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Grandma inspired his passion for medicine
THE path less travelled has led himto medical school.
Desmond Thiam, 20, is the first Singapore Polytechnic (SP) graduate to be admitted into the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
 He is among a rare few who have taken this route. In 2007, The New Paper reported that two Ngee Ann Polytechnic graduates were the first poly graduates to makeit to medical school.
Desmond obtained a diploma in biomedical science earlier this month.
He said that his ambition to be a doctor stemmed from watching his grandmother struggle to bring him up while she was saddled with many health problems.
He is the only child in a single-parent family. His parents separated when he was in primary school.
His mother, who works in IT, was the sole breadwinner, leaving his grandmother to take care of him since he was two.
Sacrifices
He said: “For the past 18 years, my grandmother’s sacrifices and endeavours were a source of motivation and strength for me to strive on in the face of continuous hurdles.
“Watching her suffer from multiple health problems, including depression and arthritis, helped me empathise with the elderly and made me want to do more for them.”
Desmond’s compassion for the elderly extended to school activities.
He was the organising chairman of “Health Mapping Exercise”, an ongoing community service project that the polytechnic organised with the Singapore Heart Foundation.
Between 2007 and early this year, he went from door to door at HDB blocks with one- and two-room flats all over Singapore, screening residents’ heart rate, and blood glucose and cholesterol levels to check for health problems.
He found that many of the elderly residents suffered from very high blood pressure.
He termed them “walking time bombs” because their condition was so severe they could suffer heart attacks or strokes any time.
He said: “Many of these patients reminded me of my grandmother and what it was like for her. They were a group of neglected people. Several residents were aware of their condition, but they had no money to pay for medicine.
“We gathered data and presented it to the grassroots leader, who referred them to the relevant organisations to follow up.”
Desmond graduated with an L1R5 score of 5 from Commonwealth Secondary School, which would have qualified him easily for the science stream of top junior colleges here.
But he chose to study biomedical science at SP as he wanted to focus on his area of interest.
His mother supported his decision because she felt that such a course would be more practical, given his interests.
Desmond thinks his honesty and compassion were probably the qualities that impressed his interviewers at NUS.
Tough interviews
He was one of three students shortlisted by the poly to go for interviews at NUS’s medical faculty.
He said that the interviews were tough as he was asked technical questions that he could not answer.
He said: “I told them honestly that I did not know the answers to the technical questions.
“They also asked me many other questions... on topics like euthanasia and why I wanted to be a doctor. I think the important part was how I took a stand on the issues.”
He hopes to become a doctor in an emergency department as he prefers frontline work.
He said:“My experiences have taught me that warmth, compassion and understanding are crucial aspects of being a doctor, more so than the surgeon’s knife or chemist’s drug.”
Madam Mah Mon Moey, the course manager of the diploma of biomedical science at SP and one of Desmond’s lecturers, said that he was a highly motivated student.
She said: “He is a team player and an inspirational leader, who has impressed his lecturers with his ability to juggle numerous co-curricular activities while maintaining an excellent academic performance.”
Desmond’s grandmother died in February this year and didn’t live to see his achievement. She was 70.
He said of the two women who brought him up: “Without them, I would not be who I am today.”
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