Who would imagine that killing is healing? The only way to treat a severe aneurysm located at a dangerous junction in the brain is to induce heart-stopping hypothermia. By medical definition, the person is clinically dead. However, this procedure also takes advantage of the important property of hypothermia to protect the brain, saving it. This is just one of the beauties of medicine, which makes me more and more curious about the fascinating ways medicine can transform lives. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay This year I was fortunate enough to be able to shadow Dr. Miriam Kimpo in her pediatric oncology clinic at National University Hospital, where I was introduced to Knudson's two-hit hypothesis. It was used to explain a medical case where both mother and son suffered from retinoblastoma. I also had the opportunity to observe how he advised oncology outpatients on various chemotherapy and radiation treatments and how he performed an echocardiogram to check for heart defects. Evidently, being a doctor is very intellectually rewarding as it requires critical thinking and decision making. Dr. Kimpo's attentive listening to each patient and her patience in addressing patient concerns about potential side effects of treatment highlighted the importance of soft skills and communicating complex medical terms in simple language so that the patient can understand them. The interpersonal skills I learned from observations were applied when I led other students from a biological interest group in planning a masterclass on mealworms for K-6 students, in addition to being the teacher. At Children's Emergency (CE), a boy who scored O on the following week's A-level exams was diagnosed with hidradenitis suppurativa where severe pain hindered his writing ability. His trust in the doctor's expertise and his reliance on them to help him at critical times such as taking O-level exams demonstrated that being a doctor is a privilege and a dignified job. However, the CE experience also opened my eyes to the reality of life as a doctor. My doctor misdiagnosed a little girl with bacterial pneumonia when it was viral pneumonia and gave her levofloxacin before her blood test results were released. Therefore he was scolded severely by a senior resident. Clearly, since errors could be fatal, the stress of maintaining error-free records even with working hours as long as 36 hours was one of the difficulties of a doctor. However, it was the sense of fulfillment from the work that kept them going. Since I have decided to pursue clinical research as well, I want to ensure that I am exposed to medical research and facilities beyond the school curriculum. Therefore, I did 2 years of research at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School where I worked on RAC isoforms and ICMT which helped me apply for grants with potential publication next year. I learned to critique and draw inspiration from experimental methods from research articles, as well as use Huygens Professional for data analysis, keeping up to date on the latest research on RAC isoforms and recent imaging standards. In addition to broadening my scope of knowledge, I was able to hone my laboratory skills by repeatedly performing laboratory techniques such as Western Blot and cloning. Everything is fine..