Early in 1997, while on holidays in Manus, I was filled with excitement and anticipation when my name appeared in the list of students chosen from the 1996 Science foundation cohort to go on to study medicine.

I had a sense of purpose, ambition and energy. I was ready to take on the challenges that the next four years of life as a medical student were going offer me at the Medical Faculty and a life as a doctor, though at that stage I didn’t really know exactly what it was going to be like.

1997, MBBS 2 was tough year. All day, every day of the week, we had lectures, laboratory and cadaver dissection sessions. The workload was heavy and it was constant. If one was to miss two or more days it meant a lot of catching up afterwards.

The program was old school classical type teaching, where the lecturer walks in delivers an hour lecture and entertains questions before we were left to read, revise and take it all in.

It had its advantages in that the topics we had to cover were delineated precisely and we could tick each them off as we did them.

However, to me the one lecture after the other format was at times unbearable and I found myself sleeping through some of the lectures (“some” may be a slight understatement).

The whole curriculum was changed in 2000, when the more tolerable and humane problem based learning (PBL) program was introduced. I later had the privilege to be a tutor under the PBL program and am of the opinion that the PBL is a much more superior and appropriate method for teaching medicine in PNG.

Third year started to get more interesting as we were introduced to pathology and, towards the end of third year, clinical medicine and could now start to apply our new found knowledge of basic medical science and pathology and public health to patient care.

We were slowly starting to feel like doctors.

Fourth year heralded for the first time in my life a real sense of purpose and responsibility. I was excited but at the same time somewhat disorientated by this feeling of being needed; of having a place and a role to play in society.

My identity was being shaped by this process of becoming a doctor. But I resisted the tag “Dr” defining who I was, I did want to be a good doctor, but more importantly, I wanted to be a good person who was a doctor.

That year we spent most of our time at Port Moresby General Hospital attached to one of the clinical teams and generally getting a good feel of the practical aspects of being a doctor. We basically did most of what the Resident Medical Officers’ did: admitting patients, doing certain procedures, first with supervision then at times independently.

It was certainly a great time of exciting learning, interspersed with parties and adventures that make for a good laugh every now and again when one indulges the past.

One particular story that makes me laugh is about John (not his real name) at a social night. John had fancied an exchange student from Norway (or somewhere like that), who had been at Med Fac for a few weeks.

John was quite the gentlemen during the night’s infancy but as the night grew older; passions arose as did the blood alcohol levels, the gates of inhibition were burst open to an outpouring of passionate expressions.

John, after exhausting all the impressive dance moves he could think of, fell to the floor of the humid dinner hall come dance floor in front of the pretty Norwegian exchange student and started doing rigorous push-ups, in his bid to impress her… what a crack up!, John had many similar adventures.

A day after our fourth year final examination, I accompanied three of my friends on a 10 day bush walk along the Kokoda track. We decided to do this as relief from the end of year exam stress and avoid the ongoing stress of waiting for our results.

It took us 10 days from Ower’s Corner to Kokoda station. We took our time, and at several villages along the way we spent whole days just mingling with the locals and getting to know them.

It’s been said many times before about how friendly these people are and I can well and truly vouch for that. They accommodated and fed us and when we moved on they offered corn and fruits for our journey.

The late Seni Oroni (may he rest in peace) came to show us the beginning of the track at Ower’s Corner, but we twisted his arm and he ended up coming along with us with his famous pair of green trousers. Having him was reassuring as he, being a Koari man, knew the area and people along the track.

During our fifth year we continued to work in the hospital doing our rotations with the major clinical fields and feeling more and more like doctors with the ability to work independently.

It wasn’t unusual for many of us not only to assist but to actually do relatively complicated procedures and operations in our 4th and 5th years, things students in Australia or other developed countries would not dream of doing; like breech deliveries, caesarean sections, etc.

One of the most memorable times during my Med Fac years was our rural experience which I have written about previously.

I’ll end here with an extract from my diary during the fourth year:

You can’t let the tag “Doctor” be you, YOU have to be you and you have to be the doctors. I believe this applies to any profession.

People aren’t interested in what you know, it’s what you can do with that knowledge that matters. But first one must acquire that knowledge, that tool. You must be fair on society (patients) and yourself.

You’ll be getting paid for your unique skills, make sure you know them well. It’s a long way to the top and, between there and where you are, is oblivion.