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After more than a year since Ms Nurul Nadzirah Abdul Karim received the Home Team Merit Award (Polytechnic), or HOME Award, her friends and relatives still could not understand why she decided on a paramedic career with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) over being a nurse.
They wondered if she would be able to cope with the demands of dealing with accident and emergency cases at incident sites as opposed to providing patient care in a hospital.
For the 21-year-old, her choice was clear.
“Every single day is about dealing with different situations at a different pace, unlike working in a hospital where it (work) might become routine after a while,” said Ms Nurul who is passionate about healthcare.
The Ngee Ann Polytechnic diploma in Health Sciences (Nursing) student wanted a vocation that required her to be “sharper in thinking, wiser in making decisions and quicker in action” since she would be dealing with emergency cases most of the time.
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| Photo by Tan Yi Wen |
Ms Nurul Nadzirah Abdul Karim, winner of last year’s Home Team Merit Award (Polytechnic), hopes her nursing and paramedic training will mould her into a disciplined individual with “sharper critical thinking skills”.
Hence she opted to join the SCDF under the HOME Award scheme. Upon her graduation – expected to be in April 2012, Ms Nurul will spend the first 1½ years of her career training to become a paramedic. Besides three levels of paramedic courses, the training stint will also include an attachment to a fire station.
While she has opted for a career path that is different from most of her course mates, the lessons and skills Ms Nurul picked up during her nursing course will put her in good stead for a paramedic career.
One key lesson she has learnt is that the provision of care for someone goes beyond helping patients with tasks or treatments.
“For instance, I might be asked to shower a patient but that act in itself involves a lot of things. A person may look alright on the surface but look a little deeper, there could be many things that need attention,” she explained.
“This is what I find most beneficial about nursing training which can be applied to my future job as a paramedic because caring for someone is never about being focused on one area. Rather, it is about providing holistic care, especially in emergency situations.”
While Ms Nurul’s educational background will come in handy when she starts her paramedic career, she is under no illusion about the challenges that lie in front of her.
“In whatever I do, I expect challenges and setbacks along the way and I hope whatever comes my way will help to shape my character and make me a better and stronger person,” she said.
“When I was growing up, there were days when it got so bad that sometimes all I had was faith that things will get better,” she recalled. “I strongly believe that whatever that goes up, must come down and vice versa. Good days don’t last, so do bad days.”
Looking ahead, Ms Nurul envisions herself as a more disciplined individual with “sharper critical thinking skills” acquired from both her training as a nurse in school and as a paramedic with the SCDF.
She also hopes to pursue a degree course in paramedic sciences or emergency health sciences someday.
“I am interested to be a paramedic instructor someday because besides helping people, the next thing I love to do is to deliver knowledge,” she added.
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“Every single day is about dealing with different situations at different pace, unlike working in a hospital where it might become a routine after a while.”
- Ms Nurul Nadzirah Abdul Karim explaining her decision to join SCDF as a paramedic.
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How an award helps to enrich her life
For most of her teenage years, she had been an independent girl who juggled between studying and working part-time in order to support her studies.
Ms Nurul Nadzirah Abdul Karim could not afford to enrich her life with various activities until last year when she received the Home Team Merit Award (Polytechnic), or HOME Award.
The award sponsors successful applicants for a 3-year full-time diploma course in the local polytechnics and also offers a monthly allowance.
“I gave up part-time work and used this opportunity to occupy myself with other things which I could not afford back then, such as traveling with the school or picking up a new hobby,” Ms Nurul said.
For instance, the 21-year-old student at Ngee Ann Polytechnic traveled with a group of students to Vietnam earlier this year to educate the locals on health matters like personal hygiene and breast self-examination.
“The most memorable experience about traveling to places and doing community work is coming home feeling a little more humble and grateful for the things we have here back at home,” she noted.
Ms Nurul hopes to pick up photography too.
“Since I love exploring places, it would be good to document them in photographs so that I have something to remember these places,” she said.
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