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Ms Tan Kai Hui’s temporary job stints in the health-care sector after her A levels led her to embark on a career in pharmacy
 EVEN though pre-registration pharmacist Tan Kai Hui (right) has only been working at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) for just over a month, her dedication and passion to the health-care industry is obvious.
She has always had a keen interest in medicine and health care, and was making careful considerations about pursuing a career in the industry after graduating from college.
“While deciding on the scholarship to opt for and mulling over career prospects with my friends, I thought about my interest in health care,” she says.
Ms Tan believed then that industry experience would help her decide which path to take.
Upon completion of her A-level examinations, the decision to take on temporary jobs in the healthcare sector proved to be the defining factor for her choice of the Health Sciences Scholarship offered by the Ministry of Health.
Ms Tan says she had learnt about the scholarship through an advertisement in The Straits Times. From there, she visited the Public Service Commission (PSC) website to find out more about the scholarship.
“It was the only scholarship available for a degree in pharmacy then,” she says.
It helped that the four-year bond was to be served in a hospital, which is where she was keen to work at.
“I chose SGH as it has a wide range of disciplines, allowing for broader exposure,” she explains.
Currently, Ms Tan is undergoing a compulsory nine-month pre-registration training period at SGH to obtain a pharmacist practising license.
Not only is this training period integral to her role but it would also help her adapt to life as a fullfledged
pharmacist.
Even though she will only start serving her bond period with SGH when her training ends, she already
has a taste of the challenges to come.
“Being new in the job, I am slower in performing my daily tasks, such as the reviewing of medication orders, as compared to my seniors,” she says. As such, she works harder to be as efficient as the others.
She believes that her passion in helping people and the support from her family, friends and colleagues
keep her going despite daily obstacles.
“In this training period, the learning curve is steep. Constant reading up and revision of clinical topics and medications that I am less familiar with is necessary,” says Ms Tan.
Yet the biggest obstacle that she has had to deal with to date seems to be the language barrier and learning how to communicate with people from all walks of life.
She explains: “A large proportion of the patients in SGH are elderly, therefore dialect-speaking or Malay speaking patients are not uncommon.
“As pharmacists, good communication is essential. We need to explain to our patients about medications and how they should be consumed, as well as possible side effects to look out for.”
Ms Tan is currently picking up common Malay and dialect phrases in the hope that she would be able to communicate with her patients more confidently.
According to her, an outstanding pharmacist must be passionate about caring for his or her patients and never hesitate to go the extra mile in making sure that patients receive optimum treatment.
“Other qualities, such as compassion and diligence, are certainly hallmarks of a good pharmacist as well,” she adds.
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