ZHANG WENYUE

In the beginning of 2020, we had an internship programme named “Wonder, Observe, Weave!”. In this WOW! programme, we were attached to different organisations. We all got the chance to experience the jobs in reality and find out our interests. In doing the attachment of Changi General Hospital (CGH), I did three research, one survey, two videos and seven presentations. Through the process of finishing the task assigned, I have learnt a lot - not only the knowledge of healthcare, but also lifelong skills and virtues.

My group is attached to Changi General Hospital. CGH believes that it is delivering care that matters. It helps patients hoping for love and care. Patients there are all happy and optimistic. The hospital tries its best to let the patients feel like home and cares for them.

We are assigned to make videos on General Practitioners to tell people who they are and how they can help. Nowadays, chronic conditions have become a big problem in Singapore, especially for the elderly. However, for the management of chronic diseases after being discharged from the hospital, people tend to choose polyclinics more than GPs because they do not believe GPs enough. Moreover, they do not know much about GPs. This is because GPs are run by private business. Such mindsets of people need to be changed. Singapore government encourages patients to go to the GPs because manpower in Singapore needs to be better utilized. There are a much larger number of GPs in Singapore as compared to polyclinics and hospitals. Therefore, we need to put them into good use.

Moreover, as chronic conditions becoming more and more serious and at the same timing more people choosing polyclinics and hospitals, there is always very long queuing time in polyclinics and hospitals. Therefore, we need to help with the situation now. The people in charge of primary care and GPFirst have been trying to solve this problem for a long time but still not effective enough. Therefore, the videos aim to tell people that GPs have a lot of benefits and can also manage their chronic diseases. We need to come up with storyboards after doing some basic research and survey about GPs.

To make good videos, we need to know more about the basic information. Therefore, we did research on Singapore healthcare landscape, primary care landscape, and chronic diseases. We searched information in their official websites and also through listening to talks given by people in charge of different programmes, such as GPFirst and Our Silvercare Hub. To get mentors’ help, we presented our research results to the mentors. They provided us with really helpful suggestions and clarifications of the information we got from the internet. For example, they told us to check the origins of every picture we put in the slides to check if our pictures are relevant or not. These steps really helped us understand a lot more about healthcare in Singapore.

After understanding the basic information, we need real data to help us know more clearly about the attitude of patients towards GPs managing chronic conditions. Also, these data could be put into the videos to make them more reliable to people. Hence, we designed and conducted a survey on patients with chronic conditions in CGH. As we conducted our survey in CGH, we found that there were a lot of patients queuing up for chronic disease clinics. Also, most of them were elderly. However, there were very few patients in other clinics. This shows that chronic disease is becoming a more and more serious problem in Singapore and there is a need to care for them. Conducting the survey was difficult as we needed to talk to patients in the hospital. It was challenging for us to make them believe us and accept our surveys. Moreover, as our goal was to interview 120 people in two days, it was challenged to find so many people that were willing to accept the survey. Therefore, we smiled at everyone we met and were very polite while asking questions. We really tried our best to be closer to the patients and make them trust us.

The research made us know more about the healthcare landscape in Singapore. As a foreigner, I found the information helpful for me to know more about Singapore. Things like regional health system and polyclinics are all new to me. I used to go to the GPs for coughing and fever. However, I never knew that GPs can manage serious problems like chronic diseases. Through this project, I realized that GPs can really help us in many ways and provide us with nice services. GPs also have subsidies (CHAS Scheme) and they provide one Singaporean to one doctor service which is better for doctors to know patients’ conditions and medical history. Most importantly, doctors working in the private or public sector all work first in the interest of patients and in accordance with their professional training and experience. Such information helps me a lot in making videos.

Moreover, the survey did not only help increase my courage in talking in English, but also helped me to understand the patients better. Many of them do not know that GPs can manage chronic conditions and most of them do not believe in GP doctors. While managing chronic conditions, they choose polyclinics due to the low price and facilities etc.

After knowing all the background information, we started on our videos. We first came up with storyboard. The storyboard is the most important in our video-making task as it decides what the videos are for. We came up with a few storyboards and based on them, then we made our own videos. Through all of these processes, we really learnt a lot about General Practitioners and also chronic conditions in Singapore. We believe the videos we made can truly help people understand more about GPs.

The first thing I learnt from this job is team work. Besides doing individual work, we also had to discuss and do group work. For example, we designed a survey by ourselves. The survey form is created after a lot of work we did and discussions we had. Also, we made the survey form in different languages as I am proficient in Chinese and Aqil is proficient in Malay. This made our survey more inclusive.

Through this project, I really learnt to work with others. We need to find our own role in a group project and then everyone can contribute in the most efficient way. Moreover, we need to understand each other and respect others’ ideas because we all come from different backgrounds. In this way, conflicts would be reduced and everyone can come up with their own creative ideas.

The most important thing I get from this WOW journey is courage. This includes courage of making friends, talking to strangers, doing individual work and trying new things. Firstly, I used to be quiet and did not have many local friends. Through this work, I get to know many new friends. They all helped me a lot and worked well with me. I found that it is not that difficult to make friends even though we are of different nationalities. I will continue making more local friends in my JC life.

Secondly, I did not dare to talk to others in the past because my English is weak. However, as we conducted a survey, I gradually opened up myself and found that people are all very nice. They did not show any dis-satisfaction even if I said something wrong. I was really encouraged by them. Hence, I am now more confident and comfortable about talking to others, even strangers.

Moreover, in the past few weeks, we were assigned to do many tasks. In order to finish them efficiently, we divided our job into individual parts. Hence, I have to do the work by myself. This was a really new thing for me to do all the research and also videos. I have never made videos before. In this job, I really tried all these new things and do not feel that worried about trying new things anymore. My takeaway from this experience is definitely not only the skills, but also more importantly, the courage of stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something different. This will always help me throughout my life.