Counting our days and making our days count
Published: 19 Oct 2017
What matters most to me? What would I do differently if I could live my life all over again? How do I want to spend my final months and days? Visitors to an exhibition on palliative care were led to reflect on these matters as they read and viewed interviews with Singaporeans in the last stages of their lives.
It was a process that the organisers of The Life Stories Exhibition, who are medical students from the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS Medicine), intend to invoke. “We hope to engage the public and educate them about palliative care, highlighting its purpose and significance while correcting any misconceptions people may hold,” said Mr Tay Kuang Teck. He is a third-year student at NUS Medicine and heads the all-student organising committee behind the exhibition. The event was part of a bigger public education initiative launched by an earlier generation of medical students, called Project Happy Apples.
The interactive showcase on palliative care aimed to encourage people to start conversations on end-of-life care and inspire them to live life to the fullest, he added. “The event will have various components to it, including the Life Stories of Patients, a showcase of the lasting legacies and life experiences of patients receiving palliative care and how they coped. There are also interactive components such as the Telephone Booth, an immersive auditory experience that invites visitors to listen in to a simulated decision-making process people face towards the end of life, Before-I-Die Boards, an Educational Wall Mural, and an exciting series of talks, performances by the interest groups from the community centre and much more,” Mr Tay added.
The inspiration for the students’ initiative came from their encounters with patients they met when they were part of a palliative care befriending programme run in collaboration with HCA Hospice Care and the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Support Group – National Neuroscience Institute.
Dr Noreen Chan, Head of the Division of Palliative Care at the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore and advisor to the student organisers, said, “Project Happy Apples has always sought to emphasise that palliative care is about living the best that we can, and through the befriending programme, the volunteers come to appreciate how we can support one another as fellow human beings. The Life Stories Exhibition is about having those important conversations about what really matters, which is another way of celebrating our lives, because every person, and every person’s story, is unique.”
Themed “Adding Life to Days”, the exhibition was held at the Toa Payoh Hub Atrium between 21 and 22 October 2017. Dr Lam Pin Min, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Transport, graced the opening ceremony on 21 October 2017. With about 40 student volunteers, the exhibition reached out to over 4000 members of the public.
Read more on NUS News and see Press Release.
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