Friday 21 December 2012

Should You Quit?

Okay, let's get straight to the point, since I'm not good with lengthy opening statements. Plus, no one ever reads them anyway.

Here's the deal. Since I started writing this depressing blog, I received quite a lot of e-mails, comments, messages, and phone calls from fellow housemans, all asking me this question: Should I quit?

Come on guys, I'm a nobody. You shouldn't quit just because some random guy on the internet told you to.
What're you gonna tell your parents?
"Mom, there's this one guy on the internet with a picture of a unicorn as his profile, and he said that I should quit my housemanship."

Listen, I didn't write this blog because I want to encourage HOs to quit. That was never my intention.

I wrote this blog so that I could share with HOs who want to quit and will quit anyway regardless the existence of this blog, that quitting is not the end of the world, and that there are alternatives.

If your heart really wants you to quit, but you're afraid to do so out of fear of job insecurity, parents' objection, financial issues, etc, then this is where I hope my blog would serve its purpose as a platform to share our experiences, our decisions, and our dreams.

But if you wanted to do medicine yet you feel like quitting just because you can't stand the long working hours, the tough job, the scoldings, then no, you shouldn't quit just because of that. Other jobs are tough too. Just because housemanship is shitty, doesn't mean other jobs out there are like a bed of roses. Being an underwriter might not be as shitty as being a HO, but it's still shitty nevertheless.

Final word is, the decision to quit or not to quit, that's all up to you. Ask yourself, why do you want to quit.

Don't quit because you feel that you are not worth it, or you feel you won't be able to make it through, because I have tons of friends who don't know shit during medical school, who can't do anything right, whose voice tremble everytime they try to answer a question, yet they are still doing their housemanship and they're doing great, because they want to become doctors. It is their passion. So if you have the passion for it, go for it.

If you already decided that you want to quit, but you don't know how, and what can you do after you quit, then this is where I hope I can help you guys with whatever bits of experience I have.