Breaking free from failure to success
Published on: Sunday, December 18, 2022
By: Kan Yaw Chong
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The SEAS English Corner, Membakut.
THERE was a time when UK-based neonatology specialist Dr Zainab Kassim just cried and cried because every school rejected her.
“You know how hard and painful that is,” she told Daily Express.
But as an ancient Chinese proverb says, “Failure is the mother of success,” meaning failure is actually a step closer to success when one fails in anything or any discipline.
Syth’s Blog makes it even more concise in just three words : ‘Make Things Better’.
The story of Membakut-hailed Dr Zainab Kassim fits the bill beautifully in both instances.
Dr Zainab Kassim: Neonatologist.
Poor English was her Achilles’ heel in her early years of school.
At the SK Pg Jaya Pimping primary school, Membakut, she barely scrapped through with a Grade D on the cliff edge of failure.
Then it was a complete disaster when she scored only 17 out of 100 in her first English exam at SMK Likas, 1982.
“My Report Card were all red,” she remembered.
Her father was mad with her and issued an ultimatum: “No holidays for you, you study!”
The pride of lowly Membakut
Here is the proverbial question: Can anything good come out of Membakut, which like many small places, are often despised and lowly regarded?
But here is a stunning self-made surprise who literally read her way out of failure to the apex of success and is now dedicated to help children do the same.
From a complete English flop, she became an Associate Professor of Paediatrics and now a lead neonatal specialist in probably the most famous English hospital in the world – Kings College Hospital, London, where she is the Neonatal Lead for the Transitional Care and Post Natal Ward.
Sabahan friends who helped collect books.
More extraordinary still, a once English no-hoper had turned herself into a champion for English proficiency back in her old kampong Membakut, where she has set up an English Corner Building stuffed with thousands of books in English, under the auspicious of her Charity dubbed Sabah English Aspiration Society (SEAS), designed to develop rural English literacy.
Her motto is ’Start Small Dream Big’ which will be the second part of this two-parts series.
Meteoric rise
So first, consider the meteoric rise in her medical career.
From 1989 to 1995, she studied Medicine in the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland.
1995 to 1996, did internship in Ireland.
1996 to 1999, she underwent Paediatric Training, passed Member Exam in 1999.
2000 to 2003, she came back to Malaysia to work at the Paediatric Specialist Hospital in Tengku Ampuan Afzan Kuantan and as Assistant Professor at University Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIAM).
2003 to 2007, she joined the King’s College Hospital UK as a Neonatal clinical Research Fellow.
2008, she was appointed Associate Professor in Paediatrics, University Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) Ampang and Specialist in Paediatric and Neonate Hospital Ampang.
In 2009, she became Associate Specialist in Neonatology KK Hospital Singapore.
2010, she went back to King’s College Hospital, UK and became a Senior Fellow in Neonatology from 2010 to 2015.
From 2015 until today, Dr Zainab works as an Associate Specialist in Neonatology at King’s College Hospital.
A specialist in the treatment and care of new born babies
So a central question: What is a neonatologist?
“A neonatologist is a specialist who works with babies who are less than 28 days old, just new born babies, less than one month old, that’s where I worked,” Dr Zainab explained.
“King’s Collage is a Centre for complex problems in new born. I used to work on babies who were born early, like three months early, they are like 1kg or 700 grams – really, really tiny, I was in intensive care which keeps you too busy with patients and cannot focus. So I no longer do that, I just want to focus on training and teaching the students and nurses, training doctors and midwives because my passion is actually teaching.”
The Membakut English Corner Project
But she’s still busy, with more than medicine.
English Aspiration Society English Corner Building in Membakut. 2nd left is Dr Zainab, 3rd left, daughter Nurhakeemah Burhanudin.
After a whirlwind visit to Sabah late October with her entire family to attend to her dream English Corner Building project in Membakut, she flew back to London, where she still work at King’s College Hospital, leading the special ward called Transitional Care and Personal Ward.
Entrusted research on Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia by notable neonatologist
From a failed Primary School and early secondary school student in Sabah to King’s College, Dr Zainab clearly cherishes the feat.
“It is not easy to get job in King’s College Hospital,” she said.
“We do a lot of interesting things that other hospital don’t do. I tell you one of my other passions in life, apart from cooking, is research. The reason I joined Kings College Hospital is I am very interested in research and Professor Anne Greenough, a British neonatologist most notable for research into clinical and academic neonatology through work relating to the origins, markers and management of chronic lung disease following preterm birth, took me in,” Dr Zainab related.
