The Afterlife

Congratulations, formal postgrad is done and dusted. 

You are free…. Or are you ?

Are you still in the Matrix?

Some days, life does feel like being in The Matrix—before Neo ever realises the world around him isn’t real. You wake up, go through the motions, tick the boxes, say the right things, pass the next invisible test. Exams lead to more exams. Registration leads to more credentialing. Training ends, but assessment quietly mutates into new forms. Everything functions, everything looks normal, yet something feels off—as if you are moving through a system designed to keep you compliant, busy, and perpetually proving your worth. You sense that there must be more, but you can’t quite see where the illusion ends and real life begins.

And then, gradually, the cracks appear. Like Neo, you begin to understand (or not) that the structure you thought was life was only one version of it—and that stepping outside it doesn’t mean failure or retreat, but awakening.

In that same line of thought- Life after registrar training feels strangely quiet in Mauritius.

In South Africa, training was intense, relentless, and consuming. Days blurred into nights in theatres that never seemed to sleep. Trauma calls came without warning and every shift felt like a test of skill, stamina, judgment and how much coffee can you ingest before you potentially arrest from it. There was always another airway to manage, another sick patient to stabilise, another exam to prepare for. Life revolved around milestones— the next rotation, the next exam, the next degree, the MMed submission.

As Lucas Scott says in One Tree Hill, “It’s the journey that matters. In the end, no matter how far you’ve gone, or how much you’ve changed, it always comes down to the same thing.”

For years, anaesthesia felt like a never-ending cycle of assessment. Exams to enter training. Exams to survive training. Exams to finish training. Exams to register. Exams to be recognised. Exams to secure a government specialist post. Even when the formal exams end, the assessments never really stop. Anaesthesia teaches you quickly that competence is constantly scrutinised, often silently, and almost never acknowledged.

Training was exhausting, and you felt both alive and dead. You felt useful. You felt needed. You felt part of something big and urgent. But it also taught you something quieter and more enduring: that life in anaesthesia is not about doing complex cases on a routine, regular basis. It is about mastering the fundamentals—perfecting your technique, making safe and thoughtful decisions, and being dependable when things are simple as much as when they are difficult. You learned from people who had worked for years in systems with fewer resources, fewer drugs, and less equipment to rely on, and who compensated not with ego but with judgment and experience. You learned how to adapt, how to problem-solve with what was available, and how to keep your ego in check—because, as Albus Dumbledore tells Harry, “It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Back in Mauritius, the pace slows dramatically. Work is safer, more predictable, more controlled. Emergencies are fewer, pathology is often lighter. A stab heart is actually a once in a blue moon (or never) phenomenon. Thyroid storm? Unheard of. On paper, this is what balance is supposed to look like. Yet after years of intensity, that calm can feel unsettling. The adrenaline fades. The urgency dissolves. Days feel quieter, almost too still.

There is also a loss of direction. For so long, life was about progression—exam to exam, degree to degree, training to completion. And now, inevitably, the question arises: what next? It becomes clear that anaesthesia training was never the destination. It was a chapter. A path. As Gandalf reminds Frodo, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

This phase brings a humbling realisation. Inside the hospital, as a doctor—especially an anaesthetist—it is easy to feel essential, even indispensable. Decisions matter. Outcomes depend on you. But outside those walls, perspective shifts. You are just another human being in a vast world, a small point in a very large universe.

Hindu philosophy captures this humility through Krishna’s words to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: “You have the right to perform your duty, but not to the fruits of your actions.” What you do matters—but clinging to its importance does not.

The Quran echoes the same truth of impermanence: “Every soul shall taste death.” When that moment comes, the world will not pause. Theatre lists will continue. Hospitals will function. The sun will rise. The world will go on.

Strangely, that knowledge is not depressing—it is freeing for most of us.

Because this phase of life finally offers what training never could: time. Time to reflect. Time to choose your path consciously rather than chase the next assessment. Time to realise that being a doctor is part of your identity, not the sum of it.

There is time now for family—for proper dinners instead of hurried meals, for conversations not interrupted by calls. Time to care for your health, neglected for years in the name of training. Time to repair relationships that survived on understanding rather than presence. As the Bhagavad Gita also teaches, again through Krishna, “He who is balanced in pleasure and pain is fit for immortality.”

The boredom then, isn’t emptiness—it is space. Space to heal, to ground yourself, to remember who you are beyond your professional title. It is a quieter kind of richness, one that doesn’t announce itself with urgency or adrenaline, but grows through balance and perspective.

Life after registrar training in Mauritius may feel boring, but it is honest. It strips away illusion, urgency, ego, and the endless cycle of assessment. It reminds you that medicine is important—but it is not everything. That excellence matters—but so does humility. And that in a very big world, being a good doctor is meaningful, but being a whole human being matters more.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid ones are cocksure and the intelligent ones are full of doubt.

But well, being a pretentious prick just because you are a ‘specialist’ or ‘consultant’ in your field should also work well. The world is anyway full of them.

So, instead of being the black sheep, you can follow the crowd. Do not blame God when your head bumps into the ass full of shit of the donkey in front of you.

You always have a choice- a clear head or one full of shit.