在面子书里，阅读了一篇整容医师留下的一篇启发性的文章。这篇文章也许有点长，细心的阅读，对人生中宝贵的经验收获不浅。
名利和财富是身外物，
真正的幸福是健康。
我们的生活里必须融入一颗平静的心，
提高自己的察觉力倾听内心的讯息，内心的呼唤。
人生真正的快乐是来自内心，
不是金钱上可以满足的。
当自己有能力时，不管金钱，精神或精力，
帮助有需要的人，减轻他们的痛苦。
人类除了金钱或生活上的富足，
最重要是提升心灵上的富足。
我深深体会心灵成长的路上，需要勇气，平静和智慧。
勇气 - 接受一切事物的发生，
平静 - 面对一切事物的发生，
智慧 - 放下执着，感恩一切的经历。
感恩Dr Richard Teo生前宝贵的生活经验分享.
http://www.heavenaddress.com/Dr-Richard-Teo-Keng-Siang/424153/379719/content
http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?132013-Millionaire-plastic-surgeon-dies-of-cancer-at-age-40
Below
is the transcript of the talk of Dr. Richard Teo, who is a 40-year-old
millionaire and cosmetic surgeon with a stage-4 lung cancer but selflessly came
to share with the D1 class his life experience on 19-Jan-2012.
Hi good morning to all of you. My voice is a bit
hoarse, so please bear with me. I thought I'll just introduce myself. My name
is Richard, I'm a medical doctor. And I thought I'll just share some
thoughts of my life. It's my pleasure to be invited by prof. Hopefully, it can
get you thinking about how... as you pursue this.. embarking on your training
to become dental surgeons, to think about other things as well.
Since young, I am a typical product of today's
society. Relatively successful product that society requires.. From young, I
came from a below average family. I was told by the media... and people around
me that happiness is about success. And that success is about being wealthy.
With this mind-set, I've always be extremely competitive, since I was young.
Not only do I need to go to the top school, I need
to have success in all fields. Uniform groups, track, everything. I needed to
get trophies, needed to be successful, I needed to have colours award, national
colours award, everything. So I was highly competitive since young. I went on
to medical school, graduated as a doctor. Some of you may know that within the
medical faculty, ophthalmology is one of the most highly sought after
specialities. So I went after that as well. I was given a traineeship in
ophthalmology, I was also given a research scholarship by NUS to develop lasers
to treat the eye.
So in the process, I was given 2 patents, one for
the medical devices, and another for the lasers. And you know what, all this
academic achievements did not bring me any wealth. So once I completed my bond
with MOH, I decided that this is taking too long, the training in eye surgery
is just taking too long. And there's lots of money to be made in the private
sector. If you're aware, in the last few years, there is this rise in aesthetic
medicine. Tons of money to be made there. So I decided, well, enough of staying
in institution, it's time to leave. So I quit my training halfway and I went on
to set up my aesthetic clinic... in town, together with a day surgery centre.
You know the irony is that people do not make
heroes out average GP (general practitioner), family physicians. They don't.
They make heroes out of people who are rich and famous. People who are not
happy to pay $20 to see a GP, the same person have no qualms paying ten
thousand dollars for a liposuction, 15 thousand dollars for a breast
augmentation, and so on and so forth. So it's a no brainer isn't? Why do you
want to be a gp? Become an aesthetic physician. So instead of healing the sick
and ill, I decided that I'll become a glorified beautician. So, business was
good, very good. It started off with waiting of one week, then became 3weeks,
then one month, then 2 months, then 3 months. I was overwhelmed; there were
just too many patients. Vanities are fantastic business. I employed one doctor,
the second doctor, the 3rd doctor, the 4th doctor. And within the 1st year,
we're already raking in millions. Just the 1st year. But never is enough
because I was so obsessed with it. I started to expand into Indonesia to
get all the rich Indonesian tai-tais who wouldn't blink an eye to have a
procedure done. So life was really good.
So what do I do with the spare cash. How do I
spend my weekends? Typically, I'll have car club gatherings. I take out my
track car, with spare cash I got myself a track car. We have car club
gatherings. We'll go up to Sepang in Malaysia. We'll go for car racing.
And it was my life. With other spare cash, what do i do? I get myself a
Ferrari. At that time, the 458 wasn't out, it's just a spider convertible, 430.
This is a friend of mine, a schoolmate who is a forex trader, a banker. So he
got a red one, he was wanting all along a red one, I was getting the silver one.
So what do I do after getting a car? It's time to
buy a house, to build our own bungalows. So we go around looking for a land to
build our own bungalows, we went around hunting. So how do i live my life?
Well, we all think we have to mix around with the rich and famous. This is one
of the Miss Universe. So we hang around with the beautiful, rich and famous.
This by the way is an internet founder. So this is how we spend our lives, with
dining and all the restaurants and Michelin Chefs you know.
