The nation’s foremost voice on health and safety during the Covid-19 pandemic, Health Director-General Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has let on that a career in the field of medicine was not what he had originally planned to do. 

In an interview with the New Straits Times yesterday, he told the newspaper agency he had previously been interested in becoming a mufti or an officer with religious authorities. 

“I wanted to be a religious officer or a mufti! Yes, seriously,” he was quoted saying.

“When I was in Form 2, I started thinking about the purpose of my existence. I focused on religious studies to get to know myself on a deeper level and find answers to those existential questions.”

Coming from a poor family background, he was interested in studying religious studies but a prominent figure in the religious department dissuaded him from taking it up for a good reason. 

“I took an avid interest in religious studies but the head of the religious studies called me up and told me to read medicine instead. He said that there were enough people studying religion but not enough studying medicine!”

“I wanted to help people at the end of the day, and I realised that medicine was a way to do just that,” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham also went on about his background, in particular finding out that he was an adopted child much later in his years, at age 46. 

“That’s what they say,” he replies to the question of whether he was born in Sungai Pelek. The memory of his origins is a tad bit fuzzy but that doesn’t seem to affect Dr Hisham all that much. 

Apparently, he was adopted in Sungai Pelek by his Chinese-Muslim parents. Unfortunately, his parents separated when he was younger which is likely to have been what precipitated the poverty he faced during that time. He was forced to stay with his adopted mother and survive on her sole income. 

“We had to stand on our own. I learnt to be resourceful and independent from young.

“When you come from nothing, you’d think it’s difficult to read medicine. But the path is open. If you have good results you can do anything. It’s all up to you,” Dr Noor Hisham reportedly said.

Just goes to show, humble beginnings do not entirely determine the trajectory of your future success. It is the hard work and perseverance in the face of adversity that will most ensure success, as Noor Hisham embodies.