First LKCMedicine graduates start work in hospitals today
Another milestone achieved!
After five years of on-campus technology-enabled Team-Based Learning, seminars and off-campus hospital attachments, LKCMedicine’s inaugural cohort commences Postgraduate Year 1 postings today at hospitals under all three regional clusters: Central, comprising hospitals under the National Healthcare Group and Alexandra Health System; Eastern, formed by SingHealth and Eastern Health Alliance hospitals; and Western, made up of hospitals run by the National University Health System and Jurong Health Services.
At these hospitals across Singapore, the LKCMedicine graduates will continue their training as medical doctors in various broad-based specialities including general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, internal medicine, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynaecology, before applying for residency programmes in specific specialisations.
Going into Postgraduate Year 1 hospital postings will not be a huge shift on the part of this Class of 2018. They had been on a modern learner-centred curriculum with a strong early patient contact emphasis from the start, and they have been attached to care teams to gain experience in clinical practice in various hospitals and polyclinics across the country for the last three years. Capping their clinical postings, the students spent the last 10 weeks of the MBBS programme working as part of care teams under close supervision of senior doctors to help make the transition into the workplace today easier. During this Student Assistantship Programme, done right after their final examinations in January, the graduates have been gaining experience in key specialities such as internal medicine, family medicine, general surgery and orthopaedic surgery.
NTU President and Distinguished University Professor Subra Suresh said: “The pioneer batch of medical students makes history this year as the first medical graduates from NTU. Besides getting a top quality education from NTU’s joint medical school with Imperial College London, they also had access to first-rate learning facilities on the NTU main campus and at our Novena campus. We are confident that the graduates have been well trained by our faculty using the school’s unique pedagogy and will serve patients in Singapore well and make NTU proud.”
Professor Alice Gast, President of Imperial College London, added: "Imperial and NTU founded LKCMedicine with an ambitious vision, and these first practitioners are its most important realisation to date. Our pioneering 52 students have demonstrated academic excellence, compassion and confidence by completing this groundbreaking and rigorous medical education. We have every confidence that they will thrive and make great contributions to healthcare and medicine in Singapore. We are very proud of them."
Underlying the LKCMedicine curriculum are the consistent themes of professionalism, ethics, communication and clinical skills, which will serve the graduates well on their lifelong career in medicine. “At LKCMedicine, we set out to train doctors whom you and I would like to have caring for us. Building a patient-focused medical curriculum was the first step to anchor this perspective in our students. At the same time, we equipped them with a strong foundation in the science of medicine. Together with the human skills essential in today’s physicians, our graduates are well prepared to train further in any branch of medicine and I am confident they will excel in their chosen field,” said LKCMedicine Dean Professor James Best.
On 24