EF#17 – A Doctor, A Pharmacist, and What are Next?

Bismillaahirrahmaanirrahiim…

Many years ago, when I was still a little kid, I really wanted to be a doctor. Doctor was a favorite profession for me and most of my classmates back then. Since my father is a doctor, I thought it would be easy to prepare myself to be his successor. At least I could learn from him, borrowed his stethoscope and other medical tools, read his books, and had my name printed in front of our house as a doctor. I knew that understanding human anatomy and physiology was a basic modal to be a doctor. That’s why I love learning natural science since elementary school. Years later, when I was a teenager, biology became my favorite subject. I might be not good in math or physics, but for biology, I studied quite hard. Quite hard to get my name recognized by my teacher.

I never loose my hope of becoming a doctor until the last minute before I had to complete the registration form for SNMPTN participants. I realized that I needed to choose other major in order to pass SNMPTN because my tryout scores were never higher than 45 percents. I asked for advice from my parents, especially from my father. He said that pharmacy was a good choice beside medical major. They both prepared the students to be  health professionals so I did not need to afraid of being a jobless person after graduating from university.

Not long after that, I was officially accepted in Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Andalas. I thought that I enjoyed the courses, but I was wrong. I literally suffered because most of the courses I had in first four semesters were related to chemistry. I was not too good in chemistry, especially in organic chemistry, quantitative analytical chemistry, and natural products chemistry. I had hard times in comprehending those courses and as expected, I did not get good results. I nearly lost my hope to graduate as a pharmacist. Alhamdulillah, Allah showed me the way to achieve my goal. All those nightmares changed when I was a third year student. Started from the fifth semester, most of courses were interesting. Being a pharmacy student was no more a dreadful experience.

Now, I am registered as a pharmacist in Indonesia. However, I have no place to practice my skill yet. I do not want to be a pharmacist who only sit in pharmacy for 2-4 hours a week because that is not enough to give excellent services for the patients. Thus, I dream to have my own pharmacy. To have my own pharmacy, it may take long time and high cost (because I had to prepare everything: building, equipments, and other supplies). Thus, I have other dreams which are more likely to achieve for now. I want to be a lecturer, a writer, and if possible, a researcher. But, I am sorry because I cannot provide the details of them for now. Let me keep the process for myself and I will share the good news for you someday.

Thanks for reading :).