Anson Kam Chun-kei was diagnosed with leukaemia when he was in Primary Four, forcing him to take a year off school for treatment.
Fast forward about 10 years, not only had the 19-year-old overcome cancer, he became one of six super achievers in the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) exams, which are the main route into universities in Hong Kong.
The illness led the St Paul’s Co-educational College student to aspire to become a doctor, a dream profession shared by other top scorers, who along with about 55,000 other candidates received their exam results on Wednesday.
“Just because you are sick does not mean you have lost everything. Hard work will pay off,” Kam said.
Recalling how he saw doctors encouraging and supporting patients when he was ill, Kam said: “I want to be a doctor so I can help others, just like my doctors helped me.”
Kam and five other super achievers received the top grade in seven subjects and an extended maths paper. There were six other students who attained level 5** in seven subjects.
Apart from Kam, eight other top scorers also wanted to enter the medical profession, while one wanted to be a dentist.
Students are graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5* and 5** being the best available, for most DSE subjects.
The aspiring medical students include the three top scorers, all 17, from La Salle College.
Alex Wong Chi-fung, who also scored 5** in seven subjects and an extended maths module, and Victor Siu Tsz-chung and Herbert Hui Yau-ho, who both achieved top marks for seven subjects, all planned to study medicine at Chinese University.
Two of the three female top scorers also chose to go down the medical path, Sze Wan-fong of Diocesan Girls’ School and Pui Ching Middle School’s Yip Cheuk-wing, both 18 and achieving 5** in seven subjects.
Sze felt that being a doctor was “a common boundary of science and humanity” and allowed them to support patients in their hardest times, while Yip would be following the footsteps of her older sister, a medicine student at Chinese University.
Completing the group of nine aspiring doctors were super achievers Matthew Chow Bak-yue, 18, from Diocesan Boys’ School, and Yu Hiu-yat, 18, from Queen’s College, as well as Brian Chan Wai-nok, 17, who was St Mark’s School’s first top scorer.
Kwun Tong Maryknoll College’s first student to achieve 5** for seven subjects, To Cheuk-yin, 17, also planned to help people when he grows up, by studying dentistry.
“I come from a single-parent family and grew up in a public housing estate,” he said. “I want to encourage students from low-income families to have confidence and not be disheartened.”
Meanwhile, Diocesan Girls’ super achiever Chloe Choi Yan-ping, 18, had accepted a conditional offer to study economics at Cambridge University in Britain.
The first super achiever at St Paul’s College, Edward Wong Hon-yin, 17, hoped to study law in the University of Hong Kong.
Over in TWGHs Lui Yun Choy Memorial College, mainland China-born Ng Chun-hei received 5** in two subjects and 5* in four subjects, giving him an entry ticket to a civil engineering course at Imperial College London.
Coming to Hong Kong when he was 15, he had to repeat Form Three but managed to overcome challenges of growing up in a low-income, single-parent family.
Ng wants to become an engineer to give back to society, adding: “I hope to find a low-cost and efficient way to reclaim land without affecting the marine ecosystem.”
Additional reporting by Nicola Chan, Kelly Ho, Gigi Choy, Albert Han, Rachel Yeo, King Woo, Holly Chik, Kathleen Magramo, Snow Xia, Fifi Tsui and Oasis Li
