Accepted!

Introduction

When I was 15 I bumped into my school valedictorian on a train.

It was a chance meeting, but I took the opportunity to say hello, given the guy was my academic role model and being valedictorian—or as we called it dux—at King's was on my list of high school ambitions.

We stood and chatted as the train rocked and my backpack pulled on my shoulders and bumped into the back of another book-laden kid standing behind me.

I didn't say much, mostly listened, and if you asked me now exactly what this older kid said to me, I couldn't tell you.

But what I do know is that, when I got on that train I had my future all figured out: valedictorian, high school graduation, medicine at the University of Auckland. But by the time I got off, my ...