Dr Cheryl is currently volunteering as a dentist in HealthServe. She first heard about HealthServe through her classmate in dental school. Finding volunteering a meaningful way of serving the migrant community and gaining more insights into the inner-workings of a clinic, Dr Cheryl began volunteering in HealthServe in 2016. She mainly helped with administrative work while she was in school, and started providing dental services after she graduated from Dental school.

“I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to volunteer on both sides, first as the one handling appointments and recording down patients’ details, then as a clinician seeing patients. It has been heartening to see HealthServe constantly improve itself and gain more traction and support in Singapore.”

For the past 3 years, it was her strong desire to provide dental care to migrant workers that pushed her to continuously serve in HealthServe. These low-wage migrant workers have very little access to dental care as it can be very expensive. Not only so, she feels that the migrant workers are a marginalised group in Singapore, and wants to take this chance to serve them and alleviate some of their burdens. 

“Dental care may not involve ‘life and death’ scenarios or severe injury but when a toothache comes, it can severely affect one’s ability to eat and speak.”

She fondly recalls the first time she volunteered as a dentist at HealthServe. Her clinic partner, who assisted her in dental school, also assisted her that day. It also happened to be the first time they were working together as “real” dentists. That day brought back many fond and funny memories from dental school for her!