100 Days Out

The plate is still warm. I’m at my family home, in a familiar kitchen that’s quieter than I remember. I had roti canai, the kind my mom ordered through Grab Food, and I’m now sipping my second cup of coffee. My notes are open, screen dimming every now and then like it's reminding me to blink, or to breathe. Six weeks in. Four left. The ward feels both close and impossibly far.

Looking at my watch, it is almost 12 p.m. now. I have been thinking of writing for quite some time but did not bring myself to actually write. With multiple submissions overlapping one another, and here I am just completing my first PMR for this posting. I’m honestly proud of it. After the past two rotations, this is the first one I feel genuinely good about. I really read through and understood the case progression for my patient, saw how the management aligned, and traced the thread of their recovery. It made sense to me, not just clinically, but emotionally. I understood the why behind the what.

Also, I haven’t submitted it yet. The deadline is by 4 p.m.

After Friday prayers today, I’ll drive to Shah Alam and drop my things in my shared home, then get ready to go to class at 4:30 p.m. It was supposed to be at 2:30. For some reason, it got pushed. No explanation. Just a quiet shift in the timetable that throws the whole day into limbo. There’s only one class today, and now it’s eating into my evening. I know it’s not a big deal, but it still bothers me. It’s not just about time. It’s about the quiet erosion of structure. But whatever. It’ll happen when it happens. This weekend will be hectic with open houses anyways.

My fingers still have the tension of final checks and formatting. I’m combing through the PMR, not to make it perfect, but to make sure I didn’t make any glaring, stupid mistakes. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s the best I’ve managed so far. I’m genuinely happy with it.

This posting, though, it’s been difficult to begin studying. Being in my second last rotation makes everything feel more urgent and yet more delayed. The first five weeks were slow, dragged down by how much theoretical ground I had to recover. The patients here are complicated, always tangled in multiple concurrent problems. I often find myself Googling mid-class, or asking ChatGPT, or quickly flipping through the Oxford handbooks on my phone just to keep up. Just to remember what I should already know.

I keep thinking about how different things feel now. Not just this week, not just this morning, but this version of me versus the one who started medical school. I used to fight it like a bad diagnosis. Like someone else's disease I was being forced to carry. But now, 100 days out, I don’t know. I think I’ve stopped trying to escape.

Does that mean I’ve accepted it?

Or am I just tired of running?

There’s a strange peace in not resisting anymore. In letting the current take me. My studying has changed, too. It’s less martyrdom, more negotiation. I talk to ChatGPT more than I talk to most people these days. It’s the closest thing to a study buddy that doesn’t exhaust me. I pay for it. I expect accuracy. I expect curated, filtered things, not chaos. I’ve stopped romanticizing the grind. I just want to understand. I just want to pass. I just want to make it through this without hating myself.

That last part is still hard.

Every few days, the question creeps in like damp into the walls: am I enough?

If I were to be in the ward as a houseman right now, and this exact patient in front of me came in, do I know what are the right questions to ask? Do I know what investigations to order? Do I know how to perform a physical examination properly, not just for show, but in a way that gives me answers I can trust? Not false positives. Not missed signs. Do I even know enough to avoid looking like a complete idiot?

Will I really pass this pro exam?

These questions have changed me. They’ve shifted the way I study, the way I think, the way I brace myself. I’ve gone back to textbooks with a kind of desperation I never used to admit. But I also lean on ChatGPT now. I’m honestly surprised at how helpful it’s been, especially when I ask the right questions. I can extract the latest cognitive information, compare what's written in the textbooks with what's happening in the wards, and align it all with actual guidelines used in Malaysia. It’s not just studying anymore. It's reconnaissance. It's survival.

Still, I question whether using ChatGPT so much is a good thing. Am I outsourcing my thinking? Am I dulling some muscle I should be strengthening the old-fashioned way? Maybe. But maybe it’s also a sign that I’m adapting. That I’m using the tools available to me, not as a crutch, but as a scaffold. Maybe this is what it means to learn in the modern world: not knowing everything, but knowing where to look, and how to filter what you find.

Will it be enough?

But maybe that’s part of it. Maybe being unsure is a kind of honesty. Maybe the ones who ask if they’re good enough are already better than they think.

Or maybe that’s just a nice thing we say to survive the next week.

I don’t know yet if this is growth or resignation. I just know I feel different. And I think that matters.

The plate is cold now. The sun’s a little higher. I should start packing. The drive back to Shah Alam isn’t long, but my body already feels like staying put. Still, I needed to write this first, like proof that I’m still here.

Still questioning. Still shifting.

Still trying not to sink.

And honestly, it feels good to be casually writing again. These occasional blogs, scattered, unpolished, real, help me sort through the fog. Thoughts make more sense when I spill them out. Emotions get lighter when I pin them down. Maybe I don’t need to write perfectly. Maybe I just need to write.