Portfolio-Influential Event

            Losing my mother to cancer in 2003 was influential to me as I discovered my passion to become a pharmaceutical researcher. I was 8 years old, and my mother was 35 years old at that time. I was told that my mother had been suffering from cancer, and after approximately 7 months, cancer took my mother away from me.

            I did not know what type of cancer my mother suffered from, and how torturous it was for her. All I knew was cancer could not be cured. As I grew up, I learnt more about anatomy and physiology, and I learnt how “cancer” initiated and impacted human bodies. Yet, the knowledge that I had acquired about cancer from science lessons and articles never included the complete cure to cancer. When I was 14 years old, an anti-cancer drug was introduced and scientists proclaimed that although it could destroy the mutated cells; , it also killed the hosts’ cells.

            When I was 16 years old, I faced a problem: I had to choose to enter either the science or the arts stream. After contemplating how the chemotherapy was ineffective and caused my mother to suffer more, and that the anti-cancer drug caused a huge adverse effect, I decided to enroll in the Pharmacy, hoping to contribute to the cancer cure someday. Keeping the faith in myself, I’m now in the pharmaceutical field, and I believe that, someday, knowledge and passion will help me come up with the next cancer treatment with optimum therapeutic effects and minimum adverse effect.

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