little-anxieties

[little-anxieties]

a context and a changing perspective.

We Are (2024) | Ep.08//Ep.09

[little-anxieties]

#08: first year

It’s been more than a year since I received news of my acceptance into medical school, but the memory of it remains fresh and unsullied. What would have otherwise been an unremarkable walk back to my college dorm after flunking a Bio quiz was interrupted by vague congratulatory messages from friends, a sudden downpour, and my desperate attempt to get a good signal while running to the nearest waiting shed to shelter from the rain. Recalling it now, the moment had all the necessary ingredients for a dramatic core memory. It reminds me of a discussion we had in my undergrad Positive Psychology elective where we talked about “turning points” in life, i.e. those distinct moments of existential redirection. I couldn’t think of one single “turning point” in my life back then but this, getting into my dream medical school, certainly was one. 

And now, a year later, I can finally say that I’ve completed my first year of med school. There’s no use to sugarcoating things—this has been the toughest year of my life. The impact of being catapulted into a largely unfamiliar field that demands rigorous training has only been partially cushioned by my being cognizant of the fact that this was never going to be an easy journey. I welcomed my new reality without resistance, well before I stepped foot in the halls of [redacted], for it was simply inseparable from my goal of becoming a physician. 

But of course, awareness and anticipation has its limits. This, too, I knew. Nothing ever really prepares you for the long days and the long nights, the heaps and heaps of information that you need to understand and retain, the wide range of skills that you have to gain and sharpen like a mad blacksmith, all while you face endless battles with self-doubt and anxiety and the day-to-day feeling of being wrung dry. 

Despite it all, however—and this was the greatest shock of all–I never felt lost. At least not for a prolonged period of time or cripplingly so. For most of my life, I had never really been sure of anything. I had trouble finding the path that was for me, always falling short of the notion that I wanted to be or to do this one particular thing. That was probably one of the reasons why I had so many hobbies. I was constantly looking for that thing called passion but it was always so elusive. It felt as if the peace of certainty was a luxury that I had no means to afford. So I made decisions based primarily on the looming ambivalence of my future and my own inability to feel sure about anything. This was the core of my biggest anxiety. 

But in medical school, I felt a sense of direction, one that I had never experienced before. I felt like I belonged, that I was in the right place. The work was tough but never devoid of a sense of purpose. My future no longer looked blurry, like pictures shifting simultaneously at lightning speed, but rather, gained a resolution that was at once dizzying and sobering. I’m struggling to put into words the feeling that filled me up and fueled me during the toughest days, but it was a certainty that I’ve never felt before. Here, I was, finally, at a place where I felt like I was doing something that was meaningful to me. How fortunate I am to finally find my own little space in the world, to be where I am needed. 

This, I realize, is the greatest gift I could give to my younger self. To her, I want to say: You no longer have to worry. Yes, this path is not easy. Your body and mind will grow weary. But, finally, your spirit can rest.

[little-anxieties]

#07: ironwood

I leave for Manila today. The break is over. I’m writing this—one last attempt to reflect and think—out in the front yard (if you can call it that) of my childhood home, laptop resting on the ironwood table my father recently commissioned a group of coastal carpenters to build. The stool that I sit on is too high for me; my feet dangle, bare and free. I have been spending my mornings like this for the past seven days. I hate to imagine that in no less than twelve hours, I will be back in the metropolis of metropolises, so chaotic and loud compared to the quiet and calm of home. There will be many more moments like this, when the joy of being in a familiar place is slowly replaced with the dread of leaving. I guess the only thing that I can do is be grateful that I get to leave home, because it means that I had the chance to go home. I don’t know how many more chances like this I will get in the future, when I am busier, when work becomes more demanding, when duty becomes not just a mere collection of hours but a moral obligation that weighs on my life and the lives of others.

But for now, I will let my feet dangle bare and free, touch the coolness of this ironwood table as the rays of the equator sun land on its hardwood surface, as if it were still a tree rooted to the ground.

The sun does not know and it does not judge. I hope for similar kindness.

