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Watch The Episode

Synopsis

Faith and Isaac spend this episode doing something they probably should have done years ago — actually tracing back where their paths came from. Not the polished CV version, but the real one. The one that starts with Faith wanting to be a paleontologist, and Isaac presenting a Minister of Health flip chart at kindergarten, and both of them eventually just rolling into medicine because that’s what you did when you were good at school in Singapore.

They talk about what it actually feels like growing up in competitive schools where being a national athlete is just table stakes, and whether any of the choices that supposedly shaped them were choices at all — or just the next obvious step in a script someone else wrote.

They also get into the Singapore medical school bond — the part where you sign away 4-5 years of your twenties before you’re old enough to fully appreciate what that means. Isaac docu-signed his during COVID ($700k on the line, very romantic). Faith sat in an MOH office at 18 with her parents and signed without really thinking about what a $500k debt meant. Both of them talk about what it felt like when the reality of that commitment set in, and how they navigated the stretch between “I chose this” and “why am I here” — including Faith’s very short-lived but very cosy handicraft business, and the moment Isaac realised his friends were getting their first promotions while he was still meekly knocking on doors in medical student scrubs.

They close out asking each other the question they actually wanted answered: would you do it again? Both say yes — for complicated, pragmatic, very human reasons. This episode is for anyone who has ever followed a path and wondered, somewhere in the middle of it, whether they actually chose it, or whether it chose them.

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Episode Transcript

Isaac:
Hi, I’m Isaac.

Faith:
And I’m Faith.

Isaac:
And welcome to the We Didn’t Plan This Podcast. Okay, Faith, what are we talking about today?

Faith:
Well, so today’s episode is about the script we didn’t write. So basically, I mean, we’ve grown up in Singapore and life has yanked us in a pretty standard direction. You know, from school, the med school, and now adulthood. How do we escape this fixed script? And how do we find a greater sense of self-identity from there?

Isaac:
So today we’re gonna really dive into the origin stories from when we were fetuses just crawling around. So the first thing I want to know Faith is, what do you want to be when you were a kid? Like a kid kid And that was way before you knew what was realistic, practical, what earned money, was prestigious…

Faith:
Yeah I know right, before kids can think about like “Oh how much does a condo cost and how much do I need to pay for like kids diapers and whatnot?” Right, I think the first I wanted to be a few things when I was a kid. For girls it’s very generic, like you see all the other girls in tutus, you’re like oh I want to be a ballerina. And then no, my parents decided not to send me to ballet class because my parents are doctors so my mom was like no you’ll mess your feet and ankles up, so I was like okay ballerina out. And then next thing, dinosaurs! Kids always get dinosaur books, so when you look at it you’re like so cool I want to go and dig up dinosaurs. So I went through a whole paleontologist phase where I bought you know those kits where you chisel away and dig stuff up. And then I was like, okay, never mind. Paleontologists have to be in the hot sun. Maybe I’ll be an astronaut instead. And then I realized I get motion sick. So I literally can’t be an astronaut. I can’t get my brain centrifuged and I don’t live in America. So yeah.

Isaac:
A lot of dinosaurs you see on the day to day now.

Faith:
Now we see dinosaurs in the clinic. So I guess we are paleontologists and we discover new things about them too. So what about you? What did you want to be?

Isaac:
So, a fun fact, right? So I remember that when I was five years old, six years old, I gave this kindergarten presentation, complete with a flip chart and everything. And I proclaimed to my kindergarten class that I wanted to be the Minister of Health in Singapore.

Faith:
What? A flip chart and a Minister of Health is very niche.

Isaac:
Yes, I don’t know where that came from. I don’t even know what the conversation with my parents was. I know they kind of enabled it. And then they helped me print things like the hospital and whatever. And then I was just flipping it. I think as a 5-year-old kid, I just liked the idea of power. Health, I don’t know why. Okay, I’m not sure why. In this day and age, I guess the Minister of Health also involves being a good TikToker. So that was the job scope. But that dream died pretty quickly. So I think like you, much of the other things I wanted involved… I wanted to be like a soldier and jump out of helicopters at some point in time. I used to have those toy sets.

Faith:
Oh yeah, plastic toys. Yeah, yeah.

Isaac:
And I didn’t have any sentience. So how I used to play with them was that I would take the toy soldiers and just smash them against each other until the heads fell off.

Faith:
Okay, so that was like war, right?

Isaac:
Yeah, that was war. And I think the minute I hit puberty and any sense of sentience, I completely lost any semblance of wanting any sort of occupation.

Faith:
Fair enough. Honestly, the best thing nowadays, I mean kids nowadays they want to be YouTubers or TikTokers, right? There’s honestly a much better job than having to go to uni and study and grind and be in-depth. I mean, TikTok is just, we just need a phone.

