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#Post#: 103--------------------------------------------------
What is true happiness in life?
DIR By: Admin
Date: June 13, 2013, 1:22 am
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Sharing with you today is a speech from Dr. Richard Teo, a
highly successful and wealthy cosmetic surgen in Singapore.
While at his peak of wealth and health (he exercised a lot to
maintain a great body and health, see pictures at the end of
this post), he felt backache out of no-where, then he was
diagnosed with stage-4 of lung cancer, which he could only live
a few months left.
In his speech, he shared his experiences of becoming a really
successful surgen doctor and his realization of what is true
happiness in life: not wealth, not beautiful cars, not beautiful
houses, but the sharing, helping, and caring of family members,
friends and people around.
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Speech was delivered on 19-January-2012 at a medical school in
Singapore. He passed away on 18-October-2012 (40 years old, born
in 1972). The sound is not too good so you may have to turn
maximum your volume.
[html]<iframe width="100%" height="500"
src="
HTML http://www.youtube.com/embed/9gO5m6luIKE?feature=player_embedded"<br
/>frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/html]
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Below is a transcript of his talk from the video above.
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.
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Dr. Richard also delivered another speech to a group in a church
sharing the same experiences as above, adding his experience
with God:
“Trust in the Lord your God with all your heart – this is so
important.”
[right]Speech submitted by Eugene[/right]
Dr. Richard Teo Photos:
[center]
HTML http://academictips.org/blogs/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/Dr-Richard-Teo-150x150.jpghttp://academictips.org/blogs/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/Dr-Richard-Teo-6-pack-muscles-150x150.jpghttp://academictips.org/blogs/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/Dr-Richard-Teo-Ferrari-150x150.jpghttp://academictips.org/blogs/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/Dr-Richard-Teo-House-150x150.jpg[/center]
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