What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do? Physically, emotionally or mentally. Have you ever stretched yourself to the absolute limit?

What did you find? Did you break, or just bend? Did they crush you?

I bet you survived. Humans are like that. Determined as cockroaches.

My Paediatric experience will be unlike any of my batch-mates. We manned the special care nursery at a time of national crisis – babies were dying, health ministers were being impeached, the public was furious. We interns, the most junior staff, were the bulk of the paediatric department. To say we were screwed was an understatement. Every odd was stacked against us.

And yet.

We survived. Not just survived, thrived.

Of course, the first six weeks were the worst hell imaginable. I cried at work. Twice. I pushed IV medication and the lab staff and myself. I lost weight, I was anxious all the time. We all had chronic fatigue.

Then slowly and painfully, like a lizard shedding its skin (does that hurt? I feel like it should hurt), we metamorphosed, Kafka-style. Almost overnight we hardened, gained competence. The odds were still stacked, but we got better at playing them. The workload lightened. For doctors who were molded by an overpopulated nursery (thirty babies our first few weeks), taking care of eight newborns (plus or minus three) was child’s play. I moved from the desperate panic of ‘How will I survive this?!’ to the weary surprise of ‘I must have been stronger than I thought’.

Like all things do, my three months on Paediatric Medicine passed. January 4 I stumbled into the staff meeting bleary eyed and battle-worn but ready to take on whatever staff assignment they threw at me. Internal medicine was my new playing field. Game face, on.