If an unexamined life were not worth living, then my past month here in London would certainly be of little significance if not for this brief moment of silence and solitude. Of the seven of us who checked in here at Wolfson House King's College London, I am the lone occupant for the night. The rest have gone in search of French boulangeries and greener pastures up north. Before I jet off to even more touristy frenzy in another country, now is a good time to retrieve some thoughts I hastily shoved to the corners of my mind in the past month.
I started travelling independently with friends when I was 18. Then, it seemed to me that travelling was all about the thrill and fun of being in a different land, to take nice pictures and be able to say been there, done that! Five years on, it seems that my perspective on travelling has somewhat been altered by the people that I've traveled with and the places that I've had the privilege of visiting. The way being well-traveled shapes your world view, the ideas that are exchanged across continents and the brilliance that stuns you across cultures is no less than precious. In the past 4 weeks, I spent lots of time in London just walking the streets, be it shopping streets, residential streets or by the Thames, and often found myself stopping intermittently at a shop, an advertisement or a historical sight in awe of brilliant marketing strategies (think Apple Store at Covent Garden), the sanctity of heritage and the wonders of a cosmopolitan city as such. What I have learnt to bring away from each trip are Ideas, instead of megabite after megabite of photos.
My objectives in coming to London for a month was simple - to live. Not to be madly touristy or rush into doing as many things as possible, but to experience the London life, breathe in the terrible lung-aging air, walk 3km just to save £1.90, do my own laundry and cook my own food. In the past month, I finally understood why my brother resorted to eating steamed rice and potato chips over his exam periods. Coming back at 3pm from school (after a 1am night and 730am morning, and still having to think of laundry, dinner, studying and planning for outings/trips/meals is life-shortening.
Midway through my posting here, I also realized that I had flown 13 hours across 3 continents not in search of Michelin stars, the best coffee in the world or even top notch clinical training. I was really just looking for a good conversation, someone from across the world to be curious about the land I came from, and a good exchange between two people from very different worlds. After two weeks, I felt somewhat underwhelmed, being caught up with doing touristy stuff and being afraid of wasting time by staying too long in the hospital or at home. I was pleasantly surprised during the last week of my posting, where I enjoyed a short but insightful chat with the Mr E, the ward clerk in the HDU and the house officer Dr D, who was from Malta. It intrigues me greatly, how people from vastly different backgrounds are united in the commonality of humanness, of being subject to man-made systems and the weather, but yet are diverse in their thinking and worldview. Truly, the beauty of this world! Maybe I should have studied Sociology.
Museums are a big part of London, and my favourite visit this time around had to be the Science Museum, with two floors dedicated to the History of Medicine. There, I finally saw and understood what Corrigan had in mind when he described the waterhammer pulse. It was also there that it dawned upon me how while we are quick to congratulate ourselves for making medical breakthroughs in the 21st century, much of the medicine that is practiced today is not very different from what was already practiced in the 19th century! During my Intensive Care posting, I learnt all about the ECMO heart-lung support machine, and was stunned by the ingenuity of it all. My awe for it lasted for the entirety of 4 weeks, until I found that the concept and mechanics of such a machine had long been thought of and used since the 1800s. So much for medical advancement! One of the most stunning moments was when I saw an original manuscript of a journal paper entitled "An Observational Study of Gastric Acid and Physiology". To have been a doctor in those times would have been absolutely thrilling. What brilliance would have thought of connecting electrical leads to frog legs?! I want to become an inventor.
Many memories of London I will bring home with me. The man and his dog on his shoulders, the daughter talking and showing photographs to her comatose father, the incredible Apple Store, the lady who had 197 units of blood transfusion, late dinner at Nando's with YC, cooking pasta with soya sauce and a knowledge of the history of Medicine amongst many others. So many more things I have noted down and would love to write about - the NHS, terrible bleeping systems, growing up and faraway friends. Maybe another time. I leave for another land the day after - where more exciting Ideas and people await!
