Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Master of Science in Practical Dermatology (Cardiff University)
Postgraduate Diploma in Practical Dermatology (Cardiff University)
Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Dermatology (Queen Mary, University of London)
CUHK Diploma in Advances in Medicine
(The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Diploma in Child Health
(The University of Sydney)
My Story
It’s my birthday and I’m turning seven. I run into the living room and my mama is there, a big smile on her face. She hands me a gift, the package heavy in my small hands. I tear off the wrapping to discover a book with an exquisite drawing of a girl in a white hat, peering through a door covered in ivy. It’s The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, illustrated by Graham Rust. I look up at my mama, beaming, and she hugs me.
“Look at all the pictures, baby. Aren’t they just beautiful?”
They are, and the book doesn’t leave my hands for the next few weeks. I spend my nights under the covers with a flashlight, poring over the pages. The story is haunting and captivating, but the illustrations are what I can’t get enough of. The delicacy of the colours, the meticulous attention to detail, the sweeping scenes of the English countryside… I almost feel like I know Mary and Colin, that their garden with all its secrets is mine as well.
I begin to draw my own illustrations, pen and watercolour renderings of plants and animals. My little brother joins me. He’s four and obsessed with dinosaurs. We have great fun creating exotic creatures and playing make-believe.
Mama notices our interest and takes us to Chinese painting and art classes, opening up a world of colour and possibilities. Each week, she puts on a red beret and a baby blue ankle-length dress with tiny flowers and we skip along beside her. We go to the library and pick out as many books as we like, and Mama laughs as we run up to her, our hands full.
On our way home during Christmas season, Mama points out the ever-changing displays in store windows. My brother and I press our faces against the glass and stare. My favourite is a powdery snowscape dotted all over with little ballerinas, above which a cascade of white doves swirl lazily, suspended from invisible wires.
We go to a ballet performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. A hush falls over the auditorium as the lights dim, and I tingle all over in anticipation. The show is magical and the costumes are a dream, but I become distracted by a boy in front of me.
His features are vague and flattened, like an abstract Chinese painting. He fidgets and turns and keeps sticking out his tongue. His eyes slant upwards behind thick glasses and his ears are small and delicate. I’m fascinated; I’ve never seen anyone like him before.
He sees me looking at him and lets out a guttural cry. People swivel their heads to stare and he cries out again, hitting the armrest next to him. The lady beside him pulls him close and rubs his back soothingly.
“Hush, mommy loves you, mommy loves you,” she whispers.
It feels like half the audience is looking our way, shooting us glares of annoyance and disapproval. A man tuts loudly. I turn to my mama for reassurance and she holds my hand tight. Her eyes are wet.
“That lady is a good mother,” she says.
My mama’s empathy glows like a beacon in the dark hall, and I sit back, warmed by her compassion.
Mama hums along to her beloved song Evergreen by Barbra Streisand as she cooks up a storm in the kitchen. She’s making all our favourites: eggplant with minced pork and salt-baked chicken for Baba; corned beef and steak for my brother; mashed potatoes and tomato omelettes for me.
I dash in and out from the kitchen to the living room and back again. Baba raises his eyebrows. I can’t help it - the food smells so delicious, and I’m so hungry.
I’m nine, and hungry all the time. Mama’s cooking is the best thing in the world, but it’s like there’s a giant hole in me that doesn’t get filled no matter how much I gulp down.
“Chew your food properly, baby,” Mama reminds me, as I swallow as fast as I can.
I nod, but the butterflies in my stomach flutter in protest. I wonder if these are growing pains, if I will grow out of all this nervous energy that keeps me up at night.
Baba’s sister Auntie Marianna, a midwife, sees me in our neighbourhood shopping mall. I’ve lost weight, and my eyes look strangely big on my face. She pulls my mama aside.
“Kwin Wah’s neck looks a bit swollen, it might be a good idea to take her in for a check-up,” she advises. “I know a great doctor at my hospital, let me help you arrange an appointment.”
Mama is startled, but agrees immediately. She spends the next few days calling up friends and acquaintances, trying to prepare herself for the unknown.
We travel for what seems like hours to arrive at the hospital, all the way on the other side of the city. The grounds are large and it takes us a while to find the Paediatrics Unit. Mama prays softly as we wait.
When we go into the doctor’s room, he rises from his desk to greet us. His hair is disheveled and his eyes are kind as he gestures behind him.
“I’m Dr Wong. These are medical students, do you mind if they learn from our session today?”
There are four of them, and I’m struck by how young they look. They take turns examining me, prodding at my neck, listening with their stethoscopes. They take my blood and I look away, clenching my teeth at the sharp sting of the needle entering my veins.
Dr Wong explains that I have Graves’ disease. He tells my mama not to worry, that it can be controlled with medications. He is patient and gentle and I see the knot of worry between my mama’s eyes loosen as he tells us he will be with us every step of the way.
