Reviewed by Ung Yee Chien

When I whipped out the book “A Brief History of Medicine: From Hippocrates to Gene Therapy” from my bag to read in my free time, my colleagues will always exclaim at the unusual action. The sudden dip in the number of visitors to the pharmacy during the previous lockdown has spurred me to reflect upon myself. One of them is the lack of passion, to read more for the sake of advancing my medical knowledge especially after I have graduated from the school of pharmacy. I simply became robots who screen, fill, counter-check and dispense medicines. I feel like a piece of driftwood in the ocean with no compass after I have completed my training as a provisionally registered pharmacist. Often, I ponder what is next?

The Pursuit of Lifelong Learning

If we can place a label on this era, I will label this timeline as a period of mass information. Scientists have already mapped the whole human genome and the clouds contain an abundance of research papers. All we have to do is to assemble and disassemble them, to organize and make sense of what the data means. It is a tedious work that prompted us to divert our attention to more interesting matters such as the cute videos of pets on Tiktok or our neighbour’s latest trip to Genting on the Instagram. I forgot how hard it is to gather all these information. I forgot how to appreciate the excitement of discovering something new because it seems like nothing much is new under the sun.

I ponder on the laid back attitude we have when we work. When the patients ask about difficult questions that we don’t know, we just dismiss them and forget about it. The patients’ questions are the ones that sparked my interest to read more about the disease and their solutions. Very rarely though, I have fellow pharmacists who shared the passion to find the answers, not just for the sake of the patients but for the sake of the career and the professionalism we uphold. However, some days I feel the same, I just want the day to pass by so that I can go home. Then I will ask myself, where is the love and passion? This is when I started reading books related to the history of poisons and medicine. Those books helped me to maintain my zeal towards gathering knowledge like an antique collector.

​“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905

As I grew older, movies and TV shows started to bore me. So, I dig into “His story”, history, the story woven by our forefathers. Louis Pasteur was known for his invention of microscope and germ theory, but further reading has enlightened me about him. He also contributed to the invention of various vaccines such as anthrax and rabies by introducing novel method of attenuating the bacteria by pasteurization. Galen, on the other hand, proved that the kidneys are the organs that produce urine in contrary to the common belief that urine was produced in the bladder. He convinced the crowd by conducting a public vivisection, in which he tied up the ureter of pigs leading to zero production of urine in the bladder. As I read more about the origins of each strand of information, I started to appreciate all the knowledge passed to me through the books, lectures and internet.

Giving Back to the Society and Job Satisfaction

To stay contented in my job, I took a genuine interest in what the patients got to tell me. Then I ran through the library in my brain and try to find an answer for them, whether I should dispense something over the counter or refer them to the doctors to change their medications. Sometimes, I caught a side effect that the other healthcare professionals missed, and the patient was elated to discover the solution to their problems. I am not exaggerating when I use the word “elated”. They look like they were crippled but are able to walk again. I am happy that they are happy.

We all wish that the plumbers solve the problem of a bursting pipe, and the mechanics know what they are doing when they are tinkering with our cars. However, have we thought of how we can help to fix other’s problems as a pharmacist? Our trade is a healer, an expert of poisons and herbs. Let’s do it the right way and make the community a better place to live.

Some inexpensive books you can get to understand about how we get to this point in the advancement of medicine:

1. Strathern P. A Brief History of Medicine: From Hippocrates to Gene Therapy. Constable & Robinson; 2005
2. Peter Macinnis. A Brief History of Poisons: From Hemlock to Botox and the Killer Bean Calabar. New York: Arcade Publishing; 2011.
3. Martin S. Short history of disease. AL5 1 XJ: Pocket Essentials; 2015.
4. Jackson M. The History of Medicine: A Beginner’s Guide. One World Publication; 2014.

The opinions expressed in the article are the writers’ own and do not reflect the view of MPS YPC.