Isaac:
Yeah, you don’t have HR on if you’re a TikToker.

Faith:
Yeah, our life choices.

Isaac:
So I guess this was when we were teeny tiny kids, right? When we grew up a bit, was there a first moment you started feeling expectations or the need to become something?

Faith:
I think for me, it probably hit when I was maybe in primary four. So like in P1 to 3 hours in a chill neighborhood school, everyone was just like, la-di-da, just pass your exams, go to the affiliated secondary school. So no one really had to aim very high. And then suddenly when I went into RGPS for GEP, the gifted education program, suddenly everyone else around me was super competitive. Everyone was going for like Olympiads and building their portfolios and participating in competitions and public speaking and robotics. And everyone was so smart and overachieving at like 10 years old. Now I was like, oh crap, I mean if this is the new crowd that I’m with, I have to at least match them or be better than them. So it literally just pushed me into the next tier of pressure I guess, from society.

Isaac:
Was there a point where the idea of medicine or law or engineering or any of these big buzzwords popped into the picture?

Faith:
Oh yes, secondary school for sure. I mean, Raffles is literally just everyone talking about med, law, scholarships and whatnot like right from the start, even from Secondary 1. Yeah, how is it for you?

Isaac:
I feel that it’s kind of similar in the sense that when I hit a certain age, it wasn’t so much that it felt competitive per se. I think boys are a little bit more mischievous, far less mature, right? But it felt more like it’s normalized to be a high achiever. Like all my smartest friends were somehow national track and field athletes, were doing some sort of like international drama competition at the same time. So it always felt like good marks and good exam results were like just the basic. And then you have to do something extraordinary on top of that, on top of that. And then that’s just the natural course that life goes.

Faith:
Yeah, I agree. So like, I mean, I’ve mentioned this to some friends who were not from the similar like Raffles education background. I mean, in Raffles, I mean, in like, you know, the better schools, even though it’s not politically correct to say that, like the expectation is that everyone is already doing well and you have to bolster your portfolio even more to be more impressive than all your peers. But in like any other school like just getting those sort of grades or having or just being a national swimmer with like bad grades you would still be the most impressive person around, but in Raffles it’s just like oh that’s just another one of how many people who are already that impressive and like you need to do even better you need to do more because it’s never enough.

Isaac:
Yeah and it just feels it just feels like you keep going and doing more and more and more things, right? Like you see your friends and then you see them in a competition. And then I feel like CCAs and all those other music and all that, it’s a very funny melting pot because that’s probably the first time you get to see your friends outside as well. And then you realize it’s much more diverse, right?

I remember, so this is a very fun anecdote that was like throughout my four years in school. Our coach was this guy with very extreme practices. So what we used to do is that we were sitting at competition, right? If we are not warming up or if we’re not competing, we are forced to study. He will make us sit and then he said, “You must face the hill at Mac Ritchie.” It’s like a little hill behind. So he would tell us that we must face the hill. We cannot even watch other people’s races and we must look at our books and then study. And then we felt like, you know, for lack of a better word, we felt like very toot like that, you know? Because we were all just, oh, we are there working. And then like, seeking. Yeah, you can’t even enjoy the film. Correct, correct, correct. Wait, that was hardcore.

Faith:
What was his rationale? And like, did you guys eventually appreciate that he was so academic?

Isaac:
No, I don’t think any of us appreciated anything at all. But he was a man of movies, okay? So there was this movie that he really took inspiration from called Coach Carter. It’s like a Disney film, but it’s about this, I think it was Samuel L. Jackson who was the coach of a basketball team of an inner city Chicago school and then he brings all these boys to finally play basketball but he has this line that says, “You are student athlete, student comes first” and then he got very obsessed with that. So yeah, that kind of guided the philosophy.

Faith:
So you definitely had your own coach Carter.

Isaac:
Yes, yes.

Faith:
It sounds like a lot of adults were always making decisions for us when we were growing up right? So looking back, how much of your path was chosen versus just followed and dictated for us?

Isaac:
It felt like a lot of the path was just going with the flow. I think the normal narrative is always that people feel very pressured into things. I think that holds true for a lot of people. Mum and dad say, “Okay, you either go to engineering school and as a backup go to medical school, something like that.” But I think for a lot of us as well, it is a much subtler pressure where you feel that, okay, that is a very obvious default option, and then you go with it.

