“My story could be made into a movie,” says David Aw, 60, ruefully. And he doesn’t mean it in a good way.

The hyperboles in his life are not something he would have planned.

Coming from a poor family living in Chinatown, he pushed himself to excel and found academic success as a Colombo Plan scholar. Career success in his later life as a physiotherapist would include being invited to the Istana to treat the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

But, for David, life’s highs were interspersed with bruising lows –  a father whose stroke left him unable to provide for the family, a brother born deaf and mute, another brother who died in a car crash. And perhaps most debilitating of all – a stroke that left David with paralysis on his right side.

Yet when he opened his physiotherapy clinic in 1999, David did not hesitate to name it Emmanuel Physiotherapy.

“God was with me throughout my life. And I want to let everyone know that God is with them too,” he says.

From Pearl’s Hill to Queensland

David grew up in the Jalan Kukoh neighbourhood of Singapore’s Chinatown.

The youngest of eight siblings, he was 20 years younger than his oldest sibling. (“My oldest brother was old enough to be my father.”)

His mother was a housewife. He thinks his father was a labourer, but is not certain, because by the time David was a teenager, his father was unable to provide for the family due to a stroke. His older sister went to work after secondary four so that she could help the family.

As the youngest child, David was left to make many decisions on his own.

The 30th anniversary reunion of David’s University of Queensland Physiotherapy cohort.

He went from the government Pearl’s Hill School to Catholic High School, where he “was a loner, reading English novels in some corner somewhere”, and then to National Junior College.

The bright boy distinguished himself so well in school that he was offered a prestigious Colombo Plan scholarship.

There was just one problem: He had had his eye on medical school. But what he was offered was physiotherapy.

At the time Singapore only had 30 physiotherapists and it was likely that the government was beefing up the nation’s base of physiotherapists, says David.

Despite not knowing anything about physiotherapy apart from the fact that it was allied to medicine – “those were the days of floppy discs, no Internet, so it was not easy to obtain information” – he decided to accept the scholarship.

After all, it was his ticket to university studies which his family would otherwise not have been able to afford.

“I had no clue what I was doing,” he says wryly. “Everything happened so fast. In January I received a letter from PSC (Public Service Commission) telling me that I was going to Australia. By February I was in Brisbane.”

Grief and loss

Landing in Queensland, Australia, the shy youth initially had culture shock on several levels.

Firstly, he felt like a fish out of water. At the University of Queensland, he was one of only three Singaporeans and one Malaysian. Everyone else was Australian in the class of 90 students.

To make matters worse, his course of physiotherapy required him to do massage, which “as an introvert and an Asian person, was quite awkward among strangers”.

But, determined to integrate socially, David boldly asked to join a class group of Australians, and he soon found himself making good friends among his local classmates.

“That was a turning point – it built my confidence to have such good rapport with them. To this day, I keep in touch with my Australian friends who had a great impact on how I looked at life.”

Little did David know in those first months how much he would come to appreciate his new friends shortly.

In his second year of university, his father passed away. His family, unwilling to disturb his studies, did not break the news to him until three months later.

In his third year, his mother had a limb amputated as a result of diabetes. He flew home to spend time with her. It would be the last time he would see his mother.

After his graduation, while he was on a grad trip to New Zealand, he received devastating news that his brother had died in a car accident. Two weeks later, his mother also passed away.

In those turbulent times, his newfound Australian friends were a great support to David, checking in on him regularly even though they had all graduated and gone separate ways.

Returning to Singapore, he became an army physiotherapist during his National Service. It was here that he learnt his first invaluable lesson of physiotherapy.

“There was a commando, a lieutenant, who was my own age – 24. He had been injured in a parachute accident and I was told that his leg was damaged and he possibly needed help in managing the change in his life. I was asked to treat him,” David recounts. “I was a young physio then, a fresh graduate, and at my first meeting with him, I confidently told him: This is what you need to do, this exercise, that exercise. And he stopped me.

