9th May 2000

Just ran out to Safeways to buy me a tub of vanilla ice cream. I walked home under a quickly-darkening sky. At 9.15pm. I've never really experienced a London summer properly before, the past two years I've been here I've been desperately revising for my exams around this time. Too preoccupied, too full of self-recrimination, too terrified and stressed-out to take the time to notice the wonder that is summer in London. Long sunny days and comfortable balmy nights. I wish it'd stay this way all year around, but then London would be Australia, wouldn't it? :)

Got home completely knackered today, to the bone. Today was an unusual day. Once a year, just once, the school organises a "communication day" for us. During preclinicals these were a complete waste of time of sitting around at tables academically giving opinions on what it means to be a caring doctor, but today they brought in actors and actresses and videod us talking to them, in various scenarios. The day began with one of our colleagues getting shouted at by an abusive patient ("who the F*CK are you?! I'VE BEEN F*CKING WAITING FOR HALF AN HOUR! I'M F*CKING IN PAIN) and got gradually worse as the day wore on. I think we all learnt loads about real-life doctoring and the personal relationships it entails. The final Dispelling of the Myths of money glamour power and most of all, control. (for the few who maintained the illusion) I was one of the last to step up, thanks to the innate Asian reluctance (genetic, no doubt) to volunteer yourself for human-sacrifice. I had to tell a completely clueless woman she had cancer after an operation to relieve a (supposedly minor) obstruction in her bowel. To make things worse the surgeons had told her it all went without a hitch, since technically, they got the blockage out, nevermind that she had nodules of cancer everywhere and was going to die in six months. I didn't think it would be that hard because she was, after all an actress and none of it was real. You know? Yeah. Right. Somewhere along the way the dratted actress Made it real. The little tremor of her eyelid, the minuscule workings of her lips and the light in her eye made me care, for real. By all accounts post-mortem, when everyone was re-watching me on camera I did a good job and was very empathetic, and caught her mood easily (of course I did... everyone was amazed I was picking up her mood so easily when in truth it was all in plain sight, the way she leant forward slightly, the little things she did which I hadn't expected a mere actress to do, that made me completely forget it was a simulation if only for an instant, and think Oh my God, the poor, poor woman, and I'm making it worse) and left pauses in the right places... but everyone did well today, I think. I don't know if the others felt as gutted as I did afterwards. I do know I had this urge to come home and bury my face in a pillow and sleep for an eternity. It's still there after my shower but it's dulled some. Empathy can be exhausting work when it involves telling someone she has six months to live. And to hear her break down about her retirement plans in Darbyshire, and her husband, and, and ohhh. And to actually SEE it in her eyes.

What will I do when it's all for real one day, I wonder? I only hope I really did okay today, and everyone wasn't just being nice and saying magnaminous things to me to make me feel happy. Not that I care about today; tomorrow, however is another story.

The guy who went after me had to tell the same actress her son had just died after a car accident. Mum was all cheery thinking her son was just in a coma. She burst into tears and wailed when it finally hit home, and watching her on the TV it all felt so real. I watched her watching the replay when she came back in, this woman-actress who spent half her day tormenting us. Everyone else was staring fixedly at the screen, but armchair psychologist that I am I glanced around (as a boy I used to look around the room everytime a pretty girl walked in to watch the rapt attention everyone else gave her, and toyed with grandiose ideas of becoming a psychiatrist. Now that I'm all grown up I just look at the girl and think mmmmmmm) and saw the look in her eye, the crease of her brow, the almost-tears in her eyes and wondered how? How did she do it? I silently took my hat off to her, this actress of a calibre I'd never seen, up close and personal anyhow. I've never seen anything even remotely comparable back home. James L**? Wong Li-L**? Not even close. Not by far. I think it takes a lot of empathy to play someone so convincingly. I think perhaps this woman (and who knows, the cast of ER? The cast of casualty) has within her more empathy than many of the real-life practicing doctors I meet from day to day.

You've probably noticed by now that I make tonnes of typos on these pages, and things don't usually make logical sense. That's because I type them off the top of my head, and I think non-linearly. Also, typing with the top of your head is an unwieldy and painful process. :)