I was an arts kid through secondary school, JC, and I mean that in itself also wasn’t really something I felt I’d chosen per se. It just felt that I retrospectively looked at all my results, I happen to write a little bit better than I balanced equations, and then you just go with it. I don’t think at any point in my secondary school life I decided, “Yeah, I really like English or I really like history” or something like that. And then you just go with it and then you kid higher education when you choose university and then it just felt like okay everyone around me is going to study law, or econ, or politics.

Faith:
The art stream generic combinations.

Isaac:
Exactly, it’s the art stream bubble. Then if not business as a great catch-all for if you don’t like any of those other things, right? So just, I remember that, I think this was something I talked about before, but it was literally just a matter of me and my friends sitting in a Chinese takeout restaurant, writing this pact on a napkin that says we will all go to the UK and study law together. And then we sign on the napkin.

Faith:
And then you guys really made it?

Isaac:
And then we all made it.

Faith:
Well, I mean, you got to go to uni with your friends. It’s nice.

Isaac:
Right. So it felt like, in summary, it wasn’t so much forced, but it definitely wasn’t chosen either. What about you?

Faith:
Yeah, I mean, so much of our time in school was literally just spent studying or just chasing the next milestone. So we didn’t have time to actually sit by ourselves and think about what we’re interested in. It was always just, you know, timetables and routines and exams. I think kids need breathing space and time to try as many new things as they’re possibly interested in. Yeah, I mean, I would have probably appreciated having time to explore the arts, explore a bit of the science. Like you know maybe a liberal arts school or something rather than just you know going straight into medicine without having tried a bit of everything else to be sure that I really wanted Medicine.

Isaac:
Yeah it’s that space to to wonder and to dream right and I feel now now in the world of now you you see I think there’s a lot of a lot more where kids can see other kids doing weird and funny things I’ve seen like um 15 year old fitness influencers like they look like really jacked up and then they’re posting content and then you see people who are like, “Oh, I dropped out of Polly or JC to go and day trade full time and things like that.”

Faith:
Or like that guy who just draws stickers or something. I think it’s so cool. I mean, without social media, we wouldn’t have known that those were even options. But now that we know these are options, you realize that it’s possible to actually achieve success in a less traditional path.

Isaac:
Yeah, and I feel like even if that winds you up back at what we call default, you know like if you end up getting rid of your business or your day trading like loses you all your piggy bank money and you just end up you know you just end up studying anyway. I think that’s another life experience that really guides you to somewhere where you feel like you’re really making that choice, because you know it’s like right now you you realize that in this whole 12 years right we finished primary school finished secondary school you finally the first choice you actually make is choose uni degree which is sometimes a false choice as well.

Faith:
You just roll into it with the rest of your peers.

Isaac:
Exactly. And then by the time you start choosing a job, then there’s all the time and the money pressure already.

Faith:
Yeah.

Isaac:
I wish kids had the chance to look around and just wonder and dream and do things that feel stupid.

Faith:
Yeah. I mean, overseas, I feel like the kids really have a lot more time to explore. And they’re actually encouraged by their parents and school to explore rather than just commit into a very specialised track.

Isaac:
And on that same note though, I feel like there’s a lot of nuance to this also, right. There’s definitely a lot of things that the system or our notion of meritocracy kind of does right. So I don’t know, what’s your two cents on what some of the best things and the worst things about it are?

Faith:
The schools, if you’re a good student, you get into a good school but I mean that’s also influenced by so many other factors. Even within the better school environments, the kids generally come from you know at least middle income families and above because they’re not struggling stressing about bills, stressing about working part-time jobs, and the parents can actually provide them adequate support. So I mean we are privileged that we’ve managed to make the best use of the meritocracy like with our already better starting point than most, and being able to make this life for ourselves, even though I feel like sometimes there’s really way too much emphasis on grades and achievement.

Isaac:
I feel like there’s really two sides to this coin as well. I think what the system does really well is that compared to many other places, we are in a place where if you do well academically, I feel you really get a leg up compared to a lot of other places. Like when I went to uni, it felt like actually Singapore was the only country where the people from here who are studying abroad are not all people who have two houses. I thought it was very interesting because from most other countries, let’s say in the region or in East Asia, a lot of them are the ones who’ve been exclusively to international schools.

Faith:
Yeah, there’s the super rich clique that you can’t get into it unless you’re already born into it.

Isaac:
Yeah, so even if you’re in whatever local system it is and you do super well, there never really is a global, it never feels like there’s a global path that’s allowed to you. Whereas in Singapore, I think maybe it’s part of the narrative that we are a very global city. Singaporeans go everywhere and then thrive and then come home to serve the nation. Blah blah blah. It does help and I feel like that’s something the system does kind of well. Like if you thrive, it does help you.

