Editor's Corner: Thoughts from home

By Nicole Lim, Editor, The LKCMedicine

For six weeks, most of Singapore stayed at home. Animals from otters to monkeys roamed, emboldened by the lack of human traffic, through our streets and parks. While I like many other office workers may not have seen much of the outside world, one group of people have continued to head out to ensure that workplaces, malls and many other public buildings remained secure and safe for those who had to make use of them. They, together with the frontliners in healthcare and education, kept the School and Singapore going.

While more of us are able to head back to campus, it is our essential workers who continued to head to work even during the circuit breaker that this issue celebrates. Thanks to their dedication, the School has continued to operate, teaching continued uninterrupted online, and essential lab equipment was kept in tip-top shape even when the labs themselves were dark. 

Moved to help, LKCMedicine Year 3 student Gabriel Tan and a group of his friends joined forces with Masks Sewn with Love. During the recent circuit breaker, they collectively sewed more than 600 face masks that were handed out to cleaning staff and bus drivers working at NTU and a group of vulnerable elderly people via the Lions Befrienders Senior Activity Centre. 


In this issue, we also hear from our newly minted doctors from the Class of 2020 about starting work during a pandemic and find out what went into bringing the admissions process online. 

We meet two students – M2 Daryl Tan, who shares flashes of life at medical school during Covid-19 and Arun, a newly enrolled LKCMedicine PhD student who traded a career as a spine surgeon for life at the bench and how he has coped with the circuit breaker. And we meet our new Assistant Dean for Years 1 & 2 Dr Lucy Rosby.

Also in this issue, we catch up with the Provost’s Chair of Molecular Medicine Assistant Professor Sanjay Chotirmall about all things Covid-19 and hear from our clinician-scientists about why diabetics are at higher risk from severe Covid-19 disease and we talk to. These stories and more in the June issue of The LKCMedicine.

Happy reading!

Editorial Team

Advisor
Professor James Best, Dean

Editor-in-Chief
Siti Rohanah Koid

Editor
Nicole Lim

Contributors & Writers

Amanda Lee
Anne Loh
Daryl Tan
Pricilla Lum
Samantha Gallivan

Editorial Board

Professor Michael Ferenczi
Dr Vivien Chiong
Professor Philip Ingham
Mr Andrew Scheuber
Ms Suzanne Lim
A/Prof Tham Kum Ying