Friends from Sabahan Abroad UK who joined Dr Zainab’s fundraising event in London for SEAS English Camp Dec 2019.
Prof Greenough – a noted neonatologist with Sharatun Najihah – first student picked by SEAS to tour London in 2019.
“She gave me one Research Project called Assessment of Diaphragmatic functions in babies born with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia and Abdominal Wall Defect using Diaphragm EMG and I finished it before time. So she said: I give you more research project, if you take it, I extend your contract. So I said ok, I take it,” she remembered that day.
Dr Zainab on Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia
“Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia is a condition where the content of abdominal cavity herniated into the thoracic cavity or the chest, impairing the growth of the lung – a medical term for pulmonary hypoplasia,” Dr Zainab explained.
“It is not a common condition. In the past babies born with Diaphragmatic Hernia had no chance of survival so at Kings they did a lot of research and eventually implemented a technology called Feto – Fetal Endoscopic Tracheal Occlusion: a procedure done on an unborn foetus or foetus through a keyhole surgery to the womb and the foetal lung – to make the survival rate better.”
One of only three centres in the world
“There are only three centres in the world performing this procedure and one of them The Fetal Medicine Unit at King’s College Hospital under the leadership of the famous Professor Kypos Nickolaides who believed with an intervention like this there is something we can do to prevent the lungs from being too small.”
“In total, I did five research projects, but my most important and main research project is assessment of diaphragmatic function in the new born,” she noted.
“You know diaphragm is the most important muscle for breathing so I studied the diaphragm in babies and Noor (her daughter) used to be one of my subjects when she was born. So I studied babies and that was the first novel research in babies in the world, nobody has done that research actually,” Dr Zainab asserted.
Rejected at every turn
But at the height of her success, Dr. Zainab remembers the days of rejection at every turn, when she was a flop in English.
Realising a sea of children need interventions just as she once had, she founded the Sabah English Aspiration Society (SEAS) in 2017, which advocates English language literacy among students in rural Sabah, supported by her bone specialist husband Dr Burhanuddin.
The core objectives include increase English proficiency, nurture the reading culture, equip life skills, targeting rural students especially.
Daily Express: Why is English proficiency important?
Dr Zainab: The reason I chose to do charity work on English is because what happened to me as a young student. When I was in trying to get a place to study for my secondary school, I got a lot of rejections just because my grade was not good and also my English was also not good. I think I got D only in English for the Primary Five Evaluation Test. I remember when we learned English in our kampong, we didn’t understand so the teacher had to explain in Malay but I never get around to understand the English. So when I went to look for good secondary school, I couldn’t get a place. The only reason I eventually got into SMK Likas was because my auntie worked as a cleaner there and apparently because she had a good rapport with the headmistress so I got a place only because of my auntie managed to persuade the headmistress.”
The big flop and father’s strict intervention
“When I started Form One at SMK Likas, that’s when I met Alice (Tong) and in my class, 1 Merah – there were lots of Chinese there, not many Malays and I was one of the so-called not so clever one. So I was just quiet in the class,” she recalled.
“But you know what happened, I failed my English test, got only 17 out of 100. I cried and cried, I felt so bad and then when I took home my report card, my father was so angry and said : “you failed!” There’s a lot of red in my report card.”
“Then my father said: you don’t go anywhere during the school holidays, you study, study, study and study. So I studied, and he said: you must read, read and read and then my auntie bought me a dictionary. I remember it’s the Collins Dictionary – 60 ringgit, which was quite a lot of money that time, my father couldn’t afford it and I started reading – reading the dictionary and I started reading books from the library,” Dr Zainab remembered those days.
The reading spree and big turn around in exam results
The reading spree really made things better and added tons of good grades to her studies.
“Fast forward, three years later, I got all As, including English in SRP (Lower Certificate of Examination) and the 2nd Best Student, I was featured in the newspaper! So I just feel that because I remember teachers were actually not happy with me, my parents were not happy with me especially my father who said, you sit there, don’t go anywhere school holidays, you study, study and study. We were poor so he said only education could change our lives,” she remembered a strict father’s intervention all the way.
Continuing, she said: “That’s how I started reading, and I remember my favourite one is Enid Blyton, I just loved the library as if addicted to the library, we had a very good school library. I wished I can go back there to see the school, it’s the only school which accepted me you know. Yes, so I always cry when I talk about this story because can you feel that if you are not accepted in the school that you dream about, rejected in the school of your dream, what do you think? It’s hard, yes its painful because you say: I want to go to this boarding school-lah but SMK Likas, well, not very popular school but it’s not where you are it’s what you do where you are.”
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