But I think the flip side to that is that, like you said, there’s a lot of inequity and I feel that it comes at both this economic level as well as at this individual, cultural, or social level because let’s say if you take two kids who have an equal amount of finances, right? I just spoke to one friend in uni and he’s from Victoria Junior College. Victoria has a really, really good, really stringent O-level cutoff but he told me that when he told his teachers that he wants to go to the UK to a top school to study, apparently they laughed at him. So they just told him, “There’s no way you can make it.” And he was a straight A scorer and everything like that.

So then it told me that actually even when you have the financial means and even when you have the grades, sometimes there’s all these individual confounders. It really depends on who you end up meeting. And I think similarly on that note, I absolutely feel like, you know, despite all that the system has done, there’s a lot of inequality. Like the simple fact that, you know, you see so many people in June holidays, they get to go for Olympiads, summer camps, some even abroad. And then most, I guess the average thing to do might be, yeah, go and like work at Chagee, you know, and like just get a job, chill out with your friends.

Faith:
Or like go to Malaysia for a short holiday.

Isaac:
Correct, yeah. And it’s just not told to you that you might, not that either one is better than the other. I feel like I would have much rather worked at Chagee every single day. But yeah, there’s a lot of these variances, right?

Faith:
I guess it’s just like the differences in access to opportunities and options to try things. Like we could have chosen to work part-time, but for some kids, I guess they’re forced. Like you really have no choice. They need the pocket money.

Isaac:
And for some kids, in between, in fact most kids, then that’s just the default. Like there’s no need to, there’s no need to do it. maybe they want to use it to get some additional credits or whatever.

Faith:
I guess as long as they’re having fun and exploring, obviously no harm either way.

Isaac:
Yeah, and I guess the take home is that there’s so many things about systems. There’s no perfect one in the world, right? But then, okay, as we grow older, then I guess we interact in our industry with the system in a different way.

Faith:
Yeah.

Isaac:
We are known for having all of us be part of a bond, right? So we graduate into a system where we have to serve a certain number of years, most of us around five or six. And even overseas grads come back, they serve for a few years as well.

Faith:
So yours is housemanship plus a four-year bond. And then for undergrad medicine, it’s housemanship plus a five-year bond. Basically,
our whole 20s and 30s.

Isaac:
Well, so I mean, you know, it’s not the only profession where you see bonds, but I think it’s probably the one that everyone is on. Much more people that are on a bond than people who aren’t. So when you signed it, how do you feel?

Faith:
Honestly, wait, what was your bond signing process like? Ours was, we literally just went to the MOH Harbourfront office. The MOH Harbourfront office, we sat down with a bunch of other students and the parents were like, just standing behind us and we just signed on like, don’t how many pages of the document and that was it. We didn’t even really think about how much it cost and stuff. We were just so grateful to get in. Yeah, so we were Stockholmed from the start.

Isaac:
How was it for you? It was a little bit different actually. I don’t think I even had an in-person thing. Oh, was it during COVID? It was during COVID. So it was super detached. I mean it was a PDF. Oh no, you just docu-signed it. You docu-signed your future, okay? I docu-signed my entire future to the tune of $700,000.

Faith:
Yeah, your bond is more expensive than homeless. That’s a horrible idea. Sorry for your loss.

Isaac:
And I don’t know, I think there’s like same same but also different in the sense that I guess when I did it, I was a little bit older because postgraduate medicine, all that stuff. What was similar though was I feel like when you do it, it just feels like a moment in time. I mean, obviously, rationally, you know that this is X number of years. I’m sure you weren’t completely blind to the fact that either, you know, you have your other friends going off to uni.

Faith:
We can do the math and it’s like, okay, it’s a fair trade-off or something.

Isaac:
Right. But it doesn’t hit when you do it.

Faith:
Yeah, somehow the enormity, like when you’re signing at 18 or 20 something, like the idea of locking in med school plus another, how many years, like a decade of your life, just signed away quickly. You think that in that moment, because you want it so badly, that yes, of course I can push through, even if it’s tough, I’m determined, I love this, I want to do this. And then suddenly when you’re going through it, you’re like, maybe not, but it’s too late. Did it feel like that to you? Because you already chose this more intentionally?

Isaac:
I think it was somewhere in between, in that I definitely thought twice, thrice, four times and five times, before I even put my name into the mix, right? Because you have a very clear juxtaposition where even, bond aside, you’re submitting yourself to another four years of study, which is four years not earning and four years not gaining experience in a field you might already be qualified in.

Faith:
Oh yes, the opportunity cost, right?

Isaac:
Exactly, exactly. So it felt intentional. But at the same time, I think it’s another thing to go through it also. So when you started off in your early training, were there points where you felt your relationship with the bond or your relationship to this career evolved from that?

