White Coats and Wounded Dreams

White Coats and Wounded Dreams

The Unseen Struggles Behind the Stethoscope – A Doctor’s Journey from Despair to Determination

By Dr. Marwan

I never imagined that my dreams would one day be stitched into a white coat. The journey to that moment, though, was not painted in the gleaming whites of hospital halls. It was bathed in the dark shades of hunger, hopelessness, and an unrelenting fire to prove I was meant for more.

I was born in a one-room house in a congested corner of the city where the sound of ambulances became our lullaby, and the flicker of candles during load shedding was our only nightlight. My father was a rickshaw driver, my mother a silent warrior, stitching clothes day and night just to keep food on our table. In those days, hospitals felt like palaces I could never walk into, and doctors felt like gods.

And yet, I wanted to be one.

The first time I voiced that dream, a classmate laughed. “Doctors don’t come from broken shoes,” he mocked, pointing to my torn sandals. I laughed too—because if I didn’t, I’d cry. But that night, I cried enough for a lifetime. I remember standing in front of the cracked mirror, whispering to myself, “You will prove them wrong.”

And so began my battle.

The Days That Burned Me to Shape

I studied under streetlights when the electricity gave up. I read used medical books donated by kind strangers. I walked miles to tuition centers, often on an empty stomach. My mother sold her wedding bangles so I could buy a second-hand stethoscope. I remember the day she gave it to me—it was wrapped in an old scarf, like a sacred gift. She didn’t say much, but her eyes said everything: “I believe in you.”

There were days when I nearly quit. When rejections from scholarships came, when friends from wealthier backgrounds breezed through classes while I struggled to keep up, when I failed a semester and thought my dream had died.

But it hadn’t.

It was merely resting.

One day, during my final year, I fainted in the hospital hallway. The diagnosis? Severe anemia from skipping too many meals. My professor pulled me aside. “You have the mind of a doctor,” he said, “but you're treating yourself worse than a patient. Don’t let your body give up before your soul wins.”

That changed something in me.

I started valuing my life as much as I did my dream.

A Doctor is Born—But Not Without Scars

I graduated with trembling hands and tear-filled eyes. My name was called during the convocation, and my mother stood in the front row, wearing her only good dress, clapping like the world was hers. And in that moment—it was.

My white coat didn’t come from luxury, it came from pain. Every thread was a story of sacrifice. Every stitch a scar I was proud to wear.

As a doctor now, I treat people not as numbers but as humans—because I know what it feels like to be invisible. I sit a little longer with patients who look anxious. I smile at those who seem lost. And I never forget to thank the cleaning staff—because once, my father cleaned hospital floors just so I could stand here one day.

Lessons from the Shadows

People often ask me what drives me.

It's the memory of my mother praying quietly during exam nights.

It's the silence of empty dinners I skipped.

It's the ghost of a boy who once stared through hospital glass wondering if he could ever belong.

And now, he does.

I’ve treated hundreds of patients. Delivered babies. Held the hands of the dying. Celebrated recoveries. And through it all, I never stopped being grateful.

Because I know that dreams like mine don’t just come true—they’re built, brick by painful brick.

Today, I Write to You

To the young boy reading this who thinks his dream is too big.

To the girl who feels like the world forgot her.

To the son of a rickshaw driver, or the daughter of a seamstress.

This is your sign.

You are not too small for this world.

You are the fire it desperately needs.

Wear your pain like armor. Carry your struggle like a badge. And walk through the doors they told you were closed.

Because if I can stand here today—not as a miracle, but as a man who simply never gave up—then so can you.

Signed,
Dr. Marwan