Oh how time flies! It seemed just a short while ago when I first entered university as an 18-year-old freshly disrupted from National Service. That was in July of 1984 when the doors of National University of Singapore's Medical Faculty opened for an unruly bunch of 210 fresh wet-behind-the-ears wannabes.
This was the class of 1984-1989, five years of our short lives spent as undergraduates in then Singapore's only medical school, before being unleashed into an unsuspecting world as people carrying the title DR. What a responsibility that was, and still is!
About 150 of us attended our third class reunion, held at some repository for marine organisms on some island south of Telok Blangah. It was a good time to reminisce about the past and the follies of youth. Despite the lapse of 25 years, somehow little has changed - the way we laughed, the sort of crude jokes we made - and it seemed like the same 18-year-olds were back again. My hairstyle remained the same as it was in 1984 except that androgenetic alopecia now replaced the SAF barber. Somehow the girls looked prettier now than before, and I hadn't even had a drop of alcohol!
Here are some photos taken with a small segment of the class. Everybody carries the title DR, except for those who are PROF, BG (Ret) and REV. I've also included their medical specialities just for completeness sake.
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| The group known was Tutorial Group W, minus two ladies and one neurosurgeon. |
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| Pary Sivaraman (Nephrology), Sim Chin Keng (Anaesthesia), Kang Chai Har (Housewifery), Chua Teck Bin (Medical Admin), Winston Chew Yoon Chong (Hand Surgery) & Victor Khoo Boo Peng (Dermatology). |
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| With Nelson Chua aka Rambo, who was also my long suffering-buddy in the Medical Officer Cadet Course. |
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| Nelson Chua (Aneasthesia), Au Eong Kah Guan (Ophthalmology), Erik Ang Sze Wee (Plastic Surgery) and his wife Karen Yap (Breast Surgery). |
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| With one of the most popular girls in class, Marie Stella Platon Cruz (Family Medicine), who played tennis and made male heads turn. |
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| A fun photo for a change: (From L to R) Rukshini Puvanendran, Angela Leong, Mabel Cheng & Teoh Mei Lin (all Family Medicine) |
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| With PROF Philip Iau (not Psychiatry alas, but Breast Surgery) He was recently part of a team of surgeons who cycled from Singapore to Sweden to raise funds for breast cancer research. Some people have all the fun. |
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| The Joan Chen lookalike Linda Ng Sok Bee (Fmily Medicine), Tan Ban Hock (Infectious Disease) and Tan Soo Yong (Pathology). |
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| This reunion goes even further than most, three students from Pr 5A of Catholic High School 1976. With me is PROF Koh Dow Mu (Radiology) and PROF Lim Tock Han (Ophthalmology). The combined IQ here is in excess of 500. Given that mine is about 100, you can work out what their's are. |
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| Colleen Kim Thomas (Internal Medicine), Angela Leong, Justina Dairianathan, Mabel Cheng, Tan Ruh Yuh, Janelene Leong & Lim Hong Mui (all Fam Med). |
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| The last photo and a bullet to the head: Khoo Boo Peng (Dermatology), Yoong Nyuk Moi (Family Medicine) & Tan Bien Keem (Plastic Surgery). |
THOSE WERE THE DAYS!!!
1 comment:
The truth be told, this tourist site of a venue was a crummy place to hold such a momentous reunion event. The venue was mostly cloaked in darkness (as not to startle the marine life), and the tables were arranged in three different levels, which impeded movement and prevented a genuine mixing of attendees.
Then we were told not to use flash photography, so as not to startle the marine life. THIS IS A CLASS REUNION, AND NO PHOTOGRAPHY? Lastly, we were warned to remove all references to the event ever being held here. Hence, the venue has been censored from all images. Crummy, crummy, crummy...
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