Faith:
Obviously, as someone who broke my bond very early on, I obviously knew I wanted to do something other than just work in a hospital all the time. For me, I’m passionate about clinic work and creative work. So when I was in hospital, I was just like, oh no, I’m just going through the motions. I’m duty-bound, therefore I will show up and do my work responsibly and well. But like, am I necessarily the happiest or most fulfilled? And do I feel like this is the best use of my time? Maybe not. Yeah, so I guess I emotionally struggled a bit.

Isaac:
Was it more of a gradual process for you? Or was there a certain pivotal moment or two or three that made you go from, okay, I love, I’m starry-eyed and I’m in Vivo City, lovingly jumping into a new tomorrow. And then you go from that to like, oh, maybe I will be, I will join family medicine residency. And then from there, it was like, okay, bye-bye.

Faith:
This is all downhill, right? Yeah.

Isaac:
All that.

Faith:
I mean, when you’re 18, you’re like, you’re so proud of yourself and everyone is so happy for you when you get into medicine. So it’s like, you’re so happy to sign this thing because you have this magic contract that no one else has. You’ve got your job settled until you’re 30. you’re going to get trained well, you’re going to come out with a more prestigious career than most people. And then suddenly as you’re an adult and you see other friends going on overseas exchange trips, living a life and learning so much more outside of medicine, you just realize that maybe you picked a bit too early and you’re missing out on all those things that you could have been more interested in. But at the same time, you will never know because we didn’t have the time to fully explore any of that also. So it’s always just a big what if. So I think wanting to pursue that what if was a big motivator and me wanting to leave.

Isaac:
Were there any moments where you felt like you tried to pursue the what if, let’s say within those constraints, be it medical mission trips or be it being more involved in the university or were there any attempts that you made in that whole journey that you tried and then maybe you got some momentary reprieve? Or you tried and then you’re like, oh actually this is really very sad.

Faith:
Oh so I’ve always wanted to do like an art and craft business. So I ran a cute little handicraft shop like during COVID. It was like doing I think the fifth year of med school. So it was me finally studying but I had time so I was just making cute little trinkets and I was like, hey this is actually quite a cozy life but also not financially sustainable in Singapore. So every time I wanted to explore something different like oh journalism or filmmaking, I would look up the salary and I’d be like, oh crap. The bad and the pay is like 10 times worse probably. I was like never mind, I’ll just stay the path for now. When I have enough money, I will pursue those things. But from a more financially stable standpoint. But how was it for you?

Isaac:
I mean, I guess I’m more at the time point where it was, so we’re at slightly different stages. I now reached the point where you made that decision. I suppose I have a very fraught relationship with this, right? Because in many ways, I started it out knowing, okay, there’s certain sacrifices that need to be made. My time, my sanity, my money. I’m not going to keep going down the list because that’s very depressing. But the point is that I knew it rationally. So I guess it made it okay to stomach as I was going along. At the same time though, I felt as if, especially when I was studying, studying, when my friends were getting their first promotion, that normally comes like two years out of your graduation and all that, right? First promotion, first overseas posting, first leadership kind of role, right? And then that’s when I was like, yeah, I’m still a med student wearing student scrubs, trying to like meekly knock on some door to ask if some junior MOs who are probably younger than me want to sign a form for me. I think those moments really made me question like what on earth is it I’m doing with my life?

Faith:
Yeah, like why are you here?

Isaac:
And then you move on from there and then I guess you start going into it. And I guess with all things, it’s an everyday where you know that it will feel like a job. I don’t think any job, even starting an art and craft business is enjoyable all the time. It starts feeling like work, that’s the 80%. You live with it, you go over it. I spend my time typing things and calling specialties and rooms for scans and all, which whatever, you make peace with that. And then you enjoy the 10-20% of time where you actually feel like you’re doing the thing you came here to do. But it’s very up and down throughout, I suppose.

Faith:
Which one are you most willing to suffer for? Which path is the most worthy in the long run?

Isaac:
Exactly. And I don’t know, when you first started, do you feel like there were any nice moments really anchored you or was it just more of the more of the misery?

Faith:
I guess it’s always an up and down right, it’s the ups that pull you back in and keep you from like absolutely just walking out hospital and being like “Bye I’m not doing this call anymore, I’m out.” But you know the ups were always the patients, like patient interactions, because you realize you actually really are making a discernible improvement in their lives even if you’re just the one ordering the medicine. You’re not even thinking of the plans because your seniors do that for you, but i mean just knowing that one small action can actually turn someone’s health around. You feel like, okay, I’m donating my health and sanity to help someone else. It’s not like a zero-sum game. There’s actually a net positive and we’re not damaging the world. We’re not stealing money from companies like private equity people. I mean, we’re doing good. Even if it sucks, we suck it up, I guess. Maybe it’s greenwashed.

