As doctors, we are constantly being challenged - at work, in our personal lives, even in medical school. In spite of this, we were blessed to have met each other during our undergraduate days at Nanyang Technological University, supported each other while studying at Duke-NUS and now, we look forward with great excitement to being residents... and as parents to our new baby.

At Duke-NUS, Eric was a year ahead of me and it was a blessing to have his guidance and advice as we worked towards becoming doctors. It was hard to get away from the books so we spent time studying together. We got married in March 2013 and it has been an exciting ride since then.

During my final year, I was due to fly to the United States for my electives at the Duke Medical Centre. As if that was not exciting enough, I found out I was pregnant a few days before that! Thankfully, my first trimester was quite smooth – I only had mild nausea and vomitting, which did not affect my rotations too much. My fellow Duke-NUS classmates also took great care of me, especially with the cooking and chores. Even when I was doing my surgery sub-internship, I was fortunate to be assigned to the less physically demanding teams.

The only challenging period was the CPX4 preparation, when I was transiting into my final trimester and started to have a bit of pregnancy-related "psychomotor retardation". We needed to find cases in the hospital which was physically demanding and stressful. Luckily my friends were very supportive and gave me a helping hand during that period.

Although it will be a huge challenge for me since I will be a first-time mother and a first-time doctor/resident when I go back to work after giving birth, I am constantly reminded by what a mentor once told me: there will be challenges in different stages of our medical career, there really isn't a best time to plan for a family. Just be prepared for the challenges and remind ourselves that we have made the right decisions.

I am looking forward to joining the internal medicine department once I return to work. I chose internal medicine as I am less of a hands-on person compared to Eric. I prefer to sit down and think about a problem logically. Moreover, I really enjoyed myself during the internal medicine rotation and sub-internship programme, so it was quite clear to me when I had to decide on my specialty.

Dr Chen Kaina

While Kaina is currently preparing for the birth of our baby girl (Yes, both of us wanted a girl!), I have just completed my first year as a House Officer (HO) in the Orthopaedic department at Singapore General Hospital (SGH). It has been pleasant so far and I really enjoy working with the people and the nature of work at SGH. I wanted a specialty with hands-on opportunity but I was not sure which one to choose initially. It is totally different now that as a doctor, I am responsible for the safety and well-being of my patients, my family and myself as compared to being responsible only for myself when I was a student. Now that I have completed my first year, I am striving to be a Medical Officer next!

I am also obviously looking forward to my impending fatherhood. I am really glad that only a few departments have long hours and thanks to the new residency programme at SGH, it is definitely possible for us to have a balanced life even during HO year - for the majority of the time.

For now though, both of us are just really looking forward to meeting our bundle of joy soon and cheesy as it may be, we know that however daunting and challenging life may be for us, we will always have each other's support and understanding. We foresee plenty of late nights and loss of sleep but it will be worth it as long as our little girl is blessed and contributes to the society in future - as a doctor or otherwise.

Dr Eric Liu