{"id":38781,"date":"2026-03-24T05:33:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=38781"},"modified":"2026-03-24T05:33:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:33:35","slug":"forum-singaporean-of-the-year-had-the-conviction-to-do-something-for-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=38781","title":{"rendered":"Forum: Singaporean of the Year had the conviction to do something for others"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Congratulations to all the Singaporeans considered and shortlisted for The Straits Times\u00a0 Singaporean of the Year award (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/community\/doctor-who-started-clinic-for-people-with-intellectual-disabilities-is-st-singaporean-of-the-year?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">Doctor who started clinic for people with intellectual disabilities is ST Singaporean of the Year<\/span><\/a>\u201d, March 19). <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">It is heartening and inspiring to read about their backgrounds and stories that led them to do what they are doing for their fellow human beings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Dr Chen Shiling deserves the award for her decision to unselfishly leave her government hospital job to start a clinic to take care of the intellectually challenged.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">It takes someone with the conviction that she can make a difference to take such a journey in uncharted territory. As in most entrepreneurship journeys, that conviction is the most important factor.\u00a0Risks, challenges, personal sacrifices and opportunity costs are also key considerations. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">I applaud Dr Chen <!-- -->for making it to this part of her journey<!-- --> and wish her well. I hope this accomplishment will motivate more Singaporeans, especially those professionally trained, to strive to make a difference in society \u2013 not when they are financially successful, but ideally as soon as they can.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">It\u2019s only when we have each other\u2019s back, look beyond our personal priorities and make some sacrifices that we can say we are a developed nation.\u00a0We don\u2019t wait till we are in our retirement years to do this.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">I would also like to suggest that the Ministry of Health look closer at the entire medical infrastructure to ensure there are no obvious gaps like those Dr Chen discovered that led her to start her clinic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\"><b>Paul Heng<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/opinion\/forum\/forum-singaporean-of-the-year-had-conviction-to-do-something-for-others\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congratulations to all the Singaporeans considered and shortlisted for The Straits Times\u00a0 Singaporean of the Year award (\u201cDoctor who started clinic for people with intellectual&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}