Finding a job as a medical student brims with unique challenges. Unlike our peers mastering marketable domains like Marketing, Coding, Business Management, or Communications, medical students often find their skill set seemingly non-transferable. The question looms—would anyone enlist a medical student for roles beyond their niche? Yet, a silver lining emerged. It was woven into to my coding hobby, the unexpected source of marketable skills. If any laurels grace my NOC journey, they are owed to my younger self for dedicating time to nurturing a passion that ultimately paved the way.

Venturing into coding during my third year was such an unexpected development. Prior to that, life was a delicate balance between academia, friends, and family, much like any university student’s. However, I yearned for a break from monotony, from the set routines of non-stop lectures and study sessions, from a life that seemed to have more to offer than what I had glimpsed. While I stayed at Tembusu Residential College, a Telegram chatbot that enabled users to chat anonymously in an Angels & Mortals game sparked my curiosity about coding. It was a skill, using knowledge that could create a realm of possibilities previously unattainable.

Learning coding was a chance to break the cycle, to embrace novelty. Yet, having to divide my time between my non-productive coding hobby and keeping pace with the competitive culture in university academics presented a challenge. Moreover, the steep learning curve of the coding language I needed (JavaScript) to create a Telegram bot really put a lot of doubt into whether I could create anything of value.

Yet, the remote possibility of creating something meaningful was enough to drive me to embark on my first coding project. Challenges arose, and weeks dissolved into a blur of multifaceted problem-solving and creative activities. Persistence paid off, resulting in a Telegram bot¹ that defied conventional hosting costs. Running 24/7 for free on just a Google Sheet filled with jokes curated from Reddit and a Google Drive folder full of medical memes sourced from popular Instagram pages, it is the result of my passion and the remarkable journey of self-improvement. Empowered by this, I ventured into grander coding endeavours with greater potential for substantial social impact, such as a Telegram matchmaking event for all Singaporean university students.²

Louis Pasteur famously said, “In the fields of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind.” This quote resonates deeply as my coding journey perfectly prepared me for my application to NOC. In the middle of my coding journey, a profound realisation emerged—I yearned to elevate my best ideas through entrepreneurship. Then, a stroke of serendipity unfolded: NOC opened sign-ups to Year 4 medical students, coinciding perfectly with my desire to plunge into entrepreneurship. I signed up without a moment’s doubt, recognising it as the only gateway to entrepreneurship experiences I had been waiting for.

Fortuitously, I secured a position for a three-month internship under Stephen Chan, a successful entrepreneur in Toronto specialising in crafting tech solutions for healthcare and manufacturing industries. This was made possible through the efforts of Harpreet Singh and Gean Chu from NUS Enterprise, along with an unforeseen recommendation by NUS Medicine alumnus Dr Shoo Lee. Another fortuitous development boosted my internship experience: instead of being tasked with the tedious user interface enhancements or code refactoring as expected of a software engineering intern, I was tasked with learning to leverage on ChatGPT application programming interface (API) when it was just released on 6 March 2023—illuminating my internship journey with the promise of mastering something entirely new.

As Aristotle aptly said, “Real skill is forged in the crucible of practical application.” Whilst learning about entrepreneurship, I also wanted to gauge the practicality of my coding skills, a challenge best undertaken in the furnace of a real-world software engineering job. Joining a startup, I braced for the rigours of the journey ahead—expecting minimal supervision and feedback, along with the weight of multidisciplinary challenges to be tackled solo. Before my first line of code, I spent two weeks immersing myself in ChatGPT API documentation, online tutorials, and a series of trial-and-error experiments to gain a deeper understanding of how ChatGPT processes human input. The vast array of approaches to creating such a chatbot seemed daunting, yet I knew from past coding experiences that uncertainty is best tamed by leaping into action with the best approach, while embracing failure as the gateway to true learning.

Through three months of coding of chatbot components, rigorous user testing and bug-fixing, I finally unveiled an operational ChatGPT chatbot tailored for a dental surgery company. This remarkable creation possesses the unique ability to provide comprehensive documentation-based responses in both English and French, catering to the diverse needs of native French-Canadians. The chatbot’s responses are designed to be delivered with the poise and elan of a Singapore Airlines cabin crew member, the numerical precision of an accountant, and the intellect of someone well-versed in our documentation from which it derives its answers. Built with fail-safe measures, it even gracefully navigates nonsensical queries with the elegance of its standard greeting.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my NOC and startup supervisors, who, with their modest expectations of a medical student’s coding abilities, unwittingly fostered a stress-free environment for my creative liberation, unburdened by the lack of weekly deadlines or progress reports. It was within this nurturing environment that I was able to hatch an innovative solution not taught by conventional ChatGPT chatbot tutorials.

In the initial half of my internship, I embarked on numerous daring experiments, some leading to amusing dead ends, yet each deepening my grasp of artificial intelligence (AI) intricacies. For instance, in my quest to mould ChatGPT as the ultimate human assistant, I endeavoured to infuse it with meticulousness by telling ChatGPT to be “the most helpful assistant”. However, this ambition led to an unintended cascade of unnecessary queries. For instance, a simple request like “I wish to book an appointment at ABC Dental Clinic” resulted in a string of additional questions like “Please tell me where you stay so I can book it at the clinic closest to you”, rather than a straightforward booking. Yet, this period of experimentation was the crucible for my growth, culminating in flourishing progress in the latter half of the internship. Looking back, the discouraging results of the first half of the internship illuminated the path towards progress that shone brighter with each passing day.

Elgene (middle) with his manager, Simon (left), and his boss, Stephen Chan, Chief Executive Officer of VISFUTURE (right).

Navigating uncharted waters, I forged a path of creativity and perseverance. From coding curiosity to entrepreneurship aspirations, every endeavour illuminated the enigmatic journey. If there’s anything I had learned in the three months in Toronto, it is that a life of dedication, innovation, and unwavering pursuit brings the power of ideas to life.