Dr. Poonam Zore, is truly an inspiration, through the way she
lives her life. She has an unquenchable willingness to serve people, to stand
up strong and fight for what she believes in and puts in copious amounts of
hard work to accomplish whatever she sets her mind to. When asked, what her
motivation behind pursuing an MBBS was, she replied, “When I was young,
everybody asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up ? In fact, I’m the
youngest one, and I have 5 older siblings, I would always say that ‘I want to
be a doctor’, there’s no particular motivation as such, I just want to be
someone wh was respected, I wanted to create a name for myself.” A support
system is vital to any student trying to achieve their dreams, speaking about
her support system, she said, “My biggest support for me was my father, he’s
sadly no more, he passed away last year. Both, her father and her mother were
avid supporters, however she goes on to say, “My father was different, he
literally supported me in everything I’ve ever done in my life, I had to go
through a lot of obstacles, one of which required me to go to court because
somebody took my seat, faking an OBC certificate, so I went to the high court,
fought a case and won and was able to take admissions. Through all of this, my
father was my biggest motivation and my biggest support”. Talking about some of
the obstacles along the way, she mentioned, “My parents are not literate, when
you have literate people in your family you can depend on them, they will tell
you what to do next , so that was not there for me, but other support like
emotional support and mental support were there for me”. There is no doubt that
she worked tremendously hard, all on her own. She made the topics interesting
and easy and tried to understand it rather than just remembering it for the
sake of learning. She is still working hard at her internship in the ward.
Talking about her plans for the future she said, “As of now, I’ve just
completed my MBBS, and I want to render my service to the people in need. It is
not that I want to do an MBBS in this or an MBBS in that, I just want to be a
good doctor, wherever it is I just want to be a good doctor”. Any advice she’d
like to give to younger less privileged students wanting to pursue an MBBS, she
replied, “We all have dreams but you need to put in hard work and
determination, if you really want it, you will get it. You won’t get it by
being in one place and saying that you want to do this or that.”
Shivani
Mote, a doctor from the Sattari taluka smiled with joy as she reminisced about
her journey passing the MBBS. When asked, what was the driving force that led
her to go down this path, she meekly said, “When I was small, it was my dream
to become a doctor, so I worked hard and got admission in Goa Medical College,
thereafter pursued an MBBS degree”. When asked about the hurdles she had to
overcome, she said studying constantly was a bit of a challenge, there were
days, during a festival or a family function, wherein she didn’t particularly
feel like studying, but ‘consistency is key’ and she stayed back in her hostel
and did it anyway. Speaking about the way in which she overcame all her
obstacles, she summed it up in three words, “never giving up.” She was indeed
grateful for her support system, who backed her up, and supported her
endlessly, speaking about it she said, “My mummy and papa, along with my
friends supported me along the way.” Indeed, their support played a huge part
in getting that MBBS degree. Pursuing an MBBS, is no joke, you need to study
rigorously and give it your best shot she said, “When my exam was 2-3 months
away, I would get up at 4am in the morning and study till 12pm in the night,
with breaks in between obviously. My friends used to study during the night but
I preferred studying during the course of the day, so I used to go to sleep
early at around 11:30 pm and wake up at 4am the next day.” That was not all,
she didn’t go for tuitions, but rather learnt everything by herself, “I had my
lecturer’s notes, my books and of course YouTube” she joked. For anyone who
thought achieving such a feat was ‘a piece of cake’ should follow her story.
She said, “My journey was difficult along the way, but I never thought that I
would not be able to do this, I would always tell myself, ‘I can do it, I will
do it’, I used to motivate myself , I would not seek for motivation from the
outside, from any other people, I told myself that I had to do it and that I
would do it” she said. Currently, she is doing an internship at GMC, based on
what fields she’s good at, she will pursue those accordingly in the future.
