Becoming an Effective Doctor

University Malaya Class '99

I graduated from university in 1999. As a fresh young house officer, I was ready and certain that I knew all about doctoring. Only later, I realized that many of the fundamental skills required to be a safe and effective doctor were not part of medical school curricula. And most of what I had learned about disease management would soon be outdated.

After a year of being a house officer, I was posted to the emergency department of a district hospital. I worked 24-hour shifts into long nights, and I had to learn on-the-job with books borrowed from the hospital library to guide me when I often felt alone.

Effective is easily defined, it means successful in producing a desired or intended result. However, what it means to be a doctor is not as clear. Is a doctor someone who is qualified to evaluate a patient’s symptoms and signs, make a diagnosis, order further further investigation, prescribe medicine and perform surgery? Or is a doctor someone who is responsible for the care and safety of the patients on her watch. The former may eventually be outsourced to artificial intelligence and robots. The latter requires that doctors take on many other duties – being communicators, showing empathy, using resources efficiently, raising concerns, improving quality of service, training other health care professionals and being a role model. The latter requires heart and befits the respect society still attaches to this profession.

Each of us will have to find our own meaning.

Dr Poongkodi Nagappan

20th March 2025

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