Chapter 16:

Expectation vs Reality

Seeking Utopia


“Why do you want to go that badly anyways?” Asks Elena while she was sitting with Sonata at the cafeteria having lunch.

Sonata’s eyes widened-as if she was surprised to hear such a question from her friend.

“I mean…you’re not scared?”

“If I was scared of some unknown disease I would not have chosen Pathology as the specialty to pursue.”

“Well yes, of course…But we are still only students. Do you think you’d be able to contribute in this situation?”

Sonata takes a deep breath and exhales. “Sure-maybe I am in a rush, and perhaps I’d be more of a burden to the team…but at least its more interesting than just reading stuff from a screen. I’m feeling a little stuffy in here. It’s not quite what I was expecting going into this field.”

Elena nods slowly, she could relate to her friend; especially regarding expectations.

After the short break, Sonata heads back to the lab. Sits at her desk facing a wide Computer screen. She scans her notes briefly then lies back on her chair, looking up at the ceiling. Hari has given me a lot of studying to do… she thought. Sure, she enjoys reading about diseases and illnesses, but she thought by now she would have exposure to some real field work. Occasionally she would be involved in lab tests but most of that work can now be done by machines and AI.

She closes her eyes, then remembers her younger self from 10 years ago. Her father, Dr. Griffin, would come home late nearly every day. She would sneak into his office at home and take a peek at what he was working on. He eventually noticed her interest in his work, so he invited her to sit beside him and would teach her something new every time. That’s when Sonata knew she was going to pursue medicine just like her father. Not only did she find it thrilling; investigating the cause of an illness and finding a cure for it, but she also wanted to save people.

What she had come to realize is that with time, as technology advanced, the nature of many jobs changed drastically. In this current age, an AI would scan any symptoms on the body and generate a report on the illness or disease behind this; as well as other details such as the cause and treatment. Which was not the case back during her father’s time, as this technology was still under development. The job now is more about feeding the AI information-as the database is not complete. However, it would not be too long before the profession is slowly being taken over by AI as they are also testing machine learning now to come up with a diagnosis by linking different pieces of information together. It can even come up with suggestions on how to create a medicine or drug based on that information. “I mean it would be much more faster and accurate but…” she said to herself in a low voice. “I guess people were right. Maybe I shouldn’t have pursued this field…” She looks at a picture on her desk of her and the family. Her gaze landed on her father, who was standing next to her in the photo. “What do you think? Should I continue pursuing my passion…or should I be more realistic?”

While she was deep in thought, a notification pops up on her screen. It’s from Hari. Is it to do with the research team… or does he need my help on a boring task again? She wonders as she hesitates to open the message for a few seconds. Eventually she does, and as she scans through the message she freezes. A smile drew on her face.