Do You Want to Quit Housemanship?

This is a seasonal post, trust me. If you are reading this around the time this post is published, chances are you also have read the viral facebook posts by Miya Wong about the reasons why she quit being a houseman in Malaysia.

Statistically speaking, and I mean I don't know who came up with the numbers and there is no creditable sources to back this up, but again, statistically speaking:

• 1 in 5 junior doctors undergoing housemanship do not complete their training and quit being a doctor.
• 1 in 3 housemen having to be extended beyond their 2-year stint of housemanship

Before we start taking sides and bash each other with tonnes of personal tragedies and triumphs, we have to agree there are valid reasons why we sometimes feel like quitting our housemanship training program and just, be done with being a doctor altogether. Those reasons could be, in collection or isolated, included in this list:

• long working hours (major stressor)
• odd working hours
• no leaves (major stressor)
• not enough leaves
• odd-hour leaves
• shitty colleagues
• no colleagues (major stressor)
• shitty superiors (minor stressor)
• really, really shitty superiors (major stressor)
• really, really creepy superiors (major ALARM BELL)
• homesick
• no support system (family, spouses) (major stressor)
• financial issues
• health issues
• realized that you hate working with people
• realized that you hate healthcare service industry
• crime
• oh, salary
• yeah, about that salary
• benefits, bonuses compared to private sectors
• business opportunities
• being a celebrity
• (insert your reasons here)

For whatever the reasons that nudge people closer and closer to the edge, please, and I genuinely plead that you respect their decision whether to make the jump or keep hanging on to the cliff. You are crude and arrogant to think just because you can endure it, that means everyone can and shall endure it.

I say this because as much as I think I enjoy where I am now, I still have the burnout and the lows when working from time to time. In fact, I am in a slum right now. The burnout is here and I have to deal with it. Always is and always will be. But even then I still remember very clearly what I felt when I first started working as a houseman. I still remember the dread, the loneliness, the emptiness that dwelt inside me in each waking hours and in every sleepless nightmares that came haunting. 

To emphasize again and again, you wouldn't believe how lonely Medicine can be to some people, oh if only you knew.

Then again, to those of us who are nearing the breaking point - take comfort in knowing that it is okay to have this feeling. I have friends who quit being a houseman, I have friends who regretted quitting housemanship, and I also have friends who quit and happily never look back. I understand the bottled and suppressed emotions that just begged to be released like a vortex into the black void. That feeling that you don't quite know what to do with it and there's no one that you can talk to that truly understand and empathize with you.

And you take it with you everyday. To work and back home, each day feels like a riptide being pulled by the Moon.  Each day feels heavier, there's no way out, and you cried to yourself alone at night. You started to lose hope. You started to lose sight. The future that you envisioned for so long just disappear in the mist of the blackest fog. You can't stand the stare from the onlookers that watched silently as you being roasted daily by the end of the patient's bed. You hate the stares, both venomous and full of pity alike. The coat and its stuffed pockets feel so heavy on your shoulders and your stethoscope around your neck just feel so suffocating. 

And that there's only so much that you can endure, that you can stomach. What happens when you can no longer stand it, can no longer swallow it - what happens when you can literally feel your body shattering into pieces, crumbled and billowed away? Would you want to listen to the endless rant of people who do make it, who triumphed over their demons, and practically prattling about their tips and their too-late advice? Would you?


If you have an ounce of humility in you, at one point or another, you would also experience if not all but a shred of what I once experienced. And if you are a broken soul, as I was and sometimes are, you would learn to recognize it in the eyes of your other colleagues. The same defeated eyes, the hunchbacked postures and the low speech pattern of those who are bearing the brunt and tired of getting the short end of the stick.


Offer a helping hand. Help others as much as you can. Be a good colleague to others. Be a good listener. Share stories and motivate as often as you will. Never be afraid to ask for help. Seek out constructive outlets. Indulge in your wants and desires. Invest in your soul-cleansing. Do not shy to ask for opinions, for a willing ear, or a shoulder to lean on. Never feel guilty for being weak. For being lost. For being less than whole. Never ever feel that you don't deserved to be saved.

I have been writing my experiences since before I started being a doctor and will continue to do so from time to time. Reach out if you want to talk and I will listen.