"On my own..."

Dr. Roni Baticulon writes about the challenges of being a first-generation doctor. If you're in the medical field, you should really bookmark his site.

Being a first-generation doctor, I had to start from scratch. My parents are not doctors. No one among my immediate maternal and paternal relatives is a doctor. My family cannot afford to buy shares of stocks in private hospitals. After finishing specialty and subspecialty training, I did not have a clinic to take over and neither did I have practice privileges waiting to be used. As to which course my neurosurgical career would take, whether things would pan out after I obtained my diplomate certificate at the end of last year, there was no way to be certain. Where to begin? How to begin? I was on my own.