Temporarily signing off…
By: Muhammad Matingka
Being a medical student takes a lot of guts to sacrifice such as giving limited time to his hobbies, sleep, socialization with his friends and family, and when living in the 21st century of robust internet like today, he would be most of the time be restraining himself from spending valuable seconds to be in logged in like facebook, twitter, tumbler and other popular social medias that almost everyone use to stay connected and entertained so he could focus on reading his books. I’m not saying that he would give up his entire life to study Medicine, that would be too much. It is still possible to enjoy school with adequate time management, which is something that I am working hard on literally.
In Ateneo de Zamboanga School of Medicine, those were not the only things we sacrificed, as it was much more than we expected. Following the faithful curriculum of the school, we were tasked to travel thousands of kilometers from home and stay to help locals for a month in a remote community far away from suburban life. It was new, different, and quite an enjoyable experience with the people in Barangay Lower Santo Nino of Mahayag, although while bearing a number of difficulties. In a place so far away that is surrounded by lush rice fields with so many responsibilities ahead, we signed off from our usual daily lives and faced reality.
Living in a former incubator house (for duck eggs) within the rice fields away from the main road, there wasn’t anything to do but our work; making the survey paper, going out for meetings and interviews, generating the spot maps, tallying, cleaning the house, washing our clothes, cooking, washing the dishes and sleep, not your ideal vacation. If we wanted a break, we mostly watched some movies in our laptops but we only did that like 5 times together in one month. Most of the time actually, we just got out for some fresh air and played with our neighbor’s baby MJ.
We became busy than ever, at least we had the breathtaking scenery to take pleasure in. Signed off from our daily routines, social medias and games from back home was quite a feat. We all had the same feeling of being stressed out on our deadlines. Well, My Other 2 friends and I were studying for we had remedial exams to take after the community exposure, but I had 3 exams so I am in a much difficult situation. I really had to focus on my studies at the same time helped my colleagues do our survey as we go out often to the 8 puroks.
Strangely enough, it was like a spiritual journey for me because I realized something that made me ponder my perspective in pursuing my medical degree. When my entire comfort zone was stripped away from me, I had to adapt. Seeing how life seemed so simple there, it had drawn me in. In my first days staying there, I was so worried that would not pass the exams but seeing how people live there, they have different things to worry yet still strive for a good life with so little. They are thankful for some things that I overlooked, they are called trials. They have trials that makes them better people, I have my own too. So I focused on my studies to achieve that kind of happiness they are going through, and accept the fact that it happens to everyone seriously. As a Muslim, living there took away all the distractions from the city. It made me even closer to Allah SWT because everything I saw and happened in that place reminded me of him. Those moments has given me a momentum to increase my spiritual faith.
I realized that we are more than achieving a degree, or a double degree for that matter. We were achieving an important part of our lives to become not just better doctors but as better human beings. Those people in the community are our heroes because they will teach us how we should interact with our patients in the future, not just in the hospital but also in a community.
So we signed off to a journey that we will never take for granted, we still have long way go as it is not our last.
