News: International acclaim for LKCMedicine’s pandemic resilient medical education

LKCMedicine is the first medical school in Singapore to win the ASPIRE Award in curriculum development, in recognition of its excellence in medical education.

The School is only the fourth Asian university to receive the international award, placing it among notable past winners such as the University of Sydney, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, USA, and Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.

Sought after by medical schools across the world, the ASPIRE Award is the only award of its kind to recognise schools for excellence in medical education.

After undergoing multiple stages and a stringent process of review by an international panel, LKCMedicine emerged as the top performer for its innovation and excellence in curriculum development.

The ASPIRE judging panel highlighted the outstanding features of LKCMedicine’s curriculum development, such as its well-articulated educational principles and a balanced approach to assessment. In addition, the student and patient-centred programmes were also applauded, particularly for its emphasis on team-based learning and early exposure to clinical experiences, as well as its innovative use of technology to enhance learning.

The award acknowledges the resilience of LKCMedicine’s curriculum as it withstood the disruptions caused by the unprecedented pandemic in delivering a world-class medical education. The medical school continued to maintain its high educational standards and was able to respond swiftly such as transitioning from physical to online team-based learning seamlessly.

LKCMedicine Dean Professor Joseph Sung said, “Our goal is to prepare and empower our students to be doctors in an evolving healthcare system, and the ASPIRE Award is an affirmation of our innovative hi-tech, hi-touch curriculum. It combines the best of our parent universities, NTU Singapore, and Imperial College London – leveraging the strengths of NTU in engineering, biomedical research, and the humanities, and Imperial’s top-ranked medical curriculum.”

“We are constantly reviewing our programme to ensure that our aspiring young doctors explore the boundaries of medical science for better patient management, working towards competent and compassionate delivery of care.”

LKCMedicine Vice-Dean (Education) Professor Jennifer Cleland said, “The ASPIRE Award attests to our commitment to provide quality and evidence-informed medical education for all our students. We received highly positive feedback from the panel for our student and patient-oriented learning and teaching, based on small group active team-based learning. These features enabled us to be resilient to pandemic disruptions and allowed us to maintain our high educational standards even as we switched to interactive online learning.”

Aside from the ASPIRE Award for excellence in curriculum development, the School also received the ASPIRE Certificate of Merit for student engagement. Both accolades were presented at a virtual award ceremony held on 30 August 2021.

Innovative anatomy teaching enhances learning

Anatomy teaching is one of the key areas in which LKCMedicine has harnessed technology to enhance learning and make it more immersive for students. Head of Anatomy Assistant Professor Sreenivasulu Reddy Mogali and his team have created an in-house app to aid in anatomy teaching. The app brings anatomy alive through augmented and virtual reality.

Using the app, students call up 3D images of dissected plastinated anatomical specimens either by scanning markers on worksheets or from a library of 3D models. After which, they get to interact with the specimens by tapping on various touch points on the images. As they do so, they will learn about the functions of that body part.

In addition, LKCMedicine students can now view digitised potted specimens online at the Anatomy Research Centre’s website. Previously, students could only access the 3D models through scanning the QR codes in front of the physical specimens located at the Centre.