So I reach a point in life that I got everything
for my life. I was at the pinnacle of my career and all. That's me one year ago
in the gym and I thought I was like, having everything under control and
reaching the pinnacle.
Well, I was wrong. I didn't have everything under
control. About last year March, I started to develop backache in the middle of
nowhere. I thought maybe it was all the heavy squats I was doing. So I went to
SGH, saw my classmate to do an MRI, to make sure it's not a slipped disc or
anything. And that evening, he called me up and said that we found bone marrow
replacement in your spine. I said, sorry what does that mean? I mean I know
what it means, but I couldn't accept that. I was like “Are you serious?” I was
still running around going to the gym you know. But we had more scans the next
day, PET scans - positrons emission scans, they found that actually I have
stage 4 terminal lung cancer. I was like "Whoa where did that come from?”
It has already spread to the brain, the spine, the liver and the adrenals. And
you know one moment I was there, totally thinking that I have everything under
control, thinking that I've reached the pinnacle of my life. But the next
moment, I have just lost it.
This is a CT scan of the lungs itself. If you look
at it, every single dot there is a tumour. We call this miliaries tumour. And
in fact, I have tens of thousands of them in the lungs. So, I was told that
even with chemotherapy, that I'll have about 3-4months at most. Did my life
come crushing on, of course it did, who wouldn't? I went into depression, of
course, severe depression and I thought I had everything.
See the irony is that all these things that I
have, the success, the trophies, my cars, my house and all. I thought that
brought me happiness. But i was feeling really down, having severe depression.
Having all these thoughts of my possessions, they brought me no joy. The
thought of... You know, I can hug my Ferrari to sleep, no... No, it is not
going to happen. It brought not a single comfort during my last ten months. And
I thought they were, but they were not true happiness. But it wasn't. What
really brought me joy in the last ten months was interaction with people, my
loved ones, friends, people who genuinely care about me, they laugh and cry
with me, and they are able to identify the pain and suffering I was going
through. That brought joy to me, happiness. None of the things I have, all the
possessions, and I thought those were supposed to bring me happiness. But it
didn't, because if it did, I would have felt happy think about it, when I was
feeling most down..
You know the classical Chinese New Year that is
coming up. In the past, what do I do? Well, I will usually drive my flashy car
to do my rounds, visit my relatives, to show it off to my friends. And I
thought that was joy, you know. I thought that was really joy. But do you
really think that my relatives and friends, whom some of them have difficulty
trying to make ends meet, that will truly share the joy with me? Seeing me
driving my flashy car and showing off to them? No, no way. They won’t be sharing
joy with me. They were having problems trying to make ends meet, taking public
transport. In fact i think, what I have done is more like you know, making them
envious, jealous of all I have. In fact, sometimes even hatred.
Those are what we call objects of envy. I have
them, I show them off to them and I feel it can fill my own pride and ego. That
didn't bring any joy to these people, to my friends and relatives, and I
thought they were real joy.
Well, let me just share another story with you.
You know when I was about your age, I stayed in king Edward VII hall. I had
this friend whom I thought was strange. Her name is Jennifer, we're still good
friends. And as I walk along the path, she would, if she sees a snail, she
would actually pick up the snail and put it along the grass patch. I was like
why do you need to do that? Why dirty your hands? It’s just a snail. The truth
is she could feel for the snail. The thought of being crushed to death is real
to her, but to me it's just a snail. If you can't get out of the pathway of
humans then you deserve to be crushed, it’s part of evolution isn't it? What an
irony isn't it?
There I was being trained as a doctor, to be
compassionate, to be able to empathise; but I couldn't. As a house officer, I
graduated from medical school, posted to the oncology department at NUH. And,
every day, every other day I witness death in the cancer department. When I see
how they suffered, I see all the pain they went through. I see all the morphine
they have to press every few minutes just to relieve their pain. I see them
struggling with their oxygen breathing their last breath and all. But it was
just a job. When I went to clinic every day, to the wards every day, take
blood, give the medication but was the patient real to me? They weren't real to
me. It was just a job, I do it, I get out of the ward, I can't wait to get
home, I do my own stuff.
Was the pain, was the suffering the patients went
through real? No. Of course I know all the medical terms to describe how they
feel, all the suffering they went through. But in truth, I did not know how
they feel, not until I became a patient. It is until now; I truly understand
how they feel. And, if you ask me, would I have been a very different doctor if
I were to re-live my life now, I can tell you yes I will. Because I truly
understand how the patients feel now. And sometimes, you have to learn it the
hard way.
Even as you start just your first year, and you
embark this journey to become dental surgeons, let me just challenge you on two
fronts.
Inevitably, all of you here will start to go into
private practice. You will start to accumulate wealth. I can guarantee you.
