Back in early of March, rumours were spreading that there would be an opening for a new batch of doctors to be absorbed by the government hospitals. At that point, I was not feeling very hopeful as several rumours had come and gone all these while; they led to nothing but initial nervousness which ended with disappointment time and time again.

This time though, it was a slight surprise for me (all of us). We received e-mails from the health ministry telling us that we would need to choose our hospitals when the portal opens in early April. Hence, the waiting game started. Practically everyone was eagerly reading the manuals on how to navigate through the portal and some had gone quite far by repeatedly reading them until they could memorise every single step by heart (little bit extra I know, but these were some of the stuff that we c ould control).

On the day the portal was opened, everyone was so focus and got ready at least an hour before or so. The only way we could make sure to not mess things up was to get access to a really stable internet connection with the lowest ping and decent laptops or desktops that would not lag during the selection processes after logging into the portal.

Just when the clock struck 12, the portal opened -- we logged into our accounts and tried to get to the hospital selection page as fast as we could. After all, it would determine the location that we would spend our lives for the next two years as we complete our internships.

When we were done with our own respective choices (be it whether we got into the hospitals that we wanted or not), the work did not end there as we had to deal with a mountain of paperwork. These documents were required to be submitted to the government when we report for duty on the date mentioned in the agreement.

Things were in a rush as we only had three weeks to sort out everything, from getting an accommodation to preparing transport for work purposes. Worse of all, we have to rummage through our nearly empty brains in hope of finding all the medical knowledge that we have gathered throughout the medical school years, which was nine months to a year away from us since graduation!

All in all, yes, I do not feel ready to start working in hospitals, transitioning from being a medical student to an actual doctor treating patients (hopefully I am not the only one!). I hope that as time passes by, I will get better in figuring out the things that I need to do. With that, I hope everything will eventually turn out good for all of us who are going to join the workforce soon. Cheers.