 WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Kevin Tay won the 1994 Baden Wales Scholarship with a perfect tertiary entrance rank of 100. After years of gruelling work, a recent break from his profession was just the medicine he needed.
"I was working in business for a management consultancy company and it felt empty," said Dr Tay, speaking to the Journal from his family home in Penshurst.
The challenges and the responsibility of medicine are what drive the former Sydney Technical High student, who inherited his formidable intellect from mother Belinda, a biology teacher, and father Herman, an electrical engineer (both Club members).
During his medical degree at The University of NSW, Tay won an award for topping Anatomy and also picked up a Commonwealth Foundation scholarship which took him to Western Samoa for an unforgettable eight-week internship.
"It was a great experience because medicine is very different over there. You only have four or five antibiotics to choose from so they have to make do with what they have. It's very pragmatic," said the 26-year-old Doctor. When he graduated from medicine in 2000, the St George lad was rightfully returned to the local area for an internship at St George Hospital.
There, his academic prowess was just that. "It was good to be out there applying what I had learned. It was great to be thrown in the deep end," he said, stressing he quickly had to come to terms with the gravity of his role. "All the decisions you make affect people's lives to a great extent.
When you work elsewhere it's money, but this is lives.'' While two 16-hour shifts on weekends did not bother him, the stress and the pressure of a very demanding job, following so many years of study, began to sap his resolve. Concerned that the 13 or 14 years it takes to become a specialist would be too great a sacrifice, Tay sought a change. But the endless hours of study were quickly put back into perspective when crunching numbers proved far less rewarding.
After a year-and-a-half working in business, Dr Tay says he is now "having a good time back in medicine."
The resident medical officer at Concord Repatriation Hospital is resigned once again to the hard slog and intends to begin studying radiology in a couple of years.
Dr Kevin Tay Can take the boy out of medicine.
The resident medical officer at Concord Repatriation Hospital is resigned once again to the hard slog and intends to begin
studying radiology in a couple of years.
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