Yesterday, I attended the Open House of NTU. This is an annual event when the university is open to the public to introduce various colleges, variety of courses and exciting campus life. The booth of Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine is one of the most popular spots for thousands of students and parents, coming to enquire about the admissions criteria, selection process and medical profession as a career.

There was a student who said, “I would like to do Forensic Medicine.” I asked, “Why?”. “I want to investigate the cause of death and find out the underlying evidence of an act of crime…?” I replied, “I see, fan of CSI!”

There were parents who asked,

“What is your lowest score for shortlisting?”

“Would IB be considered?”

“How many percentage of students admitted are boys, and how many are girls?”

My response, “We accept students from different paths, be it JC, IB schools, polytechnics, etc. We take into account academic merit, and we look for the right aptitude as we emphasise the importance of empathy and maturity.”

One polytechnic student asked, “I took the nursing diploma in polytechnic, and now I find that I don’t want to be a nurse. I would prefer to be a medical doctor”. My response was, “Both doctors and nurses play a central role in healthcare. We welcome graduates from polytechnics, and we do like nursing graduates, because they are mature and I find that they know more about the nature of the job of a healthcare professional.”

At the Open House, one of our Assistant Deans, Professor Tham Kum Ying gave a one-hour talk introducing the LKCMedicine MBBS curriculum. When the talk was over, a student came to me and asked,  “Do you have a course on Work-Life-Balance?” I paused for a second and said, “We do not have a course just on Work-Life-Balance. But we do know that it’s important to have a balanced life. There are healthcare providers experiencing burnout and exhausted. Some do not like to work on night shifts. Others hate to be on-call on weekends. And some feel that carrying a mobile phone or pagers (in the old days) is stressful. However, we are aware that occasionally, a patient may need us during odd and inconvenient hours.”

Undoubtedly, the medical profession is a demanding job. Although I’ve been in this job for over 40 years, I still remember what my Professor of Medicine told me on Day 1 of my internship, “You would have to be there when your patient needs you”. As the 40 years went by,  I gradually realise what that means.

Consider this: A surgeon is at the operating room working on a complicated surgery. I don’t think he or she should walk away at 5pm leaving the surgery to somebody else (usually his/her junior). For me, even while I’m resting at home on a relaxing Saturday afternoon, I don’t mind receiving a phone call from the hospital telling me that one of my patients’ condition deteriorated and needs my help. When I am at the labour ward, helping a  pregnant patient delivering her baby, I will stay behind until the job is done to see to it that the baby is breathing normally and the body warms up.

In fact, I would feel accomplished if I were to finish a complicated surgery, removed a tumour, stopped the bleeding and close the wound of a patient, whether it’s 11pm at night or midnight. I know that I would have done something innovative or saved a patient’s life. I will have no regrets, if after taking a phone call, I find that I could make a sensible diagnosis that would have helped some patients in the ICU. I would be happy to endure many sleepless nights if my research were to discover the source of a virus that leads to a pandemic, endangering the lives of tens of thousands of people.

This is perhaps not exactly Work-Life-Balance, but more like  Work-Life-Integration. If work makes my life more fulfilling, and somebody’s life more comfortable, why not?