Just doing an implant can bring you thousands of dollars, it's fantastic money.
And actually there is nothing wrong with being successful, with being rich or
wealthy, absolutely nothing wrong. The only trouble is that a lot of us like
myself couldn't handle it.
Why do I say that? Because when I start to
accumulate, the more I have, the more I want. The more I wanted, the more
obsessed I became. Like what I showed you earlier on, all I can was basically
to get more possessions, to reach the pinnacle of what society did to us, of
what society wants us to be. I became so obsessed that nothing else really
mattered to me. Patients were just a source of income, and I tried to squeeze
every single cent out of these patients.
A lot of times we forget, whom we are supposed to
be serving. We become so lost that we serve nobody else but just ourselves.
That was what happened to me. Whether it is in the medical, the dental
fraternity, I can tell you, right now in the private practice, sometimes we
just advise patients on treatment that is not indicated. Grey areas. And even
though it is not necessary, we kind of advocate it. Even at this point, I know
who are my friends and who genuinely cared for me and who are the ones who try
to make money out of me by selling me "hope". We kind of lose our
moral compass along the way. Because we just want to make money.
Worse, I can tell you, over the last few years, we
bad mouth our fellow colleagues, our fellow competitors in the industry. We
have no qualms about it. So if we can put them down to give ourselves an
advantage, we do it. And that's what happening right now, medical, dental everywhere.
My challenge to you is not to lose that moral compass. I learnt it the hard
way, I hope you don't ever have to do it.
Secondly, a lot of us will start to get numb to
our patients as we start to practise. Whether is it government hospitals,
private practice, I can tell you when I was in the hospital, with stacks of
patient folders, I can't wait to get rid of those folders as soon as possible;
I can't wait to get patients out of my consultation room as soon as possible
because there is just so many, and that's a reality. Because it becomes a job,
a very routine job. And this is just part of it. Do I truly know how the
patient feels back then? No, I don't. The fears and anxiety and all, do I truly
understand what they are going through? I don't, not until when this happens to
me and I think that is one of the biggest flaws in our system.
We’re being trained to be healthcare providers,
professional, and all and yet we don't know how exactly they feel. I'm not
asking you to get involved emotionally, I don't think that is professional but
do we actually make a real effort to understand their pain and all? Most of us
won’t, alright, I can assure you. So don't lose it, my challenge to you is to
always be able to put yourself in your patient's shoes.
Because the pain, the anxiety, the fear are very
real even though it's not real to you, it's real to them. So don't lose it and
you know, right now I'm in the midst of my 5th cycle of my chemotherapy. I can
tell you it’s a terrible feeling. Chemotherapy is one of those things that you
don't wish even your enemies to go through because it's just suffering, lousy
feeling, throwing out, you don't even know if you can retain your meals or not.
Terrible feeling! And even with whatever little energy now I have, I try to
reach out to other cancer patients because I truly understand what pain and
suffering is like. But it's kind of little too late and too little.
You guys have a bright future ahead of you with
all the resource and energy, so I’m going to challenge you to go beyond your
immediate patients. To understand that there are people out there who are truly
in pain, truly in hardship. Don’t get the idea that only poor people suffer. It
is not true. A lot of these poor people do not have much in the first place,
they are easily contented. for all you know they are happier than you and me
but there are out there, people who are suffering mentally, physically,
hardship, emotionally, financially and so on and so forth, and they are real.
We choose to ignore them or we just don't want to know that they exist.
So do think about it alright, even as you go on to
become professionals and dental surgeons and all. That you can reach out to
these people who are in need. Whatever you do can make a large difference to
them. I'm now at the receiving end so I know how it feels, someone who
genuinely care for you, encourage and all. It makes a lot of difference to me.
That’s what happens after treatment. I had a treatment recently, but I’ll leave
this for another day. A lot of things happened along the way, that's why I am
still able to talk to you today.
I'll just end of with this quote here, it's from
this book called Tuesdays with Morris, and some of you may have read it.
Everyone knows that they are going to die; every one of us knows that. The
truth is, none of us believe it because if we did, we will do things differently.
When I faced death, when I had to, I stripped myself off all stuff totally and
I focused only on what is essential. The irony is that a lot of times, only
when we learn how to die then we learn how to live. I know it sounds very
morbid for this morning but it's the truth, this is what I’m going through.
Don’t let society tell you how to live. Don’t let
the media tell you what you're supposed to do. Those things happened to me. And
I led this life thinking that these are going to bring me happiness. I hope
that you will think about it and decide for yourself how you want to live your
own life. Not according to what other people tell you to do, and you have to
decide whether you want to serve yourself, whether you are going to make a
difference in somebody else's life. Because true happiness doesn't come from
serving yourself. I thought it was but it didn't turn out that way. With that I
thank you, if you have any questions you have for me, please feel free. Thank
you.
