There is a version of becoming a doctor that Pakistan loves to celebrate.

A student studies relentlessly, enters medical college, survives five years of examinations and clinical rotations, completes house job, and eventually builds a prestigious life. It is a chapter in the book of respect, but it is also incomplete. We have become reckless in romanticising medicine while remaining deaf to discussing what happens after the white coat is earned.

Medical education is often presented as a journey of idolisation, sacrifice and eventual stability. Social media adds another glorification: photographs in white coats, hospital corridors, graduation ceremonies and carefully curated stories of success.

But what happens after graduation? That is where the romance of medicine ends. For many young doctors, reality means long working hours, exhausting night duties, postgraduate training, emotional burnout, financial uncertainty, delayed salaries, inadequate facilities and concerns about personal safety. Recent reporting........

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