DEAR DOCTOR
PROFESSOR LOW CHENG HOCK, EMERITUS CONSULTANT, GENERAL SURGERY, TAN TOCK SENG HOSPITAL, WRITES TO THE NUS MEDICINE CLASS OF 2016.
My Dear Child (and Fellow Doctor),
It seems just yesterday that I watched you walk up the stage to receive your white coat and begin a grueling five-year journey to becoming a doctor. And now I see you walk up the same stage to receive your degree.
And your name grows longer with the addition of four letters – MBBS. This new state comes with heavy responsibilities… keep to your principles and you will find your journey fulfilling…
I hope you are taking your year of the “baptism of fire”, aka “internship” in good stride. Keep your spirit high. There is no better thing for the heart than to be able to help lift somebody up and medicine gives you that opportunity.
To be a good doctor you will need hardware and HEARTware.
Your hardware are the computers, robots, simulation machines etc. and they are absolutely necessary. Your HEARTware are compassion, empathy, kindness, professionalism, ethical principles, patience and the human touch. These are just as important. Hardware helps to make you a doctor… but it is HEARTware that makes you a healer. I hope you will acquire these values as you progress along your medical journey.
Remember, patients are our main concern. They are the reasons for our existence and they are often our best teachers. It’s not the gallstone in bed 23 or the jaundice in Room 3. It is Mr Lin and Mrs Tan, the uncle and aunty
I learnt the meaning of compassion in my third year in medical school, when I saw one of my teachers, Prof Donald Gunn, walk to a child who was badly deformed. His eyes were far apart and the bones were all crooked. Prof Gunn lifted the child up and gave him a hug. It made the child smile. A crooked but beautiful smile, one that could only come from a child who was so lacking in attention and love, that while I have forgotten all about Apert Syndrome today, I can always recall Prof Gunn’s lesson in love and compassion.
We must always remember that years of clinical practice can harden our heart muscles and numb our souls. We need to constantly lubricate with the milk of compassion, because the heart of medical education is the education of the heart.
Prof Low receiving a commemorative plaque from the NUS Medical Society in 2012.
There may be times of discouragement. Remember there are many people out there who would willingly trade places with us. Be grateful for what we have. Internship is top of the medical hill but it is the first step in a lifelong medical journey. So, never stop learning. It is a lifelong process.
Be humble; learn from everyone.
The nurse knows more about tubes and catheters in the ward than you, the OT attendant knows the lightings adjustment better than you.
Humility is a humble pie whose taste is sweet. Or, in the words of Thomas Carlyle, “Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him.”
Help each other along the way. Stand on each other’s shoulders so that you can see further and contribute more. In the search for medical expertise there are no borders and in the service of medicine the sky has no limits.
And so, dear Doctor, in your hands and on your shoulders rest the responsibilities of moulding a new generation of doctors, who must be greater than the past and who are also in tune with visions of the future. You have what it takes to be a very good doctor, someone who will serve the country well and help add years to life, while adding life to years.
CH