The following months are a flurry of blood tests, medication titrations, follow-ups at the hospital. The doctors and nurses know me by name, and the smell of antiseptic and old flowers has become familiar. It’s still painful when I get my blood taken, but now I can look at the red liquid swirling into the syringes without feeling queasy.
It takes half a year to get my thyroid levels back to normal. Dr Wong pats me on the head.
“Kwin Wah, you’ve done well. You’ll only need to come back every month or so from now on. Remember to take your medicines on time.”
I’m relieved to know we no longer have to make the long journey to the hospital as frequently, and I desperately want to believe things are going to be fine.
In the mornings when I look in the mirror, I notice changes - my eyes bulging, leaving me with an expression of constant startlement; my hair becoming coarse and sparse, angling out from my head like fine wires. I hide behind my glasses and turn away whenever there’s a camera in the room.
It happens one day at school. We’re learning about similes and metaphors, and the teacher points at me.
“Lisa’s hair is like fat choy,” she announces. “Like a patch of unruly vegetables. That is a simile. On the other hand, we can also say Lisa is a goldfish. That would be a metaphor.”
The other students snicker and give me sidelong glances. My heart hurtles down to my stomach and I want to disappear, but I paste a smile on my face and try to laugh along.
The nicknames stick for the rest of my school years. I’ve always been painfully shy, but never this lonely. At recess while the other students chatter and play games, I retreat to the library and find refuge in books.
I read Anne of Green Gables and marvel at her pluckiness, her ability to find her way out of any situation. In her I find a kindred spirit, a homely girl who finds solace in beauty and big dreams.
I may not have many friends, but there is still so much light and joy around me.
Mama shares her admiration for Audrey Hepburn and Princess Diana, always emphasising that their beauty radiates from the inside out, from their acts of generosity and altruism. She takes me and my brother to piano recitals, where we lose ourselves in the music and rush home to play duets.
My brother grows to be a musician and an artist, and his fearlessness in the face of peer pressure inspires me to find my own authenticity.
Baba, an engineer by trade, teaches me that there’s no problem that can’t be solved with logic, persistence and open-mindedness.
At our monthly visits, Dr Wong is considerate and encouraging. He knows that the changes in my appearance bother me, and gives me hope when he shares that some of these changes may be reversible with surgery.
This is not yet a common treatment, and Dr Wong’s empathy sparks a determination in me to become more like him, to have the ability to help those in need.
I decide to become either a doctor or a research biochemist, and start studying hard at school. I apply for and gain acceptance into the medical curriculum at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. For me, this is a double triumph as the university is affiliated with Dr Wong’s hospital and he will be one of my professors.
The summer before I turn seventeen, the gland in front of my throat has grown so large I have trouble breathing during Phys. Ed. classes. Dr Wong, Mama and I decide that the time has come for surgery. Dr Wong refers us to Dr Chan, who works at a hospital closer to home.
The night before surgery I am nervous. The hospital pyjamas are large on me and the cubicle is cold. My hands are clammy with sweat and I huddle under the thin covers, trying to slow my breathing.
“Kwin Wah, are you alright?”
I peek out to see Dr Chan at the foot of the bed, a quizzical smile on his face. I nod and he steps up to the side of my bed, handing me his stethoscope.
“You’ll be in medical school soon, why don’t we let you get a head start and learn what a thyroid bruit sounds like?”
I listen to the swell and fade of blood over my neck. I am reminded of ocean waves and after Dr Chan leaves, I drift off into sleep.
In the morning, Dr Chan is still there.
“Don’t worry, Kwin Wah. I’ll make sure to hide the scar right between your collarbones so it won’t be too visible when you grow older.”
He calms my pre-surgery jitters and when the anaesthetist tells me to close my eyes and start counting backwards in the operating theatre, I think of an endless ocean, sparkling with the diamond rays of a golden sun.
The surgery goes smoothly and the scar fades with time, just as Dr Chan promised. Over the next few years, the swelling around my eyes subside, and my hair grows back as well. At university, I decide to come out of my shell and make some wonderful friends.
These days, I am surrounded by love and laughter and light. I am blessed to have gone through what I have, to have met so many mentors on the way, and to be on the path I am now. I believe deeply in the inherent goodness of people, and can only hope to bring as much comfort to my patients as my childhood doctors once brought me.
Dr. Lisa Chan is a general practitioner with an avid interest in aesthetic medicine. A graduate of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dr. Lisa further obtained a Master’s in Practical Dermatology with distinction at Cardiff University and Diplomas in Dermatology at Cardiff University and Queen Mary, University of London.
Her other credentials include Diploma in Advances of Medicine at CUHK and Diploma in Child Health at the University of Sydney. In 2018, she obtained her second Master's at Queen Mary, University of London.
In her free time, Dr. Lisa enjoys painting, calligraphy, playing the piano, trying new recipes, high intensity interval training and going on adventures with her three cats.
