Ever since the school year started, I�ve been feeling out of sorts. I can�t seem to focus my attention on my studies. Maybe I�m still hung up on summer vacation� Forgive my meanderings, but out of nowhere I remembered yet again that medicine seems more like a duty than a passion to me. Maybe there are a lot of students out there like me, feeling as if this course is a chain that keeps dragging us down. Wrong attitude, I know. And because of this, I�m scared� not sure if this is the right field for me. Yeah, I know I should be more settled, because I�m already a third year med student. It�s kind of late to be having second thoughts. I don�t really have doubts I�ll get through this, even without exerting as much effort as I should (not because I�m a whiz kid, but because I know that with working hard, I can survive). At the same time, I don�t want to be on the average, a mediocre doctor. More than anything else, that�s what I don�t want to become. If ever I�m going to push through with this, I N-E-E-D to be a competitive doctor, a great one! But how do I learn to love it whole-heartedly? When my love for art (or literature for that matter) always wins out? I�ve always considered it to be just a hobby (and nothing more) because I am realistic enough to know that my abilities don�t even approach the borderline of genius. So I settled for something I know I can achieve, and that is having the second degree of medical doctor attached to the end of my name. When I think more on what holds me to this, what I like about it� I can only think of one thing with certainty, and that is I enjoy the challenge of being presented with a patient and trying to figure out what�s their illness. Being able to exercise your mental faculties and solve another�s problems (albeit in a scientific way) is satisfying, and always being kept on your toes especially when you have to defend your diagnosis makes you feel you are able to achieve something of significance. The prestige will always be a lure, because doctors are treated like minor deities here, with a bit of reverence and a whole lot of respect, but I�m not sure if that is enough for me. I don�t claim to know even one tenths of the knowledge of a real doctor, but I know I�m slowly getting there. To try to explain more, it�s like this path is the one that�s been in front of me for the past several years, and to change directions all of a sudden would be pointless. Because right now, I don�t know what�s right for me anymore, what I would enjoy� I guess that�s my main issue, I�m afraid I won�t be able to love medicine with my whole heart. It�s true that medicine is a �vocation�, so it deserves more than just a halfhearted attempt. For the past three years, I�ve survived by telling myself that this is what I really want, that I�ll be more than satisfied with the healing arts. Still, I�m afraid that being a doctor will always be �work� for me� I want to do something I would be able to enjoy� but I have no idea what that is. Or maybe I�m just getting tired of all this theoretical stuff the doctors keep pushing down our throats. I know it�s necessary because the knowledge that we gain is the foundation on which our abilities as physicians stand. But it�s hard to keep sight of that fact when all you�ve ever done your whole life is study. So I guess I�ll try sticking it out til clerkship and see if I can find what I�m looking for there.