Isaac:
Yeah, maybe. I feel like there are those redeeming moments, where actually on the walk here, I was scrolling again and I saw this, nowadays it’s very popular, there are these accounts where they anonymously post a lot of details about the day in the life of an investment banker, consultant, whatever. And then I was seeing someone’s IB (investment banker) diaries, and it’s in Singapore also, so it’s very close to home. It was like watching them about their day in the life and reply emails at 12 midnight every night.

Faith:
Oh my gosh, I would not want to be an investment banker. Yeah.

Isaac:
And I was like, okay, at least when I order the Panadol, the kid says that they are feeling better.

Faith:
Yeah, especially now that you’re doing Paeds.

Isaac:
Yeah. I guess there are those moments. And we talk about how it’s such an up and down throughout, net positive, net negative, whatever. Did you ever, on a more meta level, step back and think, “Oh, actually, am I being a bit ungrateful to this path? Or am I not being so true to the person I once was?” Were there ever moments where you looked at yourself?

Faith:
Yeah, I mean, for sure, there’s always these moments of doubt where you’re like, I’m in a privileged position. People would literally cut off an arm and a leg to, you know, take our job and to have a chance to serve and work hard and you know heal people. So it’s like are we being too entitled or are we too much of a strawberry to be saying that “oh this job is tiring, I don’t want to do it” or “I want an easier version of it?”

But at the same time I don’t feel like we should silence ourselves and say that it’s okay when it’s not or you know pretend that we are like 100% grateful for the job. I think people going in need to know both sides. The good and the bad and figure out their reasons and how they weigh both of them. Is the good enough for them to stay and push on for like a decade? Or is the bad part too sucky that they actually need to leave for their own health or mental health? Or maybe they don’t want to apply for medicine after they realise what it actually entails. But yeah, did you ever feel like questioning it was ungrateful?

Isaac:
I think definitely, definitely because if you think about it all this was in a way extra, you know like I quite literally asked for this. I mean even by itself I suppose you could say that doing a degree at all is not strictly compulsory much as I think a lot of people try to get one but doing an additional degree is definitely not necessary.

Faith:
It’s not conventional, your path of two degrees.

Isaac:
Exactly. So then I think every single time, I felt the littlest bit of discontentment. There’s this self-flagellation going on.

Faith:
I think we’re very good at that.

Isaac:
Yeah, we’re extremely good at that. And then you’re like, “But you made this up for yourself, right? So what can you do about it?” And do I have an honest answer to, “Would I have taken a parallel path?” I don’t entirely think that I would be much happier in an alternate universe as well.

On that note, you know like when you say the “arm and a leg” thing, you know the latest word on the ground is that there are certain postings, so I’m trying to go to A&E next for a while, and then apparently it’s getting competitive enough that there are some people who want residency, and they volunteer to do a three-month…because okay, our postings are in six-month blocks when we are medical officers, right? There’s a centralized exercise. And these people apparently volunteer to do a no pay leave, three month work for free, one month work for free, just so that they can be in these departments.

Faith:
Just so they can beat the queue and prove that they’re more dedicated by not being paid.

Isaac:
Correct.

Faith:
I don’t know, I’m sorry, the mental gymnastics taken to do that is really quite impressive. I mean, they must be dedicated but what’s the point? To what end?

Isaac:
Exactly, to what end?

Faith:
I mean, certainly if everyone decides that they want to do 3 months unpaid posting, then the bar suddenly becomes 6 months or 1 year unpaid posting and do somersaults while you’re at it or something.

Isaac:
Yeah, we should just volunteer I guess.

Faith:
I mean, yeah, hey, a big idea for the Ministry of Health, right? Just get everyone to volunteer. You don’t need to pay your healthcare workers anymore. There’s no such thing as wages. So you can’t complain that it’s too low.

Isaac:
Right, yes. That is one thing I hope is as isolated as it is.

Faith:
It’s crazy, I have not heard of that.

Isaac:
Right.

Faith:
Respect, respect for those who chose to do that.

Isaac:
Truly. And I guess, you know, all this said and done, was there a version of you you can imagine that went in a completely different direction? Because I guess I was talking about a parallel universe, wherever that might be, right? Do you have like a real living version of you that is somewhere?

Faith:
I feel like maybe some version of me, I’d gone into, you know, caring less about grades and just going into the arts. I would probably have gone to a liberal arts school in the US or done journalism or something much artsier. And I’d probably have come back to Singapore, work in SPH and get disillusioned. I don’t know. One of my friends worked in SPH. It’s like a journalist and she did pretty well for herself, but she was so disillusioned by the end of her bond. Yeah. So, I mean, I saw her life and what she was going through.

