After more than half a year of planning, we've concluded PHS with a final debrief. We would have done many things differently with the benefit of hindsight, and even though there were so many issues that surfaced along the course of the event, it was really enjoyable. We had a common goal in mind, and it was something I strongly believe in and found very rewarding (:

There have been many debates about such large scale public health screenings, about the efficacy and accuracy of our screening methods in picking up abnormalities and disease. It may not be diagnostic, but I believe that we have definitely helped to raise more awareness about public health. And well, everyone has to start off somewhere. For the poorer income groups who are unable to afford regular health screenings, PHS was a good way to sieve through these people and pick up those with chronic diseases and cardiovascular risk factors. Ultimately, awareness is very beneficial because prevention is better than cure.

In manpower, alot of the work was about getting frustrated at irresponsible people who withdrew at the last minute, and we practically met up everyday during the last week to grimace at the allocations. It was fun nonetheless, our meetings would last until 11+pm and we would start getting tired and ditzy and laughed at everything even though it wasn't funny. Going through those volunteer and supervisor trainings, feeling my blood pressure escalate when I opened the manpower gmail with 10 new emails to attend to, and surviving the epic shirts' crisis were all so memorable haha. I'd like to think we managed it as best as we could. PHS taught me alot about crisis management and interacting with people.

There was this gentleman we met during the second day of PHS who started shouting at Lynette and I because an usher directed him to a seat which was unfortunately taken up by another participant before he got to it, and he claimed that he was not being treated like a human being throughout the entire screening. It was a very unpleasant encounter because he made unreasonable demands and refused to listen to our explanations. He even wrote in to Lynette after the entire event demanding for the email address of a "higher authority". Seriously -.-
But there are the other participants who are so friendly and appreciative of what we're doing. Interacting with them, dispensing small advice about healthy living and hearing them express simple gratitude was very gratifying.

I really enjoyed planning and executing PHS, it's something that made these few months very busy but yet very fun. We managed to screen more than 2000 participants, and I believe that we have helped to benefit these participants in one way or another. It's a meaningful way to contribute in our capacity as medical students.