What's happening... VII

Read an article in the Star (a Malaysian newspaper) with the title, At least five doctors to suffer from mental woes every month recently.. :x :x

Well, can you blame these poor souls? Most often than not, they do not have the aptitude of being a doctor, much less the will to toil and "suffer" during their 2-year housemanship.. And it won't surprise me one bit if most of them do not want to be a doctor in the first place but still did it because they were forced to..

I realized that many parents in Malaysia want their kids, or at least one of their kids, to be a doctor... Many children are pressured by their parents to take up medicine because they don't know what else to do with their perfect scores.. They only knew that they were supposed to study hard and get perfect scores, but what comes after that, they never gave it a thought... Then there are peer pressure or "competition" among the parents.. "Since Mrs So-and-so's son/daughter is doing medicine, then I MUST make my son/daughter, who is so much smarter than her son/daughter, do medicine too.. Else I will lose face..."

What is the use of spending tons of money sending their kids overseas, and in the end these poor kids are not able to take the pressure and stress of being a doctor and gone "cuckoo"? Parents shouldn't try to impose their dreams onto their kids.. but that is easier said than done.. Every parents want the best for their kids, but sometimes their definition of "best" is very subjective.. What is the point of being a doctor or any other "prestigious" professional but not happy?? Personally I think that is why there are so many mental breakdowns these days.. A lot of these stems from the inability to reconcile what they themselves wants and what the outside world (parents, friends and society in general) demand of them...

Frankly, the universities should impose stricter conditions in choosing their medical students.. academic results should NOT be the only criteria.. Aptitude and personality traits, like empathy and a willingness to serve, should play a bigger part in deciding who gets to do medicine.. We can't afford to have a sick medical team treating the sick... It will be a time-bomb waiting to explode.. and the consequences would be horrendous to think...