At first, I used to envy her. oh it’s so cool you get to meet all these people talk to them interview them write stories you get to fly overseas to just try something new and write about it but then when i saw like everything that goes on behind the scenes i realized okay maybe everything we dream a job to be might not actually be that glamorous once we live it yeah so it’s just we live what we i mean we live with our choices but yeah for you is there some parallel universe of you where you’re like some lawyer in in the UK or? What’s your parallel universe?

Isaac:
The parallel universe is my friends who stayed and walk the path. And I mean, I’m just going to say that some of the parallel universes ain’t looking very pretty right now. Like genuinely, genuinely. As much as, you know, I don’t think our hours are the most human by any stretch of the imagination. I am somehow privileged to be acquainted with friends who work even more.

Faith:
Yeah, it’s like somewhere that’s always worse, right?

Isaac:
Yeah, for arguably wages that are not that much higher in terms of purchasing power in wherever country in the world that is. I mean, I do know friends who get like three times the pay and go on four times the skiing holidays. But that’s, you know, you can’t compare our words. Exactly.

Faith:
But it’s okay, we don’t want to write emails at 12am. We’re good without that.

Isaac:
So I guess when you compare you now and parallel universe, I guess we’re talking about identities, right? And how much, you know, it’s so much of our personality that we are doctors, medical people, whatever, right? How do you feel that identity has kind of played out for you? Do you think you’ve ended up in a place where that is a really big defining part of your identity? Do you feel like that’s a good thing, bad thing? Thoughts?

Faith:
I feel like, okay, so I suppose this answer can be divided into like, you know, med friends versus non-med friends. So like, I mean, among med people, instantly when you hear someone’s a doctor, straight away, you know, you’ve got all these things in common. You’re like, hey, which posting, where did you study? Or like, oh, which year do you graduate? Oh, do you know these people? So straight away, there’s like a very nice, solid bunch of topics that you can talk about and relate to.

So like, I guess in when I’m hanging with mad people or like medical adjacent folk, it’s very you just completely lean into that part of the identity in which case the conversations that didn’t often become just like either complaining sessions you hear them complaining about “oh I’m on call again”, “the roster is shit, the pay is shit, how much how much do you earn outside?” But at least you know you’ve got this established base of knowledge

With non-medical people or people who I met for the first time, I often try not to really highlight that like I’m a doctor, because you number one don’t want to be seen as showing off and number two don’t want people to just keep asking about health stuff afterwards, which kind of happens quite a bit right. And number three, you still don’t want to alienate them or make them feel awkward around you especially if they’re, you know, doing something less traditionally like successful or prestigious. Yeah so i feel like i would self-censor in those kind of circumstances, versus like with Med people we just let it loose.

Isaac:
Yeah I feel like I actively conceal. I very actively conceal it.

Faith:
Imagine if you go around telling people you have a law and med degree. People will just be like…

Isaac:
Yeah, I do not share that. It’s like I’m predominantly… First line is that I’m self-employed. Second line is…

Faith:
No, no, you’re employed by MOHH. You are, contractually, I’m sorry.

Isaac:
Yes, I am. And then, you know, I talk about the things I do. I talk about things professionally outside of my hobbies and all that. And then if the thing actually comes up like, “Oh, I’m on shift tomorrow.” That kind of thing. “Sorry, I cannot make it.” Then it’s like, “I work in a hospital.”

Faith:
Yeah, as a healthcare worker. Yeah.

Isaac:
Yeah, yeah. I feel like that word is hard to come out of the mouth.

Faith:
Yeah, for sure.

Isaac:
But I think that whole idea about professional identity and all, it feels like it becomes a lot more valuable when it’s a setting where it’s not commonplace. Meaning that if you meet new people and they have this very full idea of who you are. When I go diving, I went on a trip recently and what I love the most about diving is that it’s one of those activities where people completely dissociate from who they are on land. You know, you go there and you literally, like it’s this like unwritten social contract where the minute you step onto the boat, right? Like everyone is just chatting about the sea and then the fish.

Faith:
You’re just in the moment.

Isaac:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like how they got there. And then like, you know, the transfer got delayed. And then you start talking about other things like your, you know, what you do, where else you’ve been and all that. And then like maybe on day three or day four, people actually curiously might ask if you’re on your phone emailing, like, oh, what do you do for work? You’re very busy, you know?

And I think in a way, that can feel very liberating as well because you get a chance to build up that persona as to who you want to be. I guess in the entrepreneurial space and just trying to strike it out on your own. Not everyone in the longevity space is a doctor by training also, right? So how has that been for you? How do you think that personal brand formation has been so far?