[little-anxieties]

child of the moon

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FIRST KANAPHAN as YOK in NOT ME (2021-'22)

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Maloi in Syndey! (1)

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pictures from both good days and bad days. looking back, they don’t make much of a difference. :)

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An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

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channeling her rn

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ANDREW SCOTT and PAUL MESCAL for The New York Times (December 6, 2023)

📸 Ryan Pfluger

[little-anxieties]

[little-anxieties]

#06: humanity

My biggest worry as a medical student is seeing pathologies as just another concept to learn for a test, as just another box to tick on my to-study list. Losing sight of the ultimate purpose of this profession in the middle of the sandstorm of medical training is a scary thought.

I think it’s perilously simple to fall prey to that kind of approach to learning, that is, learning for knowing’s sake. With the mountains of medical information that we’re expected to ingest and regurgitate in a short span of time, it’s easy to imagine oneself focusing on the mere mastery of the clinical picture of a disease, its pathophysiology, and its standard treatment, like a machine being programmed to identify objects with near-perfect precision. 

But a doctor isn’t just a master of health and disease. A physician isn’t just an expert of medicine. The very telos of this profession is not the enrichment of knowledge but the betterment of human lives. A doctor tends to the sick, not solely to the illness. A doctor heals people, not merely warm bodies. What good, then, is being fluent in the language of medical knowledge if you’ve lost sight of the very meaning of being a doctor?

These things weigh on my mind from time to time, especially when I’m faced with stacks of transcriptions and chapters to read through. At times when I feel myself falter for a feather of a second, I take a deep breath and remind myself of who I am learning all of this for. 

None of those worries, however, plagued me during our recently concluded module on neuroanatomy. As a psychology major in college, I’ve always had an unquenchable curiosity about the human brain and its link to behavior. For that reason, neurology had always been the branch of medicine that I was interested the most in. Like psychology, neurosciences put emphasis on the centrality of the human person in both health and illness. Like psychology, it did not feel indifferent, impersonal, or detached. The patient’s very personhood is part of the pathology and, more importantly, part of their treatment and recovery. 

My meditations on these notions further deepened when we had our first round of ward works last week. Yes, though still feeling our way in the dark as first-year medical students, we got to interact with actual patients in the clinic, taking routine history and performing examinations. I was anxious, to say the least. I wanted to do well by this patient. By all my patients, present and future. 

As a learning exercise, we then had to extrapolate our group’s findings in order to localize the patient’s lesion and arrive at a diagnosis. This was one of those moments in medical school where you finally feel like you’re becoming a doctor. For me, it was not just because we were trying to understand the patient’s condition but more so because nowhere lost in the academic conversation of signs and symptoms, of deficits and disturbances, of medical history and pathological progression was the patient and their life. 

Certainly, I will face many more hurdles and tough realities in the years to come. These will challenge my outlook, dampen my optimism and diminish my grit, try to steal away these good memories and distort them into the artifacts of naivety. But I hope that I keep this perspective for a long time, even if just a little part of me holds on to it. I pray that the I never lose sight of the humanity in medicine and in my part in upholding it.

[little-anxieties]

怪物 Monster (2023), dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda.

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i watched kore-eda's recent film Monster this past week and i truly.. cannot stop thinking about it. maybe my favorite kore-eda film yet

[little-anxieties]

#05: oops

I know, I know.

In my last post, I said that I'd do my best to write every day. But here I am, nearly wrung dry as my first semester in medical school comes to a close, having written nothing since then.

And the problem isn't that I only have a few words to spare for these posts. I have plenty, and I know that some part of me, that piece that fell in love with medicine because of the humanity at its core, wants to write and echo something other the jargon and terminology that I try to absorb every day.

The problem appears to be time and energy. I spent most of my day on my desk, studying and pouring over my notes. When I'm done, I barely have enough willpower to drag myself to the kitchen and make myself a meal.

But I don't want time and energy to be the things holding me back.

I feel like I need to recalibrate. Reanalyze how I spend my time. Try to find a way to do what I want to do.

[little-anxieties]

back 2 school 🏫✏️📚💻☕️📖