??
1st yr – success is “if I pass”
after that 1st half—'if I make it to the dean’s list'
Clerkship -- 'to be known among the bosses… be outstanding in ward work, esp. during rounds…and to get compliments from seniors'.

That would initially define success. I mean, c’mon, we all want that!

I’m no different, I aimed for such things. I want to graduate with honors…I want this, I want that. I told myself, “Lord, pag-nakuha ko ito,I’ll be happy bcoz that’s the only thing I can give back to my parents. All I want was to give them the chance to go up on stage, be recognized. After that, I’ll stop aiming.” (eventually, by God’s grace, I did graduate with honors, but then again, all by God’s grace!).
Then a year of post-graduate internship work…then board exams. What’s success then at this point? to top the boards? who wouldn't want that!

There was a point in time I really felt guilty for wanting more. You see, Success will always have a new definition…it’s a never ending quest.

God then allowed a pastor-friend who reminded me that “hey, there is no other way but to aim for the best. You are a Christian, you always aim for what’s good and beneficial. BUT along with this quest to become successful, there should be a proper motive”. From that time on, instead of focusing on the word success… she just reminded me to strive for EXCELLENCE. To be good in what I am trained to do, as student, as clerk then as intern; to have a pure motive in wanting to pursue excellence.

How? If the task is CPR on a dying patient, I have to excel in doing that (you know how hard it is to pump a man’s chest!). If the task is to run laboratories and get results, then I shouldn’t be wasting a single moment, coz the management depends on it. If I need to do the grandrounds, then ill study well to impress the consultants and to help my classmates learn. If I’m tasked to pull the entire femur bone for 5 hours in the OR, I’ll gladly do it, just so that the proper internal fixation will be made by the orthopedic. Even if its just an appendectomy skin closure, I’ll make a perfect suture, because the scar would matter to the patient (bad scars ruin that hot bikini outfit !).

So excellence is something I know I can achieve in all sorts of task (not beyond the level of capability), be it with the patients, or in front of the consultants. If I focus on success, I know I’ll never be successful enough, bcoz there will always be something else to pursue. We can never be successful enough in our own eyes, moreso not in the eye of the consultants; they always push us to be more like this and like that (oh yes, believe me!)

And in the process of wanting more, We might become dissatisfied with the things that God has been blessing us with.

So with the right motive, and with God’s enabling, we have to strive for excellence. I always remind myself, that I believe in an EXCELLENT GOD who is RUNNING THE WORLD, and the AFFAIRS of EACH INDIVIDUAL (including mine and my patient’s); and for that He deserves nothing less than an EXCELLENT well-trained doctor.

Hard? It is. But it’s meaningful, and its worth all the effort. When you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you know whom you are working for. Even if no one pushes you, you would still without doubt want to excel…for Him, for the patients whom He will bring to you now, maybe later, or someday.

Simply havin’ an Ambition would push us to be good. But focusing & havin a real relationship with the God of the Bible spells the difference between a successful career and a meaningful one. It was the Lord who enabled me to want to excel even more, because I know that one day, my career can be used by God for His work! Be it in a clinic, hospital, or even in some ‘unreached’ places out there!