'She is my motivation': Man, inspired to become nurse like wife, quits engineering job

If you were to bump into Muhammed Fairuz Bin Suwandi at Yishun Community Hospital, you'd probably find him assisting patients in bedside care or helping them shower. 

So it's hard to imagine that years ago, he was grinding it out at a diamond manufacturing factory as a process engineer. 

To mark Nurses' Day today (Aug 1), AsiaOne spoke with the 40-year-old, who is now a Senior Staff Nurse at Yishun Community Hospital, about how he had taken a huge leap of faith to make a career switch in his 30s. 

And while it was a daunting experience, he told AsiaOne in an interview that he was willing to do so for job security and his family. 

It also helped that his wife, who is also a nurse, had been there with him from day one. 

"She is my motivation. And she is constantly motivating me." 

Lack of job security 

Prior to becoming a nurse, Fairuz worked at the diamond manufacturing factory for eight years and was there till 2017.

It was his first-ever full-time job and a friend had introduced him to the role without much context. 

Funnily enough, he didn't know he was making diamonds until a few years later. 

"There was a job opening, my friend offered it to me and I joined him. I didn't know it was the diamond industry at first because it was so secretive. It was so secretive that we couldn't even bring our handphones in," he explained. 

During his first two to three years there, he was not even shown the final product of the diamonds. 

He only found out more about his job when he was promoted to floor supervisor. 

However, while it was an interesting industry to be in, there was little job security. 

Fairuz shared that during the eight years he was there, he witnessed two rounds of retrenchments. 

Though he was not affected, he watched his friends lose their jobs, which terrified him.

"I thought to myself. If I'm not the one getting retrenched now, maybe I'm next," he said. 

"And if I'm in my forties and I get retrenched, that would be the worst time of my life because getting a job at that age would be difficult, especially in the diamond industry." 

Apart from the fear of being jobless at a later age, another major factor that encouraged him to make a career switch was his wife and 5-year-old daughter. 

"I want to provide for my family, that's why I wanted to work somewhere that can help me give them a good life," the father of one said. 

From diamonds to administering medication 

With so many concerns, Fairuz began looking out for jobs that were more stable. 

"My fear of not having a job was what made me want to switch to another job industry that had more demand." 

Nursing actually wasn't his first choice and he considered other roles, including one in the oil industry. 

But later, he learned that some of his friends working there had gotten retrenched too and they ended up having difficulties finding a new job because of their age. 

After studying the job market, he found that a career in the health industry would be a viable one. 

As Fairuz graduated from Nanyang Polytechnic with a diploma in Engineering Informatics, he considered pharmaceutical engineering. Apart from that, he also was keen on trying radiography. 

However, he didn't qualify for these roles. 

Eventually, he realised that if he wanted to work in healthcare, becoming a nurse may be a good idea as the job is more diverse than other roles in the industry. 

"Because if you are a physiotherapist, you're doing physiotherapy all your life. But if you are a nurse, you can explore working in so many departments such as cancer, oncology, neurology," he said, citing a few examples. 

Currently, Fairuz is under general medicine, which is a combination of medical and surgical health. 

It helped that his 40-year-old wife has been a nurse for over 20 years and is no stranger to the healthcare industry. 

"She supports me and she shares her working experience with me. Because as a nurse, you're constantly very physically and emotionally drained, so you really need that pillar of support from your loved ones to continue doing what you do," he said. 

Fairuz added that apart from job security, she's one of the other reasons why he wanted to make a career switch.

Back to school as a full-time parent 

Fairuz felt that the change in career was manageable as he had already mentally prepared himself for it.

He also found similarities between his previous job as an engineer and nursing, such as a good eye for detail. 

"You need to have good analytical and problem-solving skills," he elaborated. 

To cite an example, he said that nurses have to be quick to notice if something is wrong with the patient. 

"For instance, if the patient suddenly becomes drowsy, you will need to have critical thinking skills to figure out what may have happened to him." 

These are things he also picked up when he was in engineering. 

However, as with any new job, there will always be challenges. 

They began even before he stepped into the hospital.

Before becoming a nurse, Fairuz had to go back to school as he had no prior experience in healthcare. So, he joined a career switch programme. 

Studying for a completely different field of work was already hard as it is and on top of that, he had family commitments, including caring for his wife who was then pregnant with their daughter. 

"I had projects, so juggling them and family time was quite a challenge," he shared. 

Things got harder when he started work as both he and his wife worked shifts.

Initially, their parents helped to take care of their daughter. 

But after they passed on, Fairuz and his wife had to work out a schedule where at least one of them would be able to accompany their child. 

He helped fight Covid-19

Fairuz officially became a nurse in 2019 and a little more than a year later, the Covid-19 pandemic struck. 

It was an extremely trying period for him and he shared that he and his colleagues "struggled very badly". 

When the virus hit, it was a mad scramble because the hospital had to quickly come up with a new workflow and plan. 

Nurses had to don Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 24/7 too, which made their work conditions even harder. 

"You're sweating, you're tired, you're really exhausted," he said.

On top of that, they witnessed a lot of deaths. 

"The emotional trauma that we had was bad."

Thankfully, he had a great support system, including his ward supervisor. 

"At the end of one of the days, she tapped me on the shoulder and said: 'Fairuz, we did it, we survived! We survived! Thank you so much'," he recounted. 

After that, she treated the team to bubble tea to reward them for their hard work. 

"Although it was a simple gesture, it meant a lot to us."

Fairuz has two words of advice for those thinking of taking up nursing as a profession: Adaptability and resilience. 

"Give yourself one year to fully adapt. You can't do it in months, you need at least one year. So don't give up," he said.

"You need to adapt because everything is always changing. As long as you can adapt and be resilient, you can survive." 

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melissateo@asiaone.com