Singaporean Doctors by Day, Side Questers by Night: Did We Let Singapore's Education System Plan Our Lives?

From Cadaver Lab to Breaking Bad News: What Medical Training Really Teaches You

We started medical school by walking into a room with donated human bodies and a scalpel. And if you ask most doctors about it now, years later, there's this thing that happens — the memory is still vivid, but the weight of it has somehow… shifted. This episode is about that shift. Faith and Isaac talk through what cadaver lab was actually like — the smell, the pledge, the strange intimacy of returning to the same silent mentor week after week. But what starts in that room doesn't stay there. From the first time you realise you're treating someone's worst day like a Tuesday, to the 4am calls where you have to find enough human warmth to deliver devastating news on barely any sleep — the emotional recalibration that comes with working in medicine is something nobody really prepares you for. They get into patients rejecting life-saving dialysis, dark humour as a coping mechanism, what it means to "pace" with a dying patient's family, and what the best and worst examples of clinical communication have taught them about who they want to become. By the end of it, the question isn't really whether doctors are desensitised. It's whether some version of that numbness is necessary — and whether, if you're honest with yourself, it's started showing up in places it probably shouldn't. ⏳Chapters 0:00 - Intro & what this episode is about 0:58 - What actually happens in cadaver lab (for non-medical viewers) 2:45 - Our first day: the pledge, the white coats, and the moment the bodies were unveiled 5:00 - The difference between Faith's experience and Isaac's (dissecting vs. observing) 6:20 - Developing a "relationship" with your silent mentor over weeks 7:05 - How that emotional weight slowly evolves as you start seeing real patients 9:45 - The first time you start feeling like you're becoming someone you don't like 12:00 - Dialysis, difficult conversations, and learning what pacing with patients means 15:00 - The overnight call that made it feel real: a stroke patient our own age 16:00 - Processing heavier conversations — and why 10 seconds is sometimes all you get 18:45 - Did med school actually prepare us for any of this? 22:30 - Staying up overnight to practice breaking bad news at 5am (our proposal to faculty) 24:00 - Desensitisation and colleagues: dark humour, "rocks," and what outsiders don't get 26:00 - Code-switching: from hospital to real life (and the velvet glove problem) 27:30 - When a senior doctor loses it — and what that taught us about who we want to be 30:10 - How numb are we, really? (Isaac's answer: 80%) 32:00 - "Microdosing emotion": what the best seniors actually do 34:00 - SBAR: when clinical communication becomes your default personality 36:00 - Does the numbness follow you home? The paternalism trap 37:00 - Patient stories that stuck: the man who refused dialysis 38:30 - The "pleasantly confused" auntie who gave us Korean hearts — and then didn't make it 41:00 - Closing thoughts: striking the balance between empathy and function

Milestone Anxiety, Regrets & Side Quests: Two Doctors Questioning The Singaporean Dream

Somewhere between a therapy session and a sparring match, this episode has Faith and Isaac putting each other on the spot with questions they actually want answered. No guest, no agenda — just two doctors who've both strayed pretty far from the expected path, asking each other the hard stuff: Was there a moment you knew the default wasn't for you? What did you have to unlearn to get here? And what's the biggest misconception people have about your life right now? They get into the Singaporean timeline pressure most of us grew up with — the relentless march from JC to uni to job to BTO — and what it actually feels like when you clock out of that race. Faith talks about going from "squash those feelings down, deal with them later" at 17, to eventually forcing herself off the path; Isaac opens up about the chaos underneath what looks like a stable multi-hyphenate life. There are side quests that turned into unexpected vocations (Faith's blog accidentally becoming a go-to resource for med school applicants; Isaac's scuba diving becoming a masterclass in building systems), stories about friends who became professional barbers at 18 or aerospace engineers in Alabama, and a genuine conversation about whether doctors — of all people — are the worst at taking care of themselves. Then it closes with the hypothetical that sticks: if $10 million dropped out of the sky, what wouldn't you change? It sounds like a fun icebreaker, but the answers end up being a pretty good map for how both of them actually want to live — and a nudge for viewers to think about it too. ⏳Chapters 0:00 – Welcome & what we're doing differently today 1:00 – The Singaporean default path: school → job → BTO → repeat 3:10 – Milestone anxiety & why A-levels was collective trauma 6:20 – "What would you tell your 18-year-old self?" 8:05 – The big misconception: our lives are NOT that stable 10:55 – Unlearning: why you don't need a full plan before you start 14:00 – The "B-student vs A-student" paradox & jumping in early 17:20 – Side quests that stuck around: Faith's blog, Isaac's scuba 21:50 – What would you have done if not medicine? 24:00 – When your blog goes viral overnight (and you can't kill it) 27:00 – Entrepreneurship lessons: building systems, not just hustle 29:30 – Faith's "Don't Die" longevity community & lifestyle medicine 32:00 – Doctors giving the worst health advice (5am carbonara, anyone?) 34:10 – Side quests vs identity: imposter syndrome & going public 36:00 – The unexpected superpower medicine gave us: communication 38:05 – Rapid fire hypotheticals: the $10 million question 41:30 – Wrapping up

