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Taking a chance on life

When I decided to embark on a degree programme ten years ago with a view to going on to study medicine, many within my social circle quietly questioned my judgement. I for one couldn't blame them. I was thirty-five years old and about to make a monumental change form sales management in to medicine.

To experience kidney failure after just one term was not the start I wanted. It cost me a year on dialysis but a stroke of luck came my way. I received a cadaveric kidney transplant which continues to serve me very well. It enabled me to complete my first degree in Medical Biochemistry agonisingly short of First Class Honours. But I had achieved my first goal. Of the medical schools to which I applied, only one deigned me worthy of an interview. One is all it takes though and I seized the opportunity. Today, I completed my pre-registration with the General Medical Council to realise a lifelong dream.

Tomorrow I begin my Elective Period in ophthalmology at the same hospital in Liverpool where that kidney transplant took place. It will be the first time I have returned to that hospital in nearly eight years and will doubtless feel strange. Had it not been for the advances in medical science over the last few decades, none of this would have happened and I would never have got anywhere near to my dream. The Medical School at Liverpool enjoys a good reputation nationally and is highly sought after by prospective medical students. When I attended their open day in 2008, I have seldom been more disappointed by the talk given by their Dean. He epitomised most of the attitudes which have dogged medicine for too long in this country. I'm sure he will have retired by now but I will never forget the sight of so many pupils with their parents getting up half way through to leave the building. To many people, medicine continues to occupy some sort of mystical "out of bounds" status in which only the chosen few have access. If medicine manages to rid itself of this corrosive attitude, it will have made great strides in the right direction.

For all the advances in medical science though, it still has insurmountable obstacles which will not go away. One of the biggest crises facing medicine today is our growing resistance to antibiotics. To the majority this fact continues to elude the attention of the masses. "What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't know" goes the old saying. Fair enough but the antibiotic crisis is definitely here to stay and will only get worse.

The antibiotic crisis is by no means the only crisis facing healthcare today though. As we continue to find ever more novel ways to prolong the lives of so many people, the populations become older and older. The big question for our time once more came to the fore this week as experts warned of an impending crisis in the care sector. Keeping more people alive for longer is admirable but finding enough suitable people to care for them is the real challenge.

So for today I savour the first step on my road toward becoming a fully qualified doctor. Tomorrow I return to the venue which allowed today to happen.

Comments

  1. John Cosgrove1 May 2014 at 14:43

    Whatever did your Dean say?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Middle Aged Medic20 June 2014 at 06:17

    My Dean at Keele has maybe not even read this but if he has, he hasn't said anything yet!

    ReplyDelete

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