I took BCME in JC. I think there is a common misconception that Biology students will have an edge in Medicine compared to Physics students. However, there is no need to worry as both Biology and Physics students will not be disadvantaged in Medicine!

As for extracurriculars, I did:

• Youth For Causes (YFC) in support of the Singapore Association for Mental Health: Mental health was an area that is close to my heart and it was actually one of the main motivations behind my decision to pursue Medicine.
• Chinese Orchestra Welfare Coordinator: I think that Medicine is ultimately a caring art and this role of taking care of all my teammates prepared me for the future.
• Unrelated, but I also did Singapore Youth Flying Club!

During JC, I knew I was interested in mental health, but was undecided between medicine and psychology. I only started to put serious thought about what I wanted to do after A-Levels. To help me make a better decision, I interned and took a few work attachments to further understand both fields.

I interned at A*STAR and did a hospital attachment at NUH. My internship at A*STAR showed me how bad I was at pipetting and that perhaps working in a wet lab was not where I see myself in five years. (Though kudos to those researchers who do this work!). Originally, I wanted to pursue Clinical Psychology if I studied Psychology, and thought that this internship would help me understand if i had a future in clinical psychology research. However, I soon realised that I didn’t really enjoy it and this field isn’t for me.

During my hospital attachment, I gained a deeper appreciation of the work of a doctor and what goes into the care of patients. The work I saw there cemented my desire to pursue medicine as a career.

Outside of my work and internship, I also talked to psychology professors and doctors and sought their opinion on their careers. They helped me get a better understanding of the pros and sons of each career. Ultimately, I concluded that Medicine was where I wanted to be.

Combines the Science and the Arts

Medicine, to me, is a very nice combination of the Sciences and the Arts. In addition, Medicine involves patient care and communicating with patients, which is something I enjoy doing. Science has always been something I could do well in and the human communication aspect made it all the more ideal.

Work Attachments + Talk to Experts

I would definitely recommend going on work attachments. It doesn’t have to be very long; it can be a few days in the field you want to work in, just to know what the day to day life is like in that field. What you watch in dramas and hear from other people may often be inaccurate/outdated.

I would strongly recommend juniors to take on internship programmes and talk to more people within the field to understand more about the career. If that is not possible, the next best alternative is to talk to someone who is in the field; for example, meet up with a doctor if you are interested in the career (don’t paiseh!)

I don’t think there is any one type of person who is “cut out” for Medicine. I think doctors can be many types of people, but I think that it is worth thinking about whether this is the career you are looking for before you commit. Also, you should explore the different types of careers, to make a more informed decision.

It will depend! There are certain people who get used to it and some others who don’t. It is definitely an important consideration. Before you join Medicine, it is important to think about whether this is something you want to accept in your life, and whether it is something you would be willing to adapt to.

Personally, when I first started, I was the kind of person who would look away and was not super comfortable with gore. But I feel that when I’m learning, it gets easier to focus on the task on hand. However, my experience may not reflect that of others.

On the topic of Anatomy Halls, NUS does a very good orientation session in terms of preparing us on how to treat the silent mentors (donated bodies) with respect, and what to expect going into Anatomy labs. That helped to get me oriented.

I think everyone going in, we all start off not knowing what to expect.. But over the course of the sessions, we got more comfortable with learning from the silent mentors.

If you want to be a doctor, this is one of the things you have to get used to. You might not like everything about your career, or there might be stuff in your job that you are not as comfortable with. But being committed to a career means that you will do whatever it takes to learn and adapt to it.

The honest answer? I was a young 18-year-old child who didn’t really know. I think at that age, it is hard to make a decision on the next decade of your life.

I would like to share a quote though, “Making a commitment simply means falling in love with something, and then building a structure of behaviour around it that will carry you through when your love falters.” – David Brooks. I really like this quote.

I think 10 years is a lot and I think that everyone should consider all their options before signing up for something for 10 years – because people can change a lot in these 10 years. But I think that once you have decided to make that commitment, this quote helps remind me that even though it’s a long journey, building the habit of commitment would help pull me through.

Don’t put so much stress on yourself. Choosing your major is not the end of the world. It will not define how the rest of your life is going to look. Yes, it will define a significant amount of the next few years of your life, but at the end of the day, you can still chart your life goals beyond just your major.

Don’t be fixated on the timeline you have to make your decision. If you really don’t know what you want to do, spare the time to take a gap year, or a few months to try out different careers and see which one resonates with you the most.

Consider what you are good at. Sometimes we think about what we like, which is something hard to quantify. But thinking about what you enjoy doing can help make it clearer on which major you want to choose.

I would repeat what a mentor shared with me. When you are deciding between 2 courses, it is important to weigh both the pros and cons. For me, I wrote down ‘Medicine’ and ‘Psych’ – then I had columns of different categories with some factors (like nature of work, personal interest, work-life balance, career progression, understanding the field, etc.)

