"Career Choice in Medicine"
The 1st RPA Career Talk. “Career Choice in Medicine” was successfully held on July 11 at RI(JC) LT3 from 10.30am to 12.30pm. Approximately 120 parents and students attended the talk. Dr Chan Tat Keong, a Senior Consultant from the National Eye Centre, delivered a highly informative and interesting talk which helped increase parents’ awareness on what it is like being a medical practitioner.
Dr Chan is an excellent speaker; his anecdotical and humourous talk left a lasting impression on his audience. He was also sincere and forthcoming in his views on what it really takes to be a good doctor, especially in listing of expectations of the job and the personal sacrifices one must be prepared to make should one decide on medicine as a career choice. Dr Chan spoke for about 1 hour covering many issues close to parents' hearts.
A summary of Dr Chan's talk can be found on the link at the righthand sidebar on this page.
After the talk, there was a Q&A Session with 3 panelists : Dr Chan, Mr Andy Chua (a 4th year medical student and RI Alumi) and Mr Chua Wah Ann (Andy's father and RPA Chairman). The questions asked covered a wide variety of topics, eg., admission requirements to medical school in NUS including the assessment of a need for an illustrious portfolio ; studying medicine overseas ; comparison of overseas medical graduates and local graduates ; parents’ roles in the life of an aspiring medical student, as well as the search for life partners of doctors, etc, etc. Through the panelists, parents were able to receive different perspectives from a veteran doctor, a medical undergraduate and a parent of a medical student.
Parents found the session very useful and enjoyable. The talk received a high average score of 4.75 upon 5. 100% of those responded said they would attend future RPA Career Talks. Many parents expressed interests for Career Talks in Law, Research, Civil Service, Banking & Finance, etc. RPA is planning a 2nd Career Talk in the near future. For those who like to attend, please be on the look out for our notice through email.
Last but not least, RPA would like to thank the following parent volunteers for helping to make this career talk a resounding success :-
· Wai Kiong who patiently compiled the registration list after reading through more than two hundred emails;
· Ann Leong, Jayne Khoo, Wai Kiong, Sofhi who helped with registration.
We look forward to having more parent volunteers for future talks !
Reported by: Ho Siew Fay, Organisor of RPA Career Talk Series
Edited by: Julie Chew
