Very profound thoughts of a
person - who is close to the end of his Life -
Real Meaning of
Success
MAKING MONEY IS NOT
EVERYTHING.
Born in Singapore on 29 February
1972
Passed away in Singapore on 18 October 2012
Aged 40 years
Condition: Lung Cancer
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 3 weeks, 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
empathies; 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.
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