Grieving Shattered Dreams
Years after leaving my ambitions for a career in Surgery, I’m still finding my path.
It’s been five years since I made the decision to leave Surgery as a career.
It had always been my dream: every day I had walked up the stairs to my biology class in college I had looked to my right, staring at the poster of a female surgeon plastered on the wall as I climbed each step. “You can be me too,” it told me as I clutched my folders, but I almost faltered at the first hurdle. I was only offered an interview for Medicine in the last week of interviews, my other applications having already been rejected. But the interviewers had liked my passion for surgery and medical innovation and I got a place.
I was the keen-surgical-bean from day one. If there was a surgical slant to a project, I’d take it. I took on research projects and took part in surgical education research as a participant when I saw it would take me a step ahead of my classmates. I always topped the leaderboard for the surgical simulations — I was praised for my quick uptake of skills and dextrous handiwork. At a careers event, I forced the hosts to make a leaderboard for a giant game of Operation — with prizes of course — and then proceeded to ensure I was at the top of that leaderboard for the entire night.
