Mom’s the inspiration
Her fellow Senior Military Medical Expert and NUS Nursing alumnus, Olive Lim, 32, found her calling through her mother.
“I always knew I wanted to work in the healthcare industry. I believe this was mainly because my mum was a nurse and she shared many of her experiences with me,” said Olive, who graduated from NUS Nursing in 2011.
In fact, her mind was so set on nursing that NUS Nursing was the only undergraduate course she applied for. “It was all or nothing,” she recalled.
Olive is a medical trainer at the SAF Medical Training Institute, where she teaches both military and medical knowledge and skills to National Service (NS) medical units, training them to be deployed for operations when needed.
She had to scramble to create a sustainable workflow and standard operating procedures for the medical teams. Despite it being very hectic and tiring, Olive said she found the task purposeful.
“It is most fulfilling when the NS medical units that I trained display high levels of competencies in their planning and execution, during military exercises and operations,” said Olive.
She cited the example of the national fight against COVID-19 at the height of the pandemic, when some NS medical units were deployed to provide care in the Community Care Facilities (CCF) and participate in home vaccination operations.
A career highlight was being part of the national response to the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the authorities were still grappling with how to deal with the new and dangerous virus.
“When COVID-19 infections led to the first wave of the outbreak in the foreign workers’ dormitories, I was in charge of setting up a conveyance team that planned the transfer of patients who were tested positive from the dormitories to the CCFs to allow them to recover and limit the spread,” said Olive.
She had to scramble to create a sustainable workflow and standard operating procedures for the medical teams. Despite it being very hectic and tiring, Olive said she found the task purposeful.
