Turtles all the way up
How studying turtles helped me find myself
As a high school student I considered applying to study medicine, so I organised to meet with an emergency department doctor who I knew had been on the interview panel in the past. He offered sound advice, “Don’t say you want to do medicine to help people. Tell them how you want to be challenged and grow in a profession where you never stop learning.” Great, or so I thought, until he pointed to a photo of his family on his desk and said that was the most he sees of them.
I decided to study medical science instead. I assumed it would have better work-life balance while also satisfying my interest in medicine. And this way I could still do microbiology, like my maternal grandfather who discovered Legionella donaldsonii. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Microbiology and immunology indeed proved fascinating, and I greatly enjoyed learning about the inner workings of immune responses and microbes like bacteriophage.
Halfway through my degree I realised my mistake. I had spent years training to work in a pathology lab. But suddenly I realised this meant a future doing 24/7 shift work with limited social interaction and career progression, poor pay and conditions, and a job that even then I could tell would be automated out of existence long before I reached retirement age.
