Dr Ngiam is an associate consultant at KKH Department of Child Development. She has clinical experience both in the public and private healthcare sectors, as well as the experience of being a mother of 3 children. She has been doodling and drawing comics since her primary school days. Eco-Anxious Mom

I attended Professor Brian Hurwitz’s talk at the Singapore Medical Humanities Conference last week. He spoke about anecdotes — those small, personal stories that seem trivial at first, yet somehow stay with us longer than the data ever does. It struck me that so much of our life in medicine

The patient was already in the cubicle when I arrived. Fifty-eight years old, cirrhosis, ascites, confusion — the ED notes had been written in the familiar clipped tones of medical shorthand. His sister stood at his bedside, anxious, hovering like someone who had already told this story many times that day.

Some trips are itineraries. Others become gentle mirrors. This was the latter. When I boarded the plane to Vienna, I didn’t quite realise how much this trip would end up being a balm — to my weary body, and my quietly bruised heart. Over the last few years, life has

The neuro-ICU was a frigid, stark place. The silence was punctuated by the relentless beeping of machines. The antiseptic scent was a constant reminder of the fortress-like walls that encased the patient’s stillness. Beep. Beep. Beep. As I entered I felt like an intruder stepping into a fortress, guarded

This song has been seven years in the making. Back in 2018, I wrote a poem for aspiring medical students about what it truly means to be a doctor. No holds barred. No sugar coating. But also an explanation of why, despite everything, I remained one. I titled it “Don’

What happens when we start to question the stories we carry about our worth

Teacher or villain-elle? Here comes another eager-eyed learner, She stutters as her glasses begin to mist, Wisdom or trauma: which will it be, Teacher? Now with beaded sweat and shy demeanour, She asks to examine the pulse at the wrist, Here comes another eager-eyed learner. With eyes now squinted, she

A heartfelt confession and sharing about finding connection, meaning and purpose in the ED

There's a story we're used to hearing about aging. A slow, inevitable decline. A journey of loss — of health, independence, identity. This story plays out in quiet corners of hospitals and in loud headlines celebrating the "oldest person to survive" some illness. In clinics,