Dr Ruth Cunningham
Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity.”
― Hippocrates
When I was finishing high school in the early 1990s and considering what to do next, several teachers and friends of my parents suggested that studying medicine might allow me to balance my interests and aptitudes in both art and science subjects, as well as offering a multitude of rewarding career opportunities.
And so I enrolled at Otago, hoping to be accepted to medical school, but wanting to keep my options open and excited by the opportunity to try new disciplines such as philosophy. In my first year I was able to study medieval history, modernist literature, epistemology and logic alongside the compulsory papers required. Other potential doctors around me studied anthropology, psychology, mathematics, Māori, even law.
On the bookmark inside 
Just on two years ago I got the phone call I didn’t want, that my dear friend Alison was close to passing away. Would I like to join her family sitting in vigil as she slept? Of course. That was hard to do, though, to walk into her bedroom and see her parents, her husband, her three children, a couple of other friends and a minister seated around her bed, all quietly focused on her. She lay curled up like a child, breathing deeply, seemingly oblivious to my presence. I didn’t know quite what to do. Conversation seemed inane.