It is morning — and near the end of a 30-hour shift in the hospital for me after a night call. 

Wearily, I tidy up the call room and head home to sleep, and get ready to play a gig in the evening at one of my favourite local bars. But my life as a doctor and singer hasn’t always been planned out to be this way.

In my formative years I was put through what I'd call the "Asian kid cookie-cutter" — learn the piano, play a sport, go for tuition classes to do well on school tests. 

If my family's expectations of what they wanted me to become weren't clear enough, I was given a doctor's playset as a child to play pretend with. 

I floated along life telling everyone “I want to do Medicine”, an incantation that hung on the lips of my grandmother who taught me that it was the best reply to curious relatives at Chinese New Year.

REPRIEVE

When I’d reached junior college, everything came to a stuttering halt — my grades plummeted and I was repeatedly failing classes. My only reprieve was the rock band that my school ran as a co-curricular activity. 

Music became a refuge I would seek after class. I poured my heart and soul into song, picked up the guitar and learnt how to sing, initially to my parents’ dismay. 

This was a household that played only classical music within its walls, and here I was belting out the irreverent tunes of My Chemical Romance or edgy Paramore, the bold anthems of the Foo Fighters or Guns & Roses’ classics.

Music became a crucial coping mechanism for me to deal with the academic stress, and I bucked up on my grades.

Having never scored a single "A" throughout JC, by God's grace I ended up with an A-Levels report card that allowed me to study Medicine.

Stay woke. Join us on Telegram:

By this time, I had done a few hospital attachments and read multiple books (mostly by American surgeon Atul Gawande) about the medical field.

With fresh eyes I saw Medicine as a delicate balance of science and the arts - the objective anatomy versus subjective humanity of patients, and was intrigued by a doctor's role of healing both the physical and metaphorical heart.

LOVE

Medical school taught us the science of disease, how to wield scalpel and suture, but caring for patients was not something that could be technically learned.

Music then showed me a profound way of reaching out to others and showing love. 

These came in the form of teaching ukulele to underprivileged children; or sharing my story with a boy in the Institute of Mental Health, who had attempted suicide because his parents didn't believe in him or his music, among many other instances.

In my second year of medical school, I joined a band formed by the National University Centre for Organ Transplant.

Here, music brought people from all ages and backgrounds together — we had a taxi driver (and kidney transplant recipient) as a vocalist, a liver transplant surgeon as a keyboardist, and other patients, administrative staff, nurses and medical students as instrumentalists.

At one of our shows in the National University Hospital, a frail man showed up out of nowhere armed with a bevy of percussion instruments. He had bongo drums, tambourines, a Malay kompang, a metal bell rattle and more, and he sat in the centre of this circle of drums next to our instruments.

He tapped away contentedly at his multitude of instruments as we played, despite never having been to a single practice. When the show ended, most of us hardly acknowledged him.

His son approached us and thanked us for allowing him to join our performance, saying that his father (also a kidney transplant recipient) used to play percussion for prominent orchestras and bands, and hadn't been able to make much music recently due to his ailing health.

A few months later, we received news that the man had passed on. His son contacted us to tell us that that performance was one of the happiest moments in his last days, which his family could rejoice with him in. 

Despite not knowing any of the songs we played that day, the music filled his soul and gave him joy, and reached out to him in an inexplicable way.

Among the throngs of audiences we've played for, and the different patients and individuals I've met through the band, I could never forget the wide smile on that man's wrinkled face.

IDENTITY

Though there were many times I had considered giving up playing music to focus on my studies, I’ve come to realise that grades alone don't make someone a good doctor, but who you are as a person - a human being relating to another human being in need.

As a person, music has helped me tell stories about the world around me, in work and in life.

What started as a love for literature and a shy foray into poetry has grown into an album of songs about medicine, love, life and death - this Extended Play (EP) of my original songs was released on Spotify in mid-2019.

For instance, “Emergency Room” was about my grandfather, and how closely his life and death were intertwined with my experience as a medical student. 

When people hear it, they tell me it reminds them of their late grandparents, or remembering grief in goodbyes.

Journeying with music and medicine has shown me that you are not defined by your day job. 

You may be a singer-songwriter who's also an entrepreneur for social causes, or an accountant who's an ardent filmmaker; or even like the taxi driver in our band who’s also a passionate singer.

As Singaporeans we're beginning to shed the chrysalis of traditional expectations (and limitations) of our jobs, and emerge as unique individuals with original talents.

Moving forward, I want to continue working with music and medicine intertwined, be it as therapy for patients, or simply as a creative outlet to portray the individual lives I meet as a doctor.

I count myself incredibly blessed to be where I am today, and wish to see others’ lives touched by the concurrent healing of song and medicine.

More importantly, I hope to inspire you to dream big, so you can be who you want to be.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Stephanie Yeap is a junior doctor in Singapore, currently working as a house officer in a public hospital. She is also a singer-songwriter who has been highlighted as one of “Singapore’s Top Acts” on Spotify, and recognised on official Apple Music playlist’s “The A-List: Singapore Music” with music from her debut album “Most of All”.