In the blink of an eye, we have survived one semester as medical students in Duke-NUS. Being a first year here is certainly a humbling, eye-opening but yet immensely rewarding experience. I have always enjoyed challenging myself and I have always thought of myself as someone who was tenacious and persistent. This “tenacity” was soon to be put to the test. The academic component of medical school started right after the Foundations Course with “Molecules and Cells” where it kind of served to refresh my memory of what I had learnt during my undergraduate education as a biomedical student at NUS. This was the first time in which we were exposed to what TeamLEAD was all about. It was fun and interactive, far from the didactic mode of instruction with which I had grown accustomed to back in my undergraduate education. Here, I was expected to read up before class, be tested on my knowledge and understanding of the subject and put these concepts to the test in real-life application questions. This really helped to consolidate information for me as a student because now we were expected to apply our understanding of the concepts to actual situations. Molecules and Cells lasted only for 6 weeks and soon, we were to embark on our next course, Normal Body. Our course director, Professor Pierce Chow from SGH, had warned us at the beginning of the course that despite the fact that being good students who were chosen to be Duke-NUS students, a majority of us would face angst and perform below expectations if we were to study the way we did for our undergraduate education. At the time, I sort of doubted what he said, believing that with perseverance, I would complete the assigned readings and supplementary materials and pass the tests. I could not be more wrong. In Normal Body, we were faced with learning the basic clinical science subjects of Gross Anatomy, Physiology, Embryology and Micro-anatomy in a short 11.5 weeks. This was to be like no other program in any other medical school in the world. After 2 weeks, I realized that I had to really study smart. The constant pressure of time to revise the pages upon pages of medical text, notes and dissection videos was weighing heavily on me. It was then that I realized that what Prof Chow had said earlier was so true. I had to study smart not simply study hard. I had to prioritize, juggling between my personal time and yet set aside enough time to study for the endless tests and exams. Prioritizing also meant that I had to get used to the fact that I would not understand everything at first pass and that spending too much time figuring it out was not going to help me cover all the material and pass my tests. I later learnt that in was more important to have a general understanding of the subjects as a whole to begin with, as faculty would fill in the gaps and explain what we did not understand. The faculty was truly great at explaining every single point which we as a class all struggled to comprehend initially whilst we were doing our readings. At the end of 11.5 weeks of studying under constant sleep deprivation and the pressure of exams and tests, we finally survived the Normal Body Course! What this course has taught me was to approach learning with an open mind and that as doctors-to-be, we would not know everything and everyday would be a learning experience. We also needed very much to work in teams, leveraging on one another’s’ strengths and knowledge as we simply could not remember every morsel of information. What is also truly unique about the Normal Body Course in Duke-NUS is that we are the only medical school in Singapore where students are given the rare privilege to work on cadaveric specimens and conduct dissections to help in our learning of gross anatomy. The adage goes, nothing beats doing. I learnt more about human anatomy in 30mins doing dissections than I did in 3 hours pouring through the Anatomy textbook, trying to visualize and conceptualize the prose and diagrams. Of course, life as a first year medical student at Duke-NUS is not all about studying. I had the privilege of being elected by my classmates to serve on the class committee as the Class President. The role allowed me to gain a better understanding of how the student government in Duke-NUS functioned and also provided me with opportunities to network with seniors in the Students’ Council. A highlight of the year for me as the MS1 representative was a meeting with the Minister for Health at the Ministry of Health HQ. We had a chance to meet with the Minister as well as senior management of the Ministry to share our views on our education, healthcare delivery in Singapore as well as to voice our concerns over Residency. On the whole, it was a good discussion and we look forward to more engagement with the Ministry in policy formulations. I truly enjoy the chance to serve on the class committee and it is indeed a real honor and privilege for me. By Edwin Yang, Class of 2016, Duke-NUS Source