“He said, ‘We are the same age. Do you know how I feel? I need to worry about what I’m going to do for next 50 years if I live until 75 or 80. Let me grieve for a minute.’

“That taught me a lot. I realised that listening to patients is an important part of medical care. From then on, I’ve tried to put myself in my patient’s shoes before I prescribe treatment.

“Now in my practice, I hold myself accountable on three counts: I am accountable to God, to the patient and to myself,” says the Christian who attends Orchard Road Presbyterian Church.

The sick and lonely 

Working at the National University Hospital (NUH) outpatient clinic after the army, David saw over 30 patients a day, treating them with manual therapy and teaching them rehabilitative exercises.

Some were so sick, they had multiple organ failure, but being part of the medical team that helped these patients eventually step down from acute care to a normal ward was satisfying work.

Eventually he led the NUH physiotherapy outpatient clinic.

But he never forgot the lesson he learnt from the commando in the army.

During Chinese New Year, when there was often an influx of elderly patients, he would not take leave – “both my parents were gone by that time” – and instead made his rounds to chat with lonely patients.

“I developed a habit of interacting with the patients, remembering that they are somebody’s Ah Ma and Ah Kong and not just a name or a number in the records.”

During his eight years at NUH, he returned to the University of Queensland to  take his Masters in Physiotherapy Studies (Manipulative Physiotherapy).

At the time, he seriously considered moving to Australia, where he enjoyed the chill lifestyle and the company of his “blunt but caring Australian friends” because “I am equally blunt”.

But he had a gnawing feeling that he needed to return to Singapore to take care of his older siblings.

“Even though I was quite westernised by then, I remembered the Asian saying my mother used to quote: The flesh on the palm and the flesh on the back of the hand are from the same hand. Our siblings are our ‘longest’ friends.”

So he returned to Singapore and eventually set up his own clinic, Emmanuel Physiotherapy.

It turned out to be a divine decision.

His sister developed leukaemia, and David turned out to be the only one among his siblings who was a bone marrow match for her.

“If I had stayed on in Australia, I would never have been able to fly in and out regularly for her treatments.”

She was the sibling he was closest to – the da jie (big sister) who was nearest to him in age and whom he respected for working hard in her job as a facilities manager. The two shared a flat as they were both single, and he was determined to care for her through her illness.

But more difficulty was to come.

Divine decisions

One day after his sister’s leukaemia diagnosis, while David was still reeling from the news, he was shocked to find the Interpol at his clinic.

His staff member was arrested for computer misuse. Two years later, another staff member who had been asked to leave because “she had been doing nasty things” plotted her revenge.

On the day his sister passed away from her leukaemia, the staff member replaced the clinic’s medical records with blank paper.

During those tumultuous days, another of David’s sisters was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and he took on the responsibility of taking her to her chemo sessions as well.

The onslaught of challenges seemed relentless.

David with his siblings on a holiday to Japan in 2019.

“During that time, a friend shared with me the Casting Crowns song, Praise You in this Storm. And it was a great comfort to me,” says David.

“This was not the first tragedy in my life – God had prepared me to weather the storms.

“I saw His hand in my life: Even though I’d wanted to study medicine, in my third year of university when we did hospital attachments, I saw all the blood in surgery and knew that I wasn’t meant for medicine. God guided me into physiotherapy instead.

“He gave me good friends to see me through the deaths in my family while I was studying so that I never needed to drop out. In fact, looking back, surviving those times made me stronger.

“He also led me to give up my Australian PR to return to Singapore so that I could be here for my sister during her leukaemia.

“To this day, I love Psalm 121:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber.” (Psalm 121:1-3)

“Every step of the way, He was with me, guiding me to make good decisions, comforting me in my grief, and sending helpers to journey alongside me.”

Down but not out

In 2021, while COVID was still active, David woke up one morning with an unusual weakness on his right side.

He was still caring for his sister who had leukaemia at the time.

