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On Tuesday, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science (Medicine)/Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery (BA BSc(Med) MB BS). Watching more than two hundred people wait in line, walk over and shake the chancellor's hand and receive a testamur (or two), it would have been easy to assume that we were all cookie-cutter products of a lacklustre degree. Yet the atmosphere was electric, and the auditorium was packed to no standing room with our support crew, a chorus of family, friends and loved ones who showered us with gifts, whooped and cheered, and flashed their cameras like true paparazzi.
I loved seeing everyone smile as they received their degrees. There were nervous little giggles, people who forgot to doff their caps, big grins, some who strode confidently and others who staggered awkwardly. There was so much personality in an unpractised, simple little activity that showed how different we all are, but also how similar.
My name was one of the first to be called out, and as I settled into my seat and watched, I thought of how each little walk had a long backstory; years of lecture notes and study sessions, thousands of cups of coffee, tales of travel and experiencing medicine in an unfamiliar place in a strange tongue, and too many exams to count. People who have overcome adversity, family tragedy, financial difficulty...it's been a degree where sacrifice was considered the norm, and many times it was just assumed that you suck up whatever problems you had and deal with it. Because very little was more important than this degree.
As a result, med students are strange but hardy beings; we do a lot and complain very little. Our attention span has the potential to be limitless when it something which holds our interest, or counts towards our marks, but is seemingly non-existent in many other areas. We can usually function on very little sleep, slightly hungover, with a black eye and not having had breakfast, but try and take our morning coffee away and you will understand the true meaning of dysfunctional. Undoubtedly as we enter the workforce, these habits will only become more extreme.
There are very few degrees which force you to spend as much time with a bunch of people as medicine does, from the endless hours of anatomy and physiology practicals in the early years, to the daily coffee rituals which became our life savers at hospital. Over the years, these people became my dearest friends. I've lived with them, cooked with them, sung and played with them, danced badly with them, slept on their floors, played tennis with their parents, worn their pyjamas, and traveled to the ends of the Earth with them. And I'd do it again. (the travelling, not the degree)
It's corny and cliched, but I don't care. It's been a long time coming. I am so proud of the class of 2008.
We are doctors!
With Mum and Ethistan |
Graduation
GrubLord: Nobody pulls off Academic Dress quite like you. Congratulations on your deg- um, your... FOUR degrees? 
Syfro: I think there's only one thing I can say here:
JB: Congratulations Wei!
Praeteritio: That's awesome JB. Congratulations!
RJorb: Congratulations Wei, that's quite an achievement! How'd you celebrate? 
Ranneko: Congratulations to both Wei and JB.
Elo: WOW Congrats to both of you. Well done!
Konrad: A big cold (i'm freezing my ass of in Denmark atm >_<) Grats! to both of you :D.. 
Ash: Excellent work both of you! You've worked incredibly hard and it's good to finally have a piece of paper telling you that it all paid off!
Lunzo: Congratulations
