{"id":72,"date":"2025-03-03T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T08:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/?p=72"},"modified":"2026-10-04T11:36:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T09:36:24","slug":"how-i-chose-to-become-a-surgeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/?p=72","title":{"rendered":"How I chose to become a surgeon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Becoming a doctor has been the single most influential factor of my decision-making lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t actually remember when I decided to become a doctor, or if I ever actively decided. But it&#8217;s all I remember ever wanting to be. Besides the short-lived daydream of wanting to become an air hostess in order to be able to travel. Or the almost serious decision to become a fashion and jewelry designer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I do however remember how I decided to become a surgeon. Around the age of 13, I&#8217;d been sent home with mumps from boarding school. My mum sent me to Aunty Lizzie, her friend who lived down the road and the only doctor I knew. Aunty took a short look at me and asked &#8220;And why did they send you home?! You&#8217;re fine, you should be in school&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t know how I ended up spending the day with her, but she must have asked, because I followed her to work. And I sat in a corner of her consulting room while she educated a young couple on their plight with their baby, who had just been born with Down&#8217;s syndrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I grew up, I was going to become a paediatric surgeon, just like Aunty Lizzie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You won&#8217;t believe how this story ends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No, I didn&#8217;t become a paediatric surgeon. But I did become a general surgeon. Which is basically the same field, but for adults. I went on to study medicine in 2 foreign languages, on 3 different continents. And after several years of working as a surgeon, shortly before I took my board exams, I was conversing with my mum and we stumbled upon how I had decided on surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mum took a long look at me and said &#8220;But Aunty Lizzie isn&#8217;t a surgeon. She&#8217;s a pediatrician&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am still speechless. And in awe. And impressed. That I could build my whole life and career around an accidental role model. One just as powerful as an intentional one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then it dawned on me, that just about anyone could unwittingly fall into that role, of an accidental role model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lesson number x.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"767\" src=\"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_20220914_121406-2-1024x767.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-75\" srcset=\"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_20220914_121406-2-1024x767.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_20220914_121406-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_20220914_121406-2-768x575.jpg 768w, https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_20220914_121406-2-1536x1150.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_20220914_121406-2-2048x1533.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Becoming a doctor has been the single most influential factor of my decision-making lifetime. I don&#8217;t actually remember when I decided to become a doctor, or if I ever actively decided. But it&#8217;s all I remember ever wanting to be. Besides the short-lived daydream of wanting to become an air hostess in order to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30,35,31],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medicine-surgery","tag-doctor","tag-role-model","tag-surgeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yetunde-siemers.com\/antevasin\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}