Students' Take: From strength to strength

By Enver Shee, Class of 2022 and Organising Chairperson

This year, Anatomy Challenge returned – bigger and better than ever before – for its third and most challenging season so far.

Anatomy Challenge is a student-organised annual inter-school competition on the anatomical sciences. From its inception in 2017, the event has grown to become more than just a battle of the brains; it now also includes a carnival of anatomy-related booths showcasing the unique teaching pedagogy and anatomy facilities found here in LKCMedicine. As student organisers, we are proud to have the privilege of planning this flagship event and adding to the legacy built by the seniors.

This year, we were eager to expand the event and explore new ways to make Anatomy Challenge more fun and enriching for our participants.

With Neuroanatomy as the theme for this year's Challenge, we invited partners from Tan Tock Seng Hospital's Centre of Advanced Rehabilitation Therapeutics (CART), the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), and our LKCMedicine Translational Neuroscience Laboratory to create exhibitions that showcase the clinical application of the anatomical sciences in the fields of diagnostics and rehabilitation. We also had Associate Professor Ng Wai Hoe, the Medical Director of NNI, grace our event as Guest-of-Honour.


On Saturday, 20 April, over 260 pre-university students across 22 junior colleges and polytechnics assembled at the LKCMedicine Clinical Sciences Building to vie for the coveted Hyper-Trophy and earn the title of Anatomy Challenge Champions. This was the best turnout we have had so far, and we were very excited to see the Challenge's popularity grow every year.

However, the growth of the event does not come without its challenges. For this year's Anatomy Challenge, the committee packed 400 goodie bags for the larger number of participants, teacher and student supporters, and LKCMedicine volunteers present for the event. We also assigned a student-usher to each institution, so as to better manage the large number of participants! This worked to our advantage, as it gave the participants more opportunities to interact with LKCMedicine students and find out more about the School in the process.

The Anatomy Challenge's two parts – the Individual Challenge and Team Challenge – see teams from each institution pit their knowledge of the anatomical sciences against one another in a fight for the top spot. Competitors first go through the Individual Challenge, a gruelling 40 multiple-choice-question paper that tested their ability to recall and apply facts about the anatomy of the human brain and spinal cord. The five teams that emerged from the Individual Challenge with the highest combined scores then proceeded to the Team Challenge, where they brawled in a battle of wits in a fun, but tense, gameshow-style quiz.

This year, teams from Hwa Chong Institution (HCI), National Junior College (NJC), Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC), Eunoia Junior College (EJC), as well as the defending champions, Nanyang Polytechnic School of Chemical and Life Sciences (NYP), took to the stage for the Team Challenge. In a nail-biting finish, HCI held their lead to snatch the Hyper-Trophy from under the nose of NYP and regained their title as Anatomy Challenge Champions. NYP finished in second place, while NJC finished in third.

Of the three top scorers in the Individual Challenge, two come from HCI – Yau Chun En (first place) and Yim Si Yue Tammy (second place) – while the third, Ethan Goh Wei Cheng, is from NYP.

A group photo of the Anatomy Challenge 2019 Champion Team. Congratulations to all the prize winners of Anatomy Challenge 2019 

This event would not have been possible without the help of the various LKCMedicine faculty and staff from the Office of Medical Education, Communications & Outreach, Education Management, and IT Systems & Services. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all their help over the past nine months in putting the event together.

Moving forward, we hope to continue growing the event, and inspiring pre-university students all across Singapore to explore the anatomical sciences and learn more about the human anatomy, just as our seniors have done for the past two editions of the Anatomy Challenge. We also hope that as an LKCMedicine flagship event, we will continue to promote the School's name, and draw prospective students to LKCMedicine.

But most importantly, we hope that all of you are looking forward to what we have in store for next year's Anatomy Challenge. See you next year!