S’porean doctor’s heart beats for the less fortunate
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S’porean doctor’s heart beats for the less fortunate
By Alicia Wong | Yahoo! Newsroom – Sun, Dec 11, 2011Under our "Inspiring People" monthly column, we highlight the incredible journey of one person who has overcome tremendous odds to achieve personal success. This column celebrates the triumph of the human spirit and we hope it will inspire you to reach for your dreams too. This month, we bring to you a local doctor who spent the last 15 years helping villagers in China.
At 50, doctor Tan Lai Yong counts himself fortunate that neither he nor his wife feel the pressing need to do “something significant” with the rest of their lives.
But that’s because they have already led a “full life”, having spent the last 15 years in rural China, where Tan ran a village doctors training programme and worked with disabled people.
In 1996, Tan, his wife and one-year-old daughter moved to Xishuangbanna, a small Thai-speaking town in the southern tip ofYunnan. There, he spent four years training doctors and working with the disabled before relocating to Kunming, the capital ofYunnan.
Tan then joined the Kunming Medical University and trained village doctors and hospital doctors. He also led medical work with non-governmental organisation Bless China International, which is based in Yunnan.
“The past 15 years have been a sweet dream,” described Tan, who studied medicine in Singapore before making the leap to work in a developing country.
Tan’s experiences have been featured in several publications. Most recently, he was interviewed for the Singapore Medical Association’s (SMA) magazine and conferred the SMA lectureship, which is awarded to distinguished people who have made significant contributions to medicine and the community.
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It is good to do charity. Dr Tan, charity starts at home. What about the less fortunate people in Singapore, do you care to do charity to them?
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Thank you for sharing, A great inspiration to all of us