Faith:
Yeah, I guess now that I’m sort of just freelancing around, I don’t really have the need to walk into a room and be like, I’m a doctor. It’s more of like, hey, I’m doing all these cool things. What hobbies do we have in common that we can bond over so that there’s less awkward small talk. I don’t know, I’m pretty bad at small talk. So I’m only just trying to find things that we have in common. So I think I try to actually move away from my identity as a doctor in new social situations and just see like, how can I relate to you as a human? Because I mean, people just want to be known, right?

Isaac:
And it does feel like after that is established, the professional identity, when it comes on top of it, then becomes a very good thing. Because then people know you first, right? And then I suppose you reap the hidden benefits of people thinking that, I suppose you’re a bit more reliable.

Faith:
Assume that you know what you’re talking about. It’s not even about the medical knowledge. It’s just like if you meet maybe a lawyer, you’ll be okay to say that, “Oh, hi, I’m a doctor.” To prove that you are on the same tier intellectually or whatever in terms of how competent or professional you might be. Of course, these are all just assumptions, but society operates on assumptions.

Isaac:
And I think it then just comes down to different environments and what’s considered currency, right?

Faith:
Social currency, right? Yeah.

Isaac:
I’ve been to those startup events and all that.

Faith:
Oh my gosh, those networking things. If you put a doctor on your name, you get all those people coming to you.

Isaac:
And I feel like the social currency in that situation is unpleasant for a whole set of other ways also. Sometimes you get in a room where people are just too eager to elevator pitch you and the elevator feels like it’s 100 stories. And then I literally can ask, “Oh, how is the food?” And then, “Oh, do you know there’s an app that does this?” You just sit there and eat your chicken.

And then I was at this other Block 71 event the other day. And then I had this person who I… Essentially what this person does was something along the lines of marketing and sales. So I was genuinely asking, can you support this kind of service if I want to regionally expand into more Southeast Asia? And then I received this whole platitude about how this guy only supports post revenue businesses and still pre revenue businesses.

Faith:
He was saying you’re too broke to hire him.

Isaac:
Yeah, and then I was like, you don’t even know what I do. Can you chill out please?

Faith:
Oh my gosh. Maybe it’s a compliment. He thinks you’re young.

Isaac:
Yeah, I would like to think that. So different social currencies in different situations. But I think our personas kind of, it’s tough to navigate. like the personas you deploy to.

Faith:
You just like code switch.

Isaac:
Exactly. You want just enough credibility, but you don’t want to overcompensate.

Faith:
Yeah, you don’t want to seem like you’re showing off.

Isaac:
You know the one thing, the one reason why I don’t like seeing my job in front, in like new environments, is that I don’t want there to be someone who is like a senior doctor around.

Faith:
Yeah, because it seems like you’re pulling the rank card, right?

Isaac:
Correct.

Faith:
And then they’ll pull the rank card, and then it’s awkward.

Isaac:
Correct. And there’s this whole thing in medicine, People are very, very harsh on people who are junior, to death.

Faith:
We should totally go into that in another episode one day.

Isaac:
That’s another talk for another day. So I guess, let’s end off on this question, this point back question. Do you think you’d do this again, this being medicine, knowing all that you know now?

Faith:
Honestly, yeah, I mean I’ve thought about it before. I think I 100% still would choose medicine for very pragmatic reasons now. I mean, you want a job that gives you sufficient fulfillment, that you’re able to create a positive impact on society, and that still gives you enough financial stability to survive in an expensive country like Singapore. So yeah, I would pick it all over again and still make the same choices. Yeah, what about you now that you’re in the thick of it?

Isaac:
I would say yes. I would self-sabotage again. I would ruin myself financially again. Because I suppose I can say that I’ve to some degree gotten to experience the things I was looking for. In terms of the impact, I got to see some of the high experience and enjoy some of, I suppose, the hygiene factors that make the profession a decent place to be. The job market is not good these days. I’ve not had to worry about that recently or in a lot of time.

And I suppose that at the end of the day, I guess it does give you a good set of perspectives and life experiences to go into, whatever environment you want to go into. In the entrepreneurship space, you meet people who are serial entrepreneurs, you meet people who are retired bankers, you meet people who are retired professionals from anywhere, a lot of people come out of the forces. And I feel like everyone brings their something to the table. as long as I can bring my something to the table and do it well, then I think life will be okay, hopefully.

Faith:
Life will be okay.

Isaac:
All right.

Faith:
So that’s it for today’s episode. Thanks for listening. And yeah, we’ll see you in the next one.

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