Why I chose to study Medicine?

It is not an easy journey for the medical student, that is for sure. So what makes a person want to go through such a path that is full of hardships? Many would say that they want to become a Doctor because it is a well-known and well-respected profession. That way they will be recognised for their efforts more than in any other job. Some may say that in the medical profession there is a lot of money to be gained, while some may say that in their society medicine is seen as the top profession and are pushed by their parents to study it.

But what do I think???

I remember as a kid I was so proud of my dad being a Doctor. In school I would love to tell my friends my dad is a Doctor and whenever the teacher would ask a question about the human body in a science class I would be able to answer it and they would expect me to know because my dad is a Doctor. So at that time it made me really interested in maybe wanting to become a Doctor. At one point I wished I was a pilot or a football player, but that was something temporary. But always in the back of my mind I wished to become a Doctor.

As I grew older and was more able to understand the profession seeing my dad going to his village and having kind of set up a temporary clinic in the house we were staying at, it made me even more fascinated with it. Seeing hundreds of poor people just turning up to see one Doctor made me realise how important a Doctor can be in a place where there was limited medical relief/assistance. It could change the whole community and make a difference to people.

So I was trying to imagine the satisfaction a person would get when you see a helpless child who is suffering from an illness, nearing death and coming to you for help. When you see them you diagnose their illness and prescribe their treatment. When they come to you again with their child healthy again, just seeing the smile of the child or the parents would make me full of satisfaction and even more rewarding than anything else even more rewarding than a pay check.

So my reason for studying medicine is simply this, that I really have my heart towards trying to help people and when I see people appreciating you for something that has made a difference in their life, obviously by the will of Allah, no doubt that is a great feeling! It makes you feel like you have achieved at least something in your life.

The money that comes with medicine to me is a bonus, I am not just saying this or trying to make that up. But I feel that way and there were many jobs out there that I could have chosen, which maybe had an easier path and less study, but could have earned me more than the wage of a Doctor. But you choose a job out of satisfaction and it doesn't last if you choose a job for just earning money. You need something to keep you motivated and to keep on wanting to work hard to dedicate everything to your profession.

One other aspect of medicine is that it is a vast subject and even if you choose to be a physician you will not always see the same repetitive disease, but there are many types of diseases and it is always changing. So you will never be stuck doing the same thing over and over again. Some parts of medicine are repetitive no doubt but there is a great variety also.

The last thing to note is medicine is not extremely tough, but it does require a lot of study. That study will continue throughout your life and if you are not into such kind of study then medicine isn't for you. You can still have a balanced life studying medicine and you can exercise and do things that you always used to do, the only difference is more hours for study.

My Website

I have just been messing around with making a flash website, which has links to my youtube channel and also flikr page. Check it out:
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Ramadan has started..

I haven't been writing since a long time and maybe that is because of Ramadan. But anywayz where should i start from? Nearly one week of Ramadan has passed and I caught the flu as well during it. At first when ramadan started during my fast i felt really weak and had severe headache. I thought this was due to the fact that i wasn't drinking tea, which i normally do twice a day. But that was all due to the flu i guess and now i am feeling better than ever, alhamdulilah. I thought ramadan will be tough this year, but once you get into the routine it is not really difficult. It is a really blessed month and we should make the most of it. I have fallen behind on trying to read the Quran my aim this time round is to complete the whole Quran. I hope to do that inshallah. But we all take advantage of this month but as soon as the day of Eid commences we turn back to our old ways. I am guilty of this also.

You can compare this to a person who wants to lose weight. He takes care with what he eats and exercises for a month, he realises that he is losing weight. But then in his second month he starts eating junk food and becomes lazy, in the end piling on weight and going back to the same state he was in before.

We need to continue the progress we made in Ramadan, if we finished the whole Quran in Ramadan, we should try to keep this act going by reading Quran everyday even if it is just one page per day. If we keep away from many bad things during Ramadan, we should continue doing so after Ramadan. This month is like a month of recharging your spiritual battery, we can keep this battery charged everyday by continuing acts of goodness or we can waste it by using up the battery and making it go dead by making a habit of bad actions. So its upto us. How do we know we will be alive for the next ramadan to take benefit of it once again??? We do not know, so just let us keep that in our mind.

In this month people pray and i think that is the biggest act, which can lead to great success in life. If a person prays 5 times a day, with full devotion and proper understanding, he feels content and will not feel like something was missing in his day. When you miss a prayer you know you have missed something! But if you make it a habit to leave prayer then you wont even feel that you have missed anything, it just becomes forgotten due to weakening of faith. Just like when you do a shameful act in the beginning you feel guilty. You feel that guilt because you have some level of faith, but when it becomes a habit you wont feel that guilt anymore..

We all need to reflect and look at ourselves. It comes back to the message of not looking at others but look at yourself. Where are you weak, where are your flaws and how can you improve as a person. This is the best month to do these things and keep what you gain in this month as something permanent rather than temporary.

Have a great Ramadan and do not forget the poor people who are suffering, the needy people and make dua for yourself and everybody else!