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I N S P I R I N G S T O R I E S O F T H E O L D E R G E N E R A T I O N

PUAN NORMA BINTI MOHD YUSOF

"Doing what you love is freedom, loving what you do is happiness."
by Puteri Nur Alia binti A Khalid & Tan Zi Liang

Retelling the life experiences of Puan Norma, a retired
70-ish Dental Surgical Assistant (DSA), who is now
currently continuing her service at Mahsa University.
And let us all listen to her story, and hear about her love
for Dentistry. She started her career in dentistry as a
DSA in the government sector, serving for four years
from 1966 to 1970. Then, she joined Universiti Malaya
(UM) and was promoted in 1973, invited to join the
Faculty of Dentistry when it was first established.

Puan Norma was one of the earliest DSA who managed
the students for laboratory practicals. Her work
experience was closely related to the students. Most of
her time working was spent assisting the students to
mix materials, guiding the students step-by-step on Puan Norma with Mahsa University's
handling equipment and helping the students with their dental student
projects. Forty years ago, everything was done manually
and the technology was not like that of today. Therefore,
Puan Norma had to be there for the whole process of the
students in their preclinical years. As a result, she was
extremely close to the earliest batch for instance, the
first and second batch of dental students.

Puan Norma also recalled that there were only around
thirty students in the first batch, and only seven of them
were boys. There were no international students at that
time. Personality wise, the students were very friendly
and respectful to the staff. How close they were to Puan
Norma and her colleagues can't really be described in
words, but through their actions. An example that Puan Puan Norma with her monkey
Norma described was when the students organised an
unforgettable lunch for staff members upon their
graduation to show their gratitude.

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