There are moments where sometimes I must actively force myself to pause and reflect on just how much my life has changed in the last two years. Sometimes it seems almost unbelievable the extent of that change, and I felt that more so whilst doing my electives this year in the emergency department (ED), wards 161, 165, and 167 at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH). Just two years ago I was sitting behind an office desk at a stockbroker having celebrated my 8th year working in the IT department, ensuring our staff were able to trade on the stock exchange. For the entirety of those eight years, my sole purpose and objective was trying to get into the Wits GEMP program and having actively worked towards it for the best part of a decade, it always seemed so incredibly impossible and unrealistic. However, I was offered a place in the program in 2019, and now just two years later I sometimes sit and reflect on how much my life has changed, and how I am now literally living the life I dreamed of for so long. Instead of managing a network of JSE connections, I am now performing lumbar punctures, suturing, inserting catheters, examining patients from start to finish, and coming up with differential diagnoses and management plans that have actual meaning and consequence behind them.
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My South African Medical School Journey 