Need to write this down as a reminder. Throughout my career since the start of pre-reg, my goals have been ever changing. I think from the start I had the notion of not entering the rat race, but being the competitive me, i think it just comes naturally that i want to have more things to do and to take the path that i feel i would be most successful at.

So I chose outpatient over inpatient, chose clinical track over professional track, studied hard to pass all clinics and take CGP, aiming all the time for pharmD and to advance to ALF just so i can do ambcare. But i guess i don't truly know what i'm in for.

People in ambcare worked really hard for what it is today. They put in long hours of research, admin and fighting spirit to keep the whole ambcare in SGH running smoothly. They fight hard to maintain our rights to run these services and always think of ways to maintain the standards of ambcare and to improve the services to patients. These are the people who truly have patients at the heart of what they do.

I've reached a point in my career where suddenly i find a number of obstacles to moving forward in a place that values seniority over meritocracy (to a certain extent). I got disappointed and frustrated that i'm kind of stuck, and keep trying to think of ways to push myself forward. It's lucky that i'm intrinsically motivated, as kaye put it. Ultimately when i asked myself again, do i really want this? why am i fighting so hard to do a pharmD? then i realised it's all in a bid to be in the ambcare pool of people, bcos i'm so caught up with running clinics instead of doing the daily operations of the pharmacy. then i went on to think: is ambcare just all about running the clinics? nope. it's about leadership, it's about defending what was build, it's about thinking and forming ideas of furthering our services, it's doing research to show that our clinics are producing results, it's about much much more admin, research, etc than what i just want to do: run the clinics.

So i took a step back to think, if that's the case, is pharmD that impt? yes to some extent, since getting a pharmD would really help in evaluating patients in a more systematic manner and exposure to breadth of knowledge, but is it that crucial to get it fast? no really, except that my brain is deteriorating. but sometimes, the lacking in brains can be replaced by another year of experience anyway. The conclusion is, i'm contented with what i'm doing, just running clinics and continue in helping out with patient care. My non-clinical portfolios aren't that bad either, they're qt interesting jobs and as much as i've been trying to drop the portfolios in the past year i haven't been able to do so. And i'm actually glad to do it if i was honest with myself.

Another thing is that i want to spend time on my passions as well. They say never to mix job and passion and i fully agree. In any case, pharmacy was my passion but the way patients act, any passion that was there is just gone la. Now i'm just trying to do as much as what i like about pharmacy but i don't see myself devoting my whole life to pharmacy and ambcare, so it's just as well that i'm not committing to anything yet. I want to instead join singing classes, do some art and crafts now and then, play my instruments, join the orchestra if any wants to take me, and join dance again (will be doing a concert this yr). These are things that truly keeps me happy, that i realised pharmacy actually doesn't. Rather than blindly searching for happiness in career advancement and getting all competitive, there's so much more joy out there instead.

Perhaps things may change in the future and i might change my views on life and career again, but i feel that this is one big change so far and i would like to jot it down as a reference that i've ever thought like this before. In the hope that when i see this again in the future perhaps it will help jolt some memory or give some enlightenment to my career crossroads again.

+ val-* @ 12:12 AM

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