Largest cohort of Nursing students conferred degrees

Nursing graduates Goh Beng Sim (left) and her daughter Trina Lim celebrate the joint Commencement for the Class of 2020 and 2021 at home.

The skills and traits of nurses make them adept at dealing with changes. Shapeshifters of the medical world, they easily blend into situations such as redeployment and the different ways of working in the new normal.

So when Covid-19 threw a curveball at both the graduating classes of 2020 and 2021 from the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS), graduates took having to celebrate their graduation online in their strides.

On 3 July, 578 students graduated in a virtual ceremony that marked the largest cohort of undergraduate and postgraduate Nursing students conferred degrees since the inception of the Bachelor of Science (Nursing) programme in 2005.

NUS president Tan Eng Chye explained in a letter to the Class of 2021 in late May that the decision to move the ceremonies online was not made lightly.

“I know that many of you are looking forward to the celebration with your family and loved ones. However, your health and safety, and those of your loved ones, is critical when planning an event of this scale, and given the prevailing challenging circumstances, we do not wish to place you and all those in attendance at risk,” he said

In late April, Singapore saw a steep spike in COVID-19 cases in the community, and in mid-May, the Multi-Ministry Taskforce announced new tightened measures to arrest the increasing number of community cases, including restrictions on large gatherings.

In his congratulatory speech during the ceremony, Professor Chong Yap Seng, Dean of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, applauded the Class of 2020 who were immediately thrown into the deep end to ease the burden on the healthcare system during the pandemic.

“As you plough ahead in the months to come, know that this pandemic has made us stronger, more resilient, and more adaptable than we knew we could be. Even so, it takes all of us to pull together to persevere through these tough times. Lean on one another, and the friendships you have nurtured in your years here,” he said.

Prof Chong advised the graduating class to, when in doubt, always stand by the values that have carried them thus far, and to keep humility, integrity, compassion and respect – the school’s values – close to their hearts.

This year’s Commencement speaker Professor John Wong, senior vice-president (Health Innovation & Translation) at NUS, remarked that never has Singapore appreciated doctors, nurses and scientists more than now.

“Covid-19 has shown how dependent the world is on great science and healthcare. Singapore has been fortunate to have both,” he said, paying tribute to the scientists who developed the diagnostic tests within weeks of the identification of the virus to effectively manage the surge in cases, as well as its dedicated and highly skilled healthcare professionals.

“(They) work in a difficult environment with full personal protective equipment, especially in non-air-conditioned settings, all while still caring for the other illnesses and conditions that afflict our population, never sacrificing quality of care and never breaking ranks, no matter how exhausted and worried they were about contracting Covid-19 and transmitting it to their loved ones.”

“Congratulations on many counts indeed. We are so proud of all of you. COVID-19 is far from over but I am confident we have the talent and expertise now reinforced by the Class of 2021 to see us through,” he added.

Fortitude and grit see graduates through pandemic

The road to graduation saw the mother-daughter duo become each other’s support system.

The virtual Commencement also celebrated the 2020 graduation of the first batch of mid-career Nursing students enrolled under the Professional Conversion Programme for Registered Nurses (Degree).

Among the 34 mid-career switchers is former Ministry of Defence officer Goh Beng Sim, 52, who entered the course at the same time as her daughter Trina Lim, 23, who was pursuing her degree in Nursing.

“Trina was my source of help since she already had a Diploma in Nursing. She is definitely more well-versed in most areas (of nursing) than me,” said Ms Goh, who earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at NUS more than 20 years ago.

She said her daughter’s stories about her experiences during clinical attachments inspired her to take up Nursing as a second career. “Rather than tutoring her, the roles reversed as Trina not only helped me with my studies, but was motivated enough to want to do well so there was no need for me to give her extra stress,” she added.

To Ms Lim, the course gave her the opportunity to spend more time with her mother, whom she treated like any other fellow student. “There were times I would choose to sit beside my mother in lectures,” she said.  

The Master of Nursing Class of 2020, which Shermin Chieng (last row, third from right) graduated with.

Taking her nursing profession further is 32-year-old Shermin Chieng (Class of 2020), who, encouraged by her father, embarked on her Master of Nursing degree and even topped her class.

“My father suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and had a stroke. He is managed by an advanced practice nurse at Bukit Batok Polyclinic and is happy with her care, so he encouraged me to follow in her footsteps,” she said.

An advanced practice nurse at Choa Chu Kang Polyclinic, Ms Chieng now performs physical examinations on patients and makes diagnoses, helping to take the burden off doctors, especially when it comes to patients with chronic diseases.

Her fellow nurses were her inspiration when she was a student, said valedictorian Lim Shi Min who has since joined them as a staff nurse.

This year’s combined ceremony, as valedictorian Lim Shi Min put it, was “a celebration of our bravery to have entered the workforce in the middle of a pandemic, to have put ourselves out there despite the uneasiness we all faced from having to assume the role of a staff nurse”.

“It also celebrates the emotional peaks and troughs we have endured,” she said in her speech.

Recalling her final year before graduating in August 2020, she said: “My classmates and I were initially cautious and wary of going back to the hospitals for our final clinical attachment as students. Given that we had just spent a year working on our thesis, many of us were also anxious about returning to the clinical setting as the skills we were once familiar with and exposed to on a daily basis suddenly became something foreign.”

“Looking back, I am grateful to have witnessed the fervour of healthcare workers on the ground. They were the inspiration for us impressionable Nursing students fresh out of Nursing school,” said Ms Lim, who is now a staff nurse at the National University Hospital.