Logical Factors

I listed a bunch of criteria, and compared which was better for each field of study. I guess this is the more logical way of doing it. At the end of the day, you probably can figure out which is the better option for you, at least for the logical part of decision making.

Emotional Factors

The second aspect to weighing is emotional. Sometimes, there is probably one option which you are more inclined towards. So after you weigh your factors, you touch your heart and think if this is something you really want to be doing, and decide whether the risks are worth it.

As much as this advice is cliche, you should just be genuine and be yourself. If you are the right fit, they would be able to tell and take you in. If you are not the right fit or if you get rejected, it doesn’t mean that you are not a good candidate, it would just mean that maybe Medicine may not be the most suitable course for you. Even if they were to let you in, you may be unhappy doing it because you might realise it’s the wrong fit.

So I feel that for the interview, being yourself would save you the trouble of being unhappy in the future. You would want them to accept you for who you are 🙂

During JC

I would recommend being proactive in what you want to do. Sometimes you can be caught up in the whole “preparation for A Levels thing” but I think it is always good to have something you are passionate about/something you dedicate your time to. It can be anything that you are interested in really: you can Volunteer at MPS, or at an Animal Shelter if you like pets, and so on!

Before the Interview

Definitely have some sort of experience in the Medical Field to give you a perspective of what the Medical field will be like. It is important to know what you are getting yourself into and it will be clear to the interviewers that you actually did your background research. Also, be excited and enthusiastic about being a doctor 🙂

I personally think that it is important to know exactly what you are getting yourself into and understand what life is like in the career. There are definitely people who don’t have any real understanding of the Medical field who eventually get into Medicine and end up liking it but it would be better to know what’s in it for you for the future.

For guys who are busy with NS, you don’t need a very long time at the hospital, it can be just a few days at your own GP clinic to attach during your weekend/talk to doctors via Zoom!

You can check out the main details on the school website at https://nusmedicine.nus.edu.sg/admissions-medicine/undergraduate.

M3 Elective

For the M3 (one month) elective programme, you can choose to do anything you are interested in (it can be Med/Non-Med related overseas). There are people who get their diving licence, work on a farm in New Zealand, or even do volunteer work in Animal Conservation!

M4 Elective

For the M4 (two months) elective programme, it has to be medicine related. You can choose to stay local and study an area of Medicine you are interested or go overseas (e.g. Harvard Med Programme/Rural Attachments in Nepal/India).

Currently, the government is moving away from specialists to generalists, so not everyone would need to specialise.

You would go through rotations from M3 to M5 and this is when people find out what they want to specialise in. You might think you hate surgery, yet end up doing surgery in the end; so no need to be too worried/fixated on your specialisation yet.

Rotation in M3-M5 gives you an opportunity to understand the different departments and this is especially relevant for students who don’t know what they want to specialise in.

A typical day for me as a pre-clinical student would look like:

• Going for lectures and gaining foundational knowledge;
• After lessons, I worked on a project called the “Neighbourhood Health Service” where we work on providing free health screening and follow-up for residents from low-income households and reconnect them with the healthcare system.

I personally did a lot of things in Medical School in my pre-clinical years; I planned freshmen orientation activities, participated in Medical Society Activities and volunteered in my free time!

Joining CIP Projects are definitely very big in Medicine and you can find one you resonate with. I personally found it a very meaningful way to spend my time.

In retrospect, I would encourage students to explore more out of Medicine. These opportunities may not come as easily but I think it is good and I wished I would have done that 🙂 For example, I have friends who were involved in other NUS CCAs/Halls/RCs and they managed to juggle these activities well.

We have both MCQs and Essays. If you do consistent studying, you would do well! CAs are there to ensure you study consistently, so if you do so you should be fine. The first two years of NUS Medicine are also pass/fail.

I would say compared to JC, Medicine has much less rote memorisation. There is a lot of content in Medicine, so it is important to categorise and understand what you learn. Blindly memorising might have worked in JC but definitely not in Medicine.

In addition, for Medicine, there is lots of consistent studying that needs to be done. In JC I had this bad habit where I would study 2 weeks before the exams, but I don’t recommend doing this in Medicine unless you want to majorly stress yourself out!

For the first 2 years, there are a lot of lecture tutorials, regular anatomy/histology labs. There are also times where you go to the hospital to talk to patients (to practice patient communication skills) and polyclinic attachments to familiarise yourself with the healthcare system.

This changes in clinical years where you would spend a lot of time at the hospitals, learning on the job!

I think your workload really depends [on a couple of factors]. It depends on how many extracurriculars you take up, and how much time you want to dedicate to studying. I am a huge advocate of studying smart: especially in Medicine, it is important to figure out what study method works for you. Everyone has their own studying method, so do what works for you.

