There Should be an Answer Behind Every Why
Lee Jun Xin, a 26-year-old graduate of Doctor of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 2021. As a Sabahan settled down in Johor, Jun Xin is currently a house officer in Hospital Pakar Sultanah Fatimah in Muar, Johor. Recently, her journey as a medical student ended in full bloom when she has been nominated as one of the receivers of the prestigious award, Anugerah Pelajaran DiRaja in the 50th Majlis Konvokesyen Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for her academic excellence and outstanding research achievements.
As my partner from Public Relations Department, Yong Zong Sheng, and I have had the honor and opportunity to interview Jun Xin and learn more about her journey as a medical student, let us dive deeper into every step Jun Xin has taken to be where she is today.
Difference between the life of a student and a houseman: Challenges and Adaptations
As a fresh medical graduate, Jun Xin has recently started her housemanship at Hospital Pakar Sultanah Fatimah in Muar. She waited around six months before starting to work as a houseman in Hospital Muar. According to Jun Xin, it was quite a challenge to be thrown into clinical scenarios after six months, but slowly yet surely, all the skills will come back around. When the interview touched upon the difference between the life of a student and a houseman, one obvious difference that first came to her mind was the working hours. As a houseman in Hospital Muar, Jun Xin has one off day per week, one on-call, one post-call, two extended shifts, and two short shifts. During extended shifts, normally she will be at the hospital around 6 am and go back around 9 pm, but that was only the ideal scenario. There were times when she needed to stay in the hospital until 10 or 11 pm, especially at the beginning of housemanship when she was still striving to get used to the environment. Secondly, responsibility was another thing that Jun Xin noted to be different from a student's life because not only she will have to deal with patients, but patients’ families, superiors, and colleagues as well who possessed all sorts of personalities and working styles. Despite the downs, undoubtedly, there are also ups that Jun Xin has shared which always brightened up her day such as the appreciation from patients, chances to assist in surgeries, and gaining trust from superiors to perform certain procedures.
The beginning: ASASI pintar
As mentioned earlier, Jun Xin has successfully achieved numerous milestones in research as a medical student, including being featured on several research papers as the first author, for example, “Open Distance Learning in Medical Education: Does It Improve Students’ Motivation?” in SAGE Journals and “Deciphering Learning Motivation in Open Distance Learning towards Sustainable Medical Education'' in Special Issue "Education and Worklife in Times of Uncertainty: Challenges Emerging from the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Field of Sustainable Development'' of Sustainability as well as high-impact journals such as Frontiers in Medicine and BMC Medical Education. Like how a forest was once a seed, all of these international accomplishments can be traced back to her pre-university studies in ASASIpintar UKM, where research was made a compulsory part of the syllabus where the students were introduced to the various facets of research and were allowed to start their very own research. Freshly entered the university compound where ‘research’ still sounds intimidating and far beyond reach, Jun Xin started from ground zero. The beginning was not smooth as she did not know anything about research or statistics. However, Jun Xin expressed her gratitude when she recalled the guidance and support given by her mentor, Professor Fairuz who specialized in child and adolescent psychiatry, back in ASASIpintar. This experience has established a strong foundation for and marked the first page of her future research journey in medical school.
How to find your direction in research?
Jun Xin believes that interest is the main drive for everyone to start something. As for research, she took her first steps into the topic of autism, hugely supported by the fact that she has an autistic sibling, which is also one of the reasons that made her pursue the journey of becoming a doctor. Bearing this passion with her, she approached her mentor, Prof Fairuz and the latter suggested the topic of “Parenting Stress in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”. That being a great beginning, Jun Xin also noted that one’s interests and directions might change as time goes by, from pre-university to university, and up until housemanship, and even further in the future.
A balance between research and study: Focus and Contentedness
As all of us can imagine how hectic the daily routine would be to juggle two heavy responsibilities, Jun Xin’s time management was based on a timetable which helped her to focus on one thing at a time. This was important because when it was time to study, she would fully focus on her academics without being distracted by anything else; while weekends were the time she blocked out to let herself fully immersed in and concentrated on research. By following the rule of ‘one at a time’ and giving her full attention to whatever she does, Jun Xin was able to keep her outstanding academic records while flourishing in her research work simultaneously.
Aside from time management, doing research itself could be extremely challenging, especially for a medical student who has a handful of commitments. When asked about how Jun Xin sustained her passion for research, she shared that the feeling of contentedness when she was able to contribute some new findings in the field of medicine was the one thing that keeps her going. She also regarded her ability to conduct research as one of the ways to contribute to the medical field.
Pieces of Advice from Jun Xin for Juniors Interested in Research
After several years of conducting research and producing papers, Jun Xin thought that knowing your interest is the very first way to embark on your research journey. Be it obesity, colon carcinoma, breast carcinoma, or diabetes, you name it, and you start from there. Secondly, it is also crucial to find a good research mentor who can support you and guide you well when you stumble upon hardships in conducting research. As for Jun Xin, again she expressed her gratitude for her supportive mentors throughout her research journey in ASASIpintar and Faculty of Medicine, UKM, including Prof Fairuz, Dr. Doris Lau, and Dr. Akmal who have supported her in coming such a far way from a budding student to a prosperous researcher. Coming to the third piece of advice, Jun Xin felt that it would be nice to have a group of peers who shared similar interests as you to work together. Not merely challenging, research could also be very dull when you are working alone and have no one to discuss with when problems arise as one’s perspective is rather limited to comprehensively understanding a particular topic. Last but not least, now that you have a good topic, a good mentor, and good teammates, finding a good platform is the last piece of the puzzle to complete your first step in research. “Nowadays there are a lot of research conferences,” Jun Xin said, “where you can see what others do and you can share what you do as well.” She believed that by making good use of the opportunities of joining different research conferences which provide a platform for bidirectional learning and communication, one can learn a lot of new things other than making new acquaintances.
Early Exposures to Research in Medical School
Medical students in UKM would have the chance to conduct research in the ‘Special Study Module’ in their fourth and final year. However, when asked about any other pathways earlier than that, Jun Xin shared that approaching lecturers in the faculty could be one of them once you have your interested topics in mind. “As long as you are very interested in research and you are persistent enough, a lot of the lecturers in our faculty are very willing to support and guide us.”
Jun Xin’s Research Journey in Three Words
Grateful, contented, curiosity. “There should be an answer behind every why.” Jun Xin thought that conducting research is by itself a quest to find the answer while creating more questions for others to answer.
Research and Housemanship
As someone with experience in research, Jun Xin also talked about how this extra skill could give valuable opportunities to collaborate with superiors as KKM hospitals also have ongoing research projects, adding memories into housemanship experience. In terms of clinical works, Jun Xin also mentioned that research does come in very handy in terms of dealing with clinical cases since the management of patients is always based on the latest Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) as well as the latest advancement in various research. Hence by familiarising yourself with research, all the skills and knowledge could be of great help in a clinical setting.
About Paediatric Oncology
Before we wrapped up the interview, let us listen to Jun Xin about her future plans. Jun Xin is known for her passion for paediatric oncology ever since medical school. When asked about her plans to further her research journey on the said topic, Jun Xin affirmed that paediatric oncology still topped her list after she has gone through two postings as a houseman, namely surgery and orthopaedics. The main reason behind this was Jun Xin’s mentor, Dr. Doris, who works as a paediatric oncologist in HUKM and who also inspires Jun Xin to become someone like her in the future. However, Jun Xin also mentioned that at the current moment, it was of the utmost importance for her to complete her housemanship, and she was also looking into the possibility of continuing master's degree and becoming a trainee lecturer at UKM in the near future.
