Daughter is first in family to earn college degree
It’s the moment Fay Kwen Kan has been holding onto for six years. It has helped the 25-year-old get through long days of attending classes and nights of studying, between which she got little sleep. In her mind, she has slowly begun to register the reality that she will be the first doctor in her family.
And that is not all: Ms Kan won special awards in Community Medicine, something she said she did not expect.
It was one of the thirteen special awards obtainable at the Fiji National University’s (FNU) graduation ceremony for the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences yesterday.
“I think the first year of medical school was the hardest because there was a big jump in the workload compared to what we were used to in high school,” she said. Her parents left their home in Guangdong, China to come to Fiji years before she was even born. Their journey to Fiji seeking better opportunities and with dreams of education for their children fully materialised at Ms Kan’s graduation.
“When she was young, I had to take her to the doctor for a health problem and she had thought that she will require a surgery,” said her father, Chiu Kan, speaking through a translator.
“The doctor gave her some medicine and she recovered. On that day I made the decision that we needed a doctor in the family.” On Ms Kan’s agenda now is an important mission that she feels should be addressed; a problem with the consequences to match that of climate change: Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD’s). “I think people need more education in terms of NCDs,” she said.
“I think the latest statistics say there’s one amputation every 8 hours so it’s something people should really focus on.” Her parents worked hard to create a better life for her and her three siblings; the former student of Yat Sen Secondary School hopes to serve the Fijian people with equal diligence.
The Kwan family story is one of sparkling encouragement: the search for a better life; faith in work and education; the close embrace of family.