Life and Lies of Egan Goh: Tale of The Great Teacher

A good teacher will test what you know, but best teacher will let you know what you don't know.

Throughout this five years, I came to know a very great teacher that not only teaches, but make us learn what is more than the textbook. His name is Dr. Mohd Shahrir Mohamed Said.

Dr Shahrir is a rheumatologist, dealing mostly with rheumatological disorder such as rheumatoid arthritis and all sorts of autoimmune disorders. My first encounter with him was during my second year, but it was just a glimpse as I was the student representative coming from Kuala Lumpur campus to HUKM to meet my voters (junior nurses). He was then a deputy headmaster of Kolej Tun Dr Ismail. During that meeting, we were doing campaigning for the up coming university election. It was then the bond with him already started.

After being elected as the student council spanning from end of my second year till my third year, I became more and more in contact with Dr Shahrir. He was, during that time, a Deputy Headmaster still despite having no real headmaster. It was then due to his political involvement during his student years that leads to the holdback of his promotion. We have quite a number of meeting between the college and the university level, and most of the planning were done with the presence of him.

Then, I rested for a semester before he came back to me during my third year, end of semester break. During that time, he sincerely asked me to join the college comittee as the secretary. Initially, I wasn't too keen as I do not require anymore involvement in these kind of position to gain a place in college. Simply put, I already exceed the requirement to be eligible to stay in the college. Another thing was, I thought I wanted to concentrate more in my study. However, my friend Guang Hong agreed to join earlier and need me as well to help the college comittee, so I gave it a try. Then we met more and more often.

There were many projects to be carried out throughout the year and I am part of the planning comittee. We get to meet often to discuss for plannings, budgets and administrative stuffs. I never regretted working with him as he is a dedicated person, and a seriously dedicated one. He never failed to provide us with useful feedback and be with us througout the projects. But life is never a smooth sailing one. Then, there was a lot of blackmailing going on. Even some go to the extend to spread words about him to the higher level, causing him a lot of hardship. Me and my friends were his places to complain, and we had quite a number of late night 'mamak stalls' meeting to listen to his problems. Not that we can solve anything but letting him ventilate makes him feels better. In fact, we often voice our complaints as well to him regarding problems that we had encountered throughout our medical studies. He will provide us solution and try to help us as much as he could.

During his time as the headmaster, I think he is a very caring person. He knew the students by name and knew their behaviours as well. He kept a good list of students phone number. If any of the student faced any difficulty, even late at night, he will not hesitate to help them. One thing about him is he love gossips, especially which student is pairing with who and who is breaking up with who. Whoever that failed during any posting will be seen by him personally to make sure the student is not facing any hardship in life which he can help to solve. However, there were students that works against him behind his back. As he is pro-university lecturer (as well as pro-government), those pro-student activist had worked against him. This more or less gave him the heartache.

Into our final year, he offered himself automatically to gave us extra classes! He will stay back during after office hour or even sacrificed weekend for the sake of student. Otherwise, most of the lecturer would not be bothered to do it. He wanted to see every student under his hand passed and do him proud. We have extra classes to present long cases, practice short cases and we even go as far to KL General Hospital to practice with him. He arranged a lot of case presentations, to boost up our knowledge. A teacher is never complete if he is not a good motivator. He will give us morale support to go throught the tough times.

Every year, there will be at least a 10 percent of student that has to repeat their professional exams. He personally feels that it is not necessary that we follow this trend. Every student deserved a pass, if we achieved above the passing mark. Sad to say, this year's mortality is reaching 15 percent, and most of them were more than average students. However, some had made him really proud by making into the distinction list as well as being awarded as honours student.

Yesterday we had a final meeting in his place. He was very sad for our departure as we were the closest batch with him. At times, I can see the shiny glimpse in his eyes. He was holding back his tears, I knew. Then he gave me this msg:

"My heart broke a thousand pices when you all left my house. Tears easily flow down my chubby cheeks. I will always luv you guys and will miss you truly. Please keep in touch... Pity this wandering soul."

After this farewell, will there be another Dr Shahrir in my life? I doubted it. But as far as I can say, part of my success today as a medical doctor belongs to you, Dr Shahrir. Thank you very much. We will do you proud, I promised.