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Synopsis :

The  first of a two-part interview with with Singaporean poet, dramatist and novelist  Goh Poh Seng. A medical doctor by training, he is one of Singapore's founding fathers of literature. Dr Goh speaks about the challenges of making the transition from medicine to writing. He also touches on how his work as a doctor has influenced  his writing and vice versa. Practising medicine  gives him the opportunity to learn more about human beings through interaction with patients. This helps in his writing because like medicine, literature is humanitarian and allows him to look into the souls of the characters he creates. Dr Goh, who moved to Canada in 1981, tells us about how one of his patients became the subject of a long poem he wrote recently. She was an outspoken and fiesty fisherwoman who visited his clinic one winter's evening and shared with him stories about her work, the various pets she kept, her daughter's private life and her anxiety about impending poor health and lack of resources. His medical background helped him to suggest ways to deal with her problems, at the same time inspiring a poem about her.