In terms of workload, things can definitely get busy if you choose to take up a lot of commitments outside and within school. One thing I definitely learned was that you should allocate time for rest!

I usually spend my leisure time with family and friends – I would have my meals and spend the weekends with them.

I think you should experiment with different studying styles, and in the first few months decide which one works the best for you. For me, what worked the best was Active Recall. I recommend using Anki Flashcards.

I am also a very kinaesthetic learner so I like to write notes/content that are important to help me remember information.

Lastly, consult your seniors – look for seniors whom you think match your learning style and ask them how they study. There are a lot of seniors you will meet in Medicine to learn from 🙂

I haven’t started clinical years but my favourite topic from non-clinical years was Physiology: I enjoy how logical everything is. It teaches me about how your body works (Physiology is learning about the normal functioning of living things and their parts).

I really did not like Biochemistry. There was just too much memorisation haha.

Yes, but mostly with other people in the healthcare field. You will have opportunities to interact with nursing students and other healthcare professionals. There is not much opportunity to engage with people beyond the healthcare field, so you need to take initiative to learn modules from other faculties (eg. you can take a module from FASS, Business, RCs) – but this is worth it and you should consider it!

If you stay on campus, there are definitely opportunities for you to know people beyond NUS Medicine. That being said, it really depends on who and where you choose to spend your time. In the clinical years, you get to meet people from other medical schools. There are also a few interest groups/projects where you engage with people from other schools.

Internationally, there is this organisation called SiMSA Singapore (Singapore Medical Students’ Association). You can check them out online! They organise opportunities for you to meet international Medical students. I personally have not attended one before but I have peers who have attended it and gave good reviews. It is quite common for students to attend their conferences!

I didn’t really go in with much expectations and went in with an open mind. I feel that it’s better not to have too many expectations because it can often lead to a mismatch and disappointment. But I think one thing that is good to expect is that you would need to work hard and there are often long hours that come with the job.

There’re so many!

• Don’t join Medicine if you want to earn money.
• Doctors have a good/chill life: As a junior doctor, there is quite a significant workload, and if you are not willing to dedicate that time, you should reconsider your choice. (But if you are, it will be a very fulfilling career! )
• You have to be super smart to be in Medicine: You don’t. It’s much more about consistency and diligence and usually no matter how smart you are, if you can’t communicate with patients it means nothing.

Good characteristics:

• Resilience: Medicine is like a marathon, the people who do the best are the ones who know themselves and are willing to work hard consistently and not give up halfway
• Willingness to work hard
• Kindness
• Compassion

Unsuitable characteristics:

• Selfishness: Medicine is a profession in which you help people 🙂
• Rudeness
• Arrogance: Medicine is about working in a team, not about who is the smartest in the room. No one likes talking to people full of themselves, even if they are really smart – patients certainly do not like that!

I think Medicine is a very iron-bowl career, even during economic downturns or uncertainty there are still jobs for doctors – hence in this aspect that’s good. That being said, emerging technologies and the medical need of Singapore will led to a changing nature of jobs (eg. AI and tele-health can change the nature of Medical careers), the need for more community-based doctors for the ageing population. Thus I feel that as much as Medicine may be a stable career choice, just be aware that how the job looks like in the future may not be the same as how the job looks like now.

Singapore is looking for more doctors to work in the community (working in general fields), so specialising may not be an option for the future/not something you need to do.

Currently, I am interested in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, or Psychiatry. But I know a lot of people change their specialty choice halfway through clinical postings, so it’s okay not to know what you want to do.

I am not qualified to answer this because I haven’t experienced it myself. That being said, I don’t think that being a doctor means that you will have to deal with death every single day. It depends on which field you work in. For instance, if you become a GP, you would deal with death less on a daily basis.

I stayed in Tembusu RC for one semester, but I left after one semester due to purely my poor lack of time management, and also the fact that I live closer to school from home compared to Tembusu (travel time wise).

I think the experience at Tembusu was really great. Even though it was only 1 semester, I really enjoyed my time there. I got to interact with people from other faculties (who I still keep in touch with) and also got to experience the Uni life like attending many cool talks/forums that are super interesting.
My poor time management was due to the fact that I wanted to try many things early on. I took up too many commitments than what was wise to take on.

My advice is to decide what you want to take on and not overwhelm yourself. I was glad that I decided to let go of Tembusu because it was only after leaving Tembusu that I could focus more time on my other projects. Another reason was that while trying to juggle everything, I also didn’t get to spend much family time, especially meal times.

The people here are driven. Everyone is passionate about the things they do, and they put in a lot of effort and time into these projects while juggling the academic load. It can get daunting sometimes but try to take it in a positive way.

We have a cohort/small community of 300 people, and over the 5 years, you get to know pretty much everyone. I think we push each other [to do better]. It is a small and tight community 🙂

Be kind to each other, and yourself 🙂