Medicine in their blood
> The Lim family may have the most doctors with 45
GEORGE TOWN: The family of the late Lim Tang Too, a rubber tapper, can very well enter the Guinness Book of World Records as having the most number of doctors.
There are 45 of them spread over Lim’s children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.
Lim, who is survived by his wife Loo Siew Chin, had always stressed the importance of education to all their 11 children and eight of them became doctors.
Loo, 95, a former rubber tapper along with her late husband, had a tough time raising their large family with their meagre earnings but had always wanted their children to have a comfortable life.
Today, the family, including the extended family can boast of 45 doctors, 20 of them specialists, and one an associate professor at Universiti Malaya.
Among Loo’s nine sons and two daughters, her eldest son Datuk Lim Boon Sho currently runs Klinik Lim in Nibong Tebal.
He said his father was the one who inspired them to become doctors in order to help other family members who often fell sick.
Boon Sho, who is the first in the family to graduate as a medical doctor, said he began studying medicine in India back in 1964.
“When we were kids, we often fell sick and my father sent us to the general hospital for treatment. Due to financial constraints, my father came out with an idea of having a doctor in the family so that the rest would be well taken care of. After I graduated, one by one of my brothers went on the same path,” he told Bernama during a family gathering dinner, here, on Saturday night.
Boon Sho who was Sungai Bakap assemblyman from 1986 until 1990, said that after the passing of his father nine years ago, the family had always been passionate about medicine.
“My brothers and I always talk about medicine but we would never force our children to become doctors, we merely want them to have a good education,” he said.
Of Boon Sho’s 10 other siblings, seven of them are doctors, namely Lim Boon Sin, 68; Lim Boon Ben, 66; Lim Boon Seng, 64; Lim Boon Hock, 59; Lim Boon Han, 55; Lim Boon Kiong, 52; and Lim Boon Aik, 50.
Boon Sho’s eldest sister Lim Ai Hwa, 76, is a housewife, his younger brother Lim Boon Tai, 62 is a businessman and his youngest sister Lim Ai Ching, a lawyer.
Meanwhile, Boon Han who is also Gerakan Nibong Tebal division chairman, said with over 45 doctors and specialists in the family, there are plans to set up a private hospital run by the Lim family.
“Maybe one day, we can introduce a Lim family hospital but everything is still too premature and we are still in the initial planning stage,” he said.
He added that the family, which now had about 100 members from four generations, made it a point to get together every Chinese New Year and medicine would always be the main topic of discussion.