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[h=1]It Changed My Life: Aspiring teacher became a doc because of bullies[/h]Some years ago, a young man turned up at Dr Lee Cheng Chuan's clinic in Tan Tock Seng Hospital's Communicable Disease Centre.
Reduced to skin and bones by HIV - the human immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids - his body was covered in unsightly rashes.
Dr Lee, who heads the HIV programme at the hospital, prescribed some medication for him.
"He responded very well to treatment but then stopped coming and went back to his old state. The next time he came in, he had to be treated for the same problems," he says.
A little prodding revealed that the man could not afford the medication, but was too proud to approach a medical social worker for help.
"He said his mother gave him only $10 a day. He told me he just wanted to give up and die," says Dr Lee, 52. "I asked him what was it that he loved most, and he said he loved to surf the Internet but could not afford it."
The infectious diseases expert struck a bargain with his patient.
"I told him that if he agreed to see a social worker and get help, I would pay his Internet bill."
The unusual deal worked.
"He got so well that he found a job, and now even pays for his own medication," he says.
The incident reaffirmed Dr Lee's belief that thinking out of the box can sometimes change outcomes.
"I always remember what William Osler said," he says, referring to the famous Canadian pathologist dubbed the father of modern medicine. "He said, 'The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.'"
Of course, HIV, which Dr Lee has committed himself to fighting for the last two decades, is no ordinary disease.
First clinically observed in the United States in the early 1980s, it is usually transmitted through unprotected sex with an infected person, or when drug abusers share needles and syringes. If untreated, it can lead to progressive failure of the immune system and pave the way for various opportunistic and lethal infections and cancers to thrive.
Reduced to skin and bones by HIV - the human immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids - his body was covered in unsightly rashes.
Dr Lee, who heads the HIV programme at the hospital, prescribed some medication for him.
"He responded very well to treatment but then stopped coming and went back to his old state. The next time he came in, he had to be treated for the same problems," he says.
A little prodding revealed that the man could not afford the medication, but was too proud to approach a medical social worker for help.
"He said his mother gave him only $10 a day. He told me he just wanted to give up and die," says Dr Lee, 52. "I asked him what was it that he loved most, and he said he loved to surf the Internet but could not afford it."
The infectious diseases expert struck a bargain with his patient.
"I told him that if he agreed to see a social worker and get help, I would pay his Internet bill."
The unusual deal worked.
"He got so well that he found a job, and now even pays for his own medication," he says.
The incident reaffirmed Dr Lee's belief that thinking out of the box can sometimes change outcomes.
"I always remember what William Osler said," he says, referring to the famous Canadian pathologist dubbed the father of modern medicine. "He said, 'The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.'"
Of course, HIV, which Dr Lee has committed himself to fighting for the last two decades, is no ordinary disease.
First clinically observed in the United States in the early 1980s, it is usually transmitted through unprotected sex with an infected person, or when drug abusers share needles and syringes. If untreated, it can lead to progressive failure of the immune system and pave the way for various opportunistic and lethal infections and cancers to thrive.