We Chose Medicine — But Did We Actually Choose? | The Script We Didn't Write

Faith and Isaac spend this episode doing something they probably should have done years ago — actually tracing back where their paths came from. Not the polished CV version, but the real one. The one that starts with Faith wanting to be a paleontologist, and Isaac presenting a Minister of Health flip chart at kindergarten, and both of them eventually just rolling into medicine because that's what you did when you were good at school in Singapore. They talk about what it actually feels like growing up in competitive schools where being a national athlete is just table stakes, and whether any of the choices that supposedly shaped them were choices at all — or just the next obvious step in a script someone else wrote. They also get into the bond — the part where you sign away the better part of your 20s before you're old enough to fully appreciate what that means. Isaac docu-signed his during COVID (SGD 700k on the line, very romantic). Faith sat in an MOH office with her parents behind her and signed without really thinking about the numbers. Both of them talk about what it felt like when the reality of that commitment set in, and how they navigated the stretch between "I chose this" and "why am I here" — including Faith's very short-lived but very cosy handicraft business, and the moment Isaac realised his friends were getting their first promotions while he was still meekly knocking on doors in student scrubs. They close out asking each other the question they actually wanted answered: would you do it again? Both say yes — for complicated, pragmatic, very human reasons. This episode is for anyone who has ever followed a path and wondered, somewhere in the middle of it, whether they actually chose it, or whether it chose them. ⏳Chapters 00:00 Intro & what we're talking about today 00:40 What did we want to be as kids? 03:41 When did the pressure to "become something" kick in? 08:01 How much of our path was chosen vs. just followed? 12:25 Singapore's meritocracy — what it gets right, what it doesn't 17:37 Signing the bond (and docu-signing your future for $700k) 20:15 The emotional reality of being mid-bond and questioning everything 22:02 Chasing the "what if" — side hustles, handicraft shops & salary checks 27:10 The gratitude guilt: are we just being ungrateful strawberries? 29:29 The unpaid posting discourse & how the bar keeps moving 31:09 Parallel universe versions of us (spoiler: not always prettier) 33:04 "I'm a doctor" — how professional identity plays out in different rooms 38:25 Social currency, startup events & the 100-storey elevator pitch 40:34 Would we do it all again?

Singaporean Doctors by Day, Side Questers by Night: Did We Let Singapore's Education System Plan Our Lives?

Welcome to the first episode of We Didn't Plan This — a podcast for people who ditched their five-year plan. We really didn't plan this. It started with a lunch conversation a few months ago, and somehow became a full-fledged podcast. In our first episode, we (Faith and Isaac) share our backstories. Faith, a locum GP juggling a blog, side quests, and too many creative projects, and Isaac, a house officer who took the scenic route through law school before landing in medicine, while running an education consulting business as his side gig. We talk about how we both ended up in healthcare, what it felt like to follow a script we never consciously chose, and why it's worth asking whether you actually wanted the path you're on. Topics covered: - Our career and personal journeys - Law school to medicine - The blog that started it all - Singapore's meritocracy and education system - Side hustles, bonds, and balance - What it means to not just be defined by your job ⏳Chapters 0:00 — Intro 0:38 — Our backstories: 2 very different routes into Medicine 7:34 — How we met + navigating professional vs personal identities 14:46 — What shaped our career choices + schooling years 21:10 — The pivot: what made us change course 30:49 — How we juggle work and our side quests