“My sister was sick and I didn’t want to alarm her, so I pretended as though nothing had happened. Then I gave instructions at work and took a taxi to NUH. The A&E nurse asked, ‘How can I help you?’ I said, ‘I’m having a stroke.’

“By then I was limping, I actually fell, and had no strength in my right arm. Thankfully it was considered a minor stroke. But it was scary.”

During his recovery, David used his knowledge in physiotherapy – another blessing – in his rehabilitation.

Recovering from his stroke in 2021.

“After my stroke, doctors told me that I also had a blood clot in my neck. I was thinking, ‘If I die, who’s going to take care of my siblings?’”

So from 6am to 10pm, he worked tirelessly on a slew of exercises.

By the third week, he had recovered to the extent that he could even run on the treadmill. When he was discharged, he asked: “Do I need outpatient care?” He was told: “You are already taking care of that.”

The thorough scans he had in hospital also revealed something unexpected. The cardiologist told him: “You are one rare, peculiar case. You only have two blood vessels in your heart – the incidence of this is 1 in 100,000. And your left vessel is 60% blocked. If you want, I can do an angioplasty for you because if you don’t do it now, one of two things will happen: You will either need open heart surgery which is very painful, or you will go on till the blood vessel is fully blocked and you’ll drop dead.”

“So you see, God is very, very kind to me,” says David. “If I did not have the mild stroke, this heart condition would not have been discovered.

“Now I always tell people: Even if things look like they are in a bad way, God means it for good.”

Hello, God speaking

Physiotherapy is a mission field for David.

Through word of mouth, he has treated patients who have included more than one Cabinet minister.

But he keeps his care personal rather than chasing numbers and dollars.

“I came into private practice so that I can give more time to each patient, not to make more money. Sometimes my nurses get worried when the appointment book only has one or two patients at the start of the day, and I tell them, don’t worry, God will take care of it. True enough by the end of the day, the book is full.”

When patients cannot afford treatment, he takes care of the fee – “I came from a poor family, so I know what it is like.”

When he wanted to name his clinic Emmanuel Physiotherapy  – “I love the worship song, Emmanuel” –  friends advised him to find a more “neutral” name.

“Even my lawyer said, ‘It’s too Christian, can you think of another name?’ And I said, ‘How about Agape?’”

Friends were worried that the name might put off non-Christians. But that never happened and today he has patients from all walks of life.

“It is funny because the unit number at my clinic was 07-07, and my mobile number has a lot of 7’s, which is the perfect number in the Bible. When my pastor came to see me for a knee problem, he remarked, ‘Every time you pick up the phone and say, ‘Emmanuel Physiotherapy, how can I help you?’ it is like you are saying, ‘God is with you, how can He help you?’”

The help he is able to offer is not just physical but holistic, he believes, and he has journeyed with some of his patients through loneliness and pain.

One well-known businessman would invite him to dinner when he was lonely. And at Christmas time, the old man had one request: “David, I am always in my car, but I have never walked down Orchard Road to see the Christmas lights. Will you take me?”

So David did, pushing the old man down Orchard Road in his wheelchair together with the man’s helper.

Another patient had a fear of escalators. David took him to Orchard Road and coaxed him on the escalators to restore his confidence.

He treated a young British boy from youth to adulthood and whenever he visits the UK, he holidays with the boy’s family who welcome David like a family member.

“God has a way of giving me insights into treatments too,” David says. “Sometimes I feel so helpless if the patient doesn’t improve. But God would open my eyes to a different method – for example to treat a shoulder via the neck and jaw – and it would be just what the patient needs.”

He remembers one young man who had such relentless pain in his lower back 24/7 for a year that he told David: “I am going for surgery and if that does not work, I am going to jump down from a hotel.”

He agreed to be treated by David and, within eight sessions, his pain was gone.

It is God, says David.

To everyone who thinks that missions is only for missionaries, David says: “We are all called to do missions in our own little way.”

For those who want to run their practice or business with a Kingdom mindset, he has this advice: “Focus on God, and love people more. You will not go wrong.”

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