Sleepless Nights
By: Afreen Amerin
When you are to become a medical student, there are a lot of things that you must learn to accept, and expect to happen, which can be not in the usual way as it goes, but might probably be in a different circumstances, that you least expect it to. Something that is challenging, yet fulfilling and wherein each step you take, and each obstacle you were able to overcome, means a lot closer in your moulding to become a good and efficient physician someday.
Being in an innovative medical school, much of the challenge was accepted, and one of it started from the nearing date of departure, towards going to our “first community exposure”. Though it might seem the geez of that genre, prior to that, a lot of nights were attended, thinking and hoping of a nice community and praying hard that a lot of friends be part of the group we will have. Perfectly, as it was meant to be, the Team Lower Sto. Niño was born.
Everybody was really expecting to have a vacation galore away from the city, and everybody was so lax, thinking that there will be a lot more time for fun, than work. Finally, no PBL, no Exams, no Bedside rounds, and a full time allowance are at hand. It was always like that for the first week, then the half of the 2nd week, but for the second half, all those assumptions started to change.
In the midst of the survey tool construction, we were bound to a typical dilemma, that is, if a deadline was issued, it will never be done, until 2-3days more left. It became a routine, as everybody seems to buzz in more to the sceneries and the chores, and the food and everything that’s new to the eye. The 2-3 days left approached, then finally everybody turned seriously focus and busy, until only on the day of submission, it was done and printed, but without any proofreading made. That became another routine, which is unintentionally happening, all the time.
Yes, the survey tool and the progress report were done. But then again, the rapport establishment and the survey took place, as slowly and surely as it could be, then right when we thought that everything was over, another requirement was in the making. A pre-presentation of the results and discussion and needless to say the general assembly plus the excitement of going home is finally rumbling inside each of our minds. We want to get started, but then again, the routine still prevail. We end up doing it again in 3 consecutive days, all the tallying, the making of figure presentation, the discussion and we find ourselves having a 72hour bottomless coffee trilogy. It wasn’t luck but it was perseverance that we came to handle every bit of requirement we have, within the 3-day left limit. It is now, and will always be a lesson, that next time; this routine too should have an innovation.
All those expectations and plans like the 10 movie to watch became down to 2, the breakfast became the only meal for the whole day, the sceneries became meant so much of a picture instead, and the excitement became filled with worries of a foreseeable crisis, that if much of the routine will continue, then we’ll end up in fright, of all those sleepless nights.
