Pann’s Pathway: The Discipline of Care

Pann will be pursuing Medicine at Mahidol University, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, a six-year programme that offers not just clinical training, but the option to expand into adjacent fields, from biomedical innovation to health management. “It’s very versatile,” she says, “You don’t have to decide everything at once. You can explore alongside medicine.”

There is something deliberate in the way she frames it; not as a fixed identity, but as a structure that allows growth. “I’m excited to see what suits me,” she adds, “I like that it’s open.”

That sense of openness has always defined her.

“I’ve always been someone who tries a lot of things,” Pann reflects. Before Medicine became a direction, it was simply one possibility among many. Swimming, piano, acting, singing, horse riding… her interests never competed with each other; they accumulated. “I like having a lot of extracurriculars,” she says, smiling, “I like being active.”

When she joined in Year 10, that instinct led her somewhere unexpected: the stage. “I was really nervous,” she admits, “but one of my friends wanted to join the production, so I went along.” It was Bugsy Malone, and within it, her introduction to school life became immediate. Cast as Blousy Malone, she found herself not just performing, but connecting. “You work with people from different year groups,” she says, “You just end up talking to people you wouldn’t normally meet.” The experience was as much social as it was artistic—less about spotlight, more about shared momentum. “It made everything easier after that,” she adds.

Her academic life unfolded in a similar register: grounded, consistent, shaped by effort rather than ease.

IGCSEs, she recalls, felt “daunting,” though not isolating. “We all supported each other,” she says of her friends, “We motivated each other to keep going.” What distinguishes her reflection is not the outcome, although she achieved top grades across all subjects, but her attention to process. “There were subjects I thought I wouldn’t do well in, Physics was one of them,” she admits. Instead of stepping back, she leaned in with a kind of quiet stubbornness, “I just worked harder at it.” The result was unexpected. “It turned out to be my best Science!” Pann says this without emphasis, as though the lesson matters more than the result. Effort in her case is not reactionary, it is habitual.

By IB, her choices began to align more clearly with what would follow. Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics at Higher Level, decisions that suggest direction, even if certainty arrived later. “I didn’t always know I wanted to do medicine,” she says, “I had a lot of interests.”

What shifted was not ambition, but perspective. “Health is something everyone is affected by,” she explains, “It doesn’t depend on your background or your situation. It’s just fundamental.” It is an observation that speaks to both scale and simplicity: healthcare as something universal, unavoidable and therefore essential.

Her understanding deepened through experience rather than abstraction. During shadowing placements at hospitals, including Siriraj Hospital, she encountered the realities of clinical work. “You see things that you don’t expect,” she says. She describes a one-month-old patient in intensive care, “surrounded by tubes”without embellishment. “It made me feel like I wanted to help,” she says.

It is not framed as a moment of revelation, but as a steady shift from interest into responsibility.

That same sense of responsibility emerges in her community work, where action is measured and intentional. As founder of For the Blind, Pann helped build a project from a tentative idea into a sustained initiative. “We presented it for almost a year before it got approved,” she recalls. Once it began, the work was specific. Recognising that visually impaired students are often expected to follow the same curriculum without adapted resources, her team created materials that could be understood through touch and sound. “We made tactile models,” she explains, “We added Braille labels and QR codes so they could listen to explanations.”

The process required patience: learning Braille herself, coordinating volunteers and refining materials. But for Pann, the significance lies elsewhere. “I’ve learned a lot from them,” she says of the students she works with. She remembers a moment that still surprises her. “I met one student once,” she says, “the next time I walked towards her, she recognised me just from my footsteps.”

That attentiveness towards others, towards detail and process reappears in smaller, quieter spaces. At a daycare centre, she returned each week to work with children. One moment, in particular, lingers. “There was a girl who was scared of going down the slide,” she recalls, “every week, I asked her if she wanted to try.” The answer remained the same, until it changed. “After about two months, she said yes,” Pann says., “She went down with me, and then she kept going again and again.”

What stays with her is not the outcome, but the approach. “You don’t push people,” she reflects, “You stay patient. You support them until they feel ready.”

It is a principle that extends easily into the kind of doctor she might become.

As she prepares for the next stage of her education, Pann resists narrowing her aspirations too soon. Paediatrics is a possibility,but not yet a conclusion. “There’s still a lot I want to explore,” she says. What feels more certain is her way of working: steady, attentive, grounded in effort. “I think consistency matters more than anything,” she says. “Just continuing, even when it’s difficult.”

It is not a dramatic philosophy. It does not depend on sudden clarity or grand statements. Instead, it builds slowly, through repetition, through showing up, through learning how to stay.