Amit Nabar
Six months ago, I wrote here about healthcare leadership, the future of medicine and the wellbeing of those who choose this profession:
Three months ago, I wrote about NEET aspirants and the families standing beside them:
Today, I write as a father whose child has crossed that bridge.
What the result sheet doesn’t show is the two years behind it.
The 5 AM alarms. The mock tests that went wrong. The silence at the dinner table after a bad score. The friendships put on hold, the festivals skipped, the birthdays spent with a biology textbook.
And the parents’ side of it, which rarely gets spoken about.
We learned to hide our own anxiety so it wouldn’t add to theirs. We refreshed websites at midnight. We said “it’s okay, you did your best” while our own hearts were racing. When exam dates changed and uncertainty took over, we had to be the calm in their storm, even when we weren’t calm ourselves.
To every parent who has lived this: your sacrifice is invisible on paper, but it is written into every success.
And now, to every student entering first MBBS this year, a word from someone who has walked this road:
The entrance exam was the hardest door to open. It is not the hardest road to walk.
Take care of your mind as carefully as you learn to care for others. Stay curious. Stay kind. Stay humble.
Now something on a very personal note…
On my table tonight sits a 1938 edition of Gray’s Anatomy.
Its leather has been rebound. Its pages have yellowed. But inside the front cover is something no library can offer: handwritten names, each added by a first-year MBBS student in our family.
Five generations. One book…This week, a new name was written on that page. My son’s.
I believe that one can learn from apps, videos and PDFs, and these are wonderful tools. But a book gives you something a screen cannot. It holds your underlines, your margin notes, your late-night doubts. It can be handed down. This one has passed through five generations of hands, and it is still teaching.
Files get updated and forgotten. Books get inherited.
The names in that old book belonged to students who were once just as nervous as you are today. They became healers.
So will you.
Welcome to the profession 🤍
Do you have similar anecdotes/ stories to share??
Would love to hear.
