We are honoured to have alumnus Gabriel Chan (Batch of 2014) share with us his experience in the TCM industry all these years.
What is the main inspiration behind your choice of career?
I get this very often from patients, friends and family members. For all those who have known me, my Mandarin was horrible before I started TCM studies. My family and friends were very shocked when I told them I chose to take up TCM as my studies in the university. Some even thought that I would not be able to make it out of the course.
But I guess PASSION is the one thing that could help you to overcome many hurdles. For me, I had very bad asthma as a kid and that was cured when my parents brought me to a TCM Physician. My interest in TCM grew from there, and when I got to know that NTU had a course in TCM, I told myself I must make it… and I did! You must like what you do. If not, it will be a job rather than a career.
The SATISFACTION that I get when I see the smiles from my patients are what kept me going. TCM journey can be a long and tiring one, so this driving force was what kept me going. From looking all down and sickly to having the widest smiles after the treatment is a satisfaction that I know I can’t get elsewhere.
How has the transition from pandemic to endemic been for you these past 2 years?
For me, the pandemic had been a roller coaster ride. At first, there was all the restrictions set by the government that made patient seeing very tough. But I guess as the pandemic progressed, things got pretty interesting.
My awesome team and I did many brainstorming sessions during the pandemic as to how to better help the patients and those going through the pandemic. We made many new implementations and changes during that period. I would say if not for the awesome team members that we had, we would not have come this far!
We also got to see a myriad of new conditions such as mental health issues, stress and anxiety-related issues, post-COVID syndromes and so on. We were able to help many patients with their health and immunity during the COVID period. Through the pandemic, we also realized how HIGHLY EFFECTIVE TCM can be in helping to boost one’s immune system and to help with viral respiratory infection recovery.
It had been a really insightful 2 years of my career and I would dare say it was really worth it to go through the experience.
What are some of the challenges you faced?
Throughout the almost 7 years of my TCM career, we are constantly faced with many challenges. I would just like to highlight the few more prominent ones.
Firstly, it would have to be dealing with patients. I guess many of you know that in our profession, dealing with patient’s condition does not mean we just tackle their symptoms and ailments. When a person is sick, emotions start to get affected, in severe cases, depression and anxiety can start to step in. I would say 80% of the patients that walks through our door are in this category.
Knowing how to handle patient’s condition as well as the patient himself/herself is an ART! I have always advocated to my students that if you want to deal with a disease, learn to deal with the person first.
What should we do if a patient is not getting well after our treatment? This is a challenge that I believe all of us would go through. For some of us, we have our mentors to guide us along and help us to analyze what went wrong. For myself, I learnt it the hard way. Earlier on in my practice, I did not have someone to guide me along. It was only after much searching that I managed to find a few good mentors who were able to enlighten and guide me along.
This is also another reason that leads to many talented physicians from leaving the TCM scene. When patients don’t get well and we do not know why, we slowly start to lose confidence in ourselves and may even start to think that TCM is not for us.
From PULSE Magazine 6th Edition
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