Jumpstarting her career in healthcare

It was an afternoon of celebration for a team of College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS) interns who graduated from the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) Internship Programme, a semester-long programme that aims to help students learn about hospital management and operations.

Among them was Marilyn TOH, who reads double majors in Life Sciences and Management.

Marilyn’s passion for healthcare has been a driving force since her youth. Her love for biology, which she discovered in secondary school, led her to venture into courses focused on human systems and diseases, such as physiology.

“The healthcare industry is extremely versatile, and there are many different aspects one can contribute to,” she says.

Under the Department of Grants and Innovations at the Centre for Healthcare Innovation (CHI), she contributed to the CHISEL Healthcare InnoMatch, where she had the opportunity to work closely with stakeholders from the main healthcare clusters – the National Healthcare Group, National University Health System and SingHealth, National Health Innovation Centre (NHIC) and Synapxe, the national health technology agency.

She also led a segment of CHI INNOVATE 2024, focusing on exhibitor booths and Open Mic Pitching for start-ups, which she describes as her “greatest achievement”. She says, “This experience taught me invaluable lessons in project management, time management and communication. I worked closely with vendors and start-ups and it was highly rewarding when the start-ups expressed their gratitude for the seamless coordination and the opportunity to showcase their products.”

The experience was an insightful one, enabling Marilyn to discover the versatility of the healthcare industry.  She had the opportunity to shadow patient front desk staff and engage in various department sharing, where she experienced firsthand how different aspects of a hospital work together to deliver quality service to patients.  This disproved her initial perception that “hospital management is primarily focused on operations.”

Her internship, which opened her eyes to the diverse facets of hospital management and healthcare operations, strengthened her passion for healthcare, particularly in hospital management.

Marilyn aspires to a career in hospital management, with a goal to improve patient care. One of the possible areas would be exploring health technology in hospitals, which she believes will open doors to collaborative opportunities with companies driving healthcare solutions that enhance hospital operations and elevate patient care.