Law grad, former IMH specialist in latest cohort at Duke-NUS Medical School

One is a law graduate from the University of Cambridge in Britain, while the other is a creative media professional turned peer support specialist at Singapore's Institute of Mental Health (IMH).

Their backgrounds may be different, but what Mr Isaac Ong, 24, and Ms Faith Wong, 40, have in common is a love of medicine.

The two were among 72 individuals who joined Duke-NUS Medical School in a virtual White Coat Ceremony - a robing ritual for first-year medical students - last Saturday.

After returning from Britain last year, Mr Ong volunteered with the Covid-19 Migrant Support Coalition and healthcare charity HealthServe, helping migrant workers who needed urgent medical care.

"When I saw how Covid-19 affected the community of migrant workers, I thought there was no better time for me to be involved on the ground," he said.

During his two-month stint at HealthServe, Mr Ong observed doctors and nurses on the front line helping patients. They served with commitment despite the long hours and language barriers, and this left a deep impression on him.

"I looked up to my colleagues for the dedication they displayed every day. I also enjoyed working in a healthcare environment, and I felt that I could have a more direct impact helping the community as a doctor rather than as a lawyer."

Mr Ong hopes to specialise in emergency medicine after completing his course.

He had paid about $40,000 a year for his three-year law course at Cambridge. He decided to take a loan to finance his medical studies at Duke-NUS. He hopes his background in legal studies will help him handle the rigours of a medical degree and help him understand patients' needs better as a doctor.

Ms Wong graduated with an arts degree from Arts University Bournemouth in 2013 and went on to have a successful career in the creative media industry. But she had been struggling with bipolar disorder from the age of 16.

She underwent treatment at IMH and went into full remission in 2016. The experience led her to join a course to become a peer support specialist at the institute.

"I felt I had received a new lease of life and I wanted to pay it forward by helping others in the same position as I had been," she said.

Over the last four years, she has offered support to patients, sharing personal anecdotes to motivate them in their recovery journey.

"When our operations went online during Covid-19, I came under a lot of pressure keeping up with my patients and colleagues virtually. I realised that I could work well despite the stress, and this gave me the confidence to consider switching to medicine, where I felt I could make a bigger difference," she said.

With the support of her friends and family, Ms Wong took the leap, spending many hours a day for six months preparing for the Medical College Admission Test.

After completing the course, she hopes to set up Singapore's first emergency mental health respite care centre to provide treatment specifically for people undergoing mental health crises. "As a doctor, I hope not only to treat the part of the body that affects patients, but also to care for their state of mind and emotional needs," she said.

At the ceremony last Saturday, the new batch of medical students - from diverse backgrounds including human resources, horse riding and allied healthcare - donned white coats and recited the Hippocratic Oath in the presence of their families and Duke-NUS faculty.

While the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) each have an undergraduate medical school, Duke-NUS is Singapore's only graduate medical school.

Its Doctor of Medicine programme lasts four years and costs $47,050 a year for Singaporeans.

At the end of the four-year programme, graduates receive degrees jointly awarded by NUS and Duke University from the United States.

Meanwhile, for its 15th cohort this year, the school admitted its first batch of students through conditional admissions tracks, offered in partnership with a number of undergraduate programmes.

Under this initiative, students pursue their undergraduate studies in a discipline of their choice - at institutions including NUS, NTU, Singapore Management University, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and Duke University - before returning after graduation to take up medical training at Duke-NUS.

In the latest cohort, there are six graduates - from NUS and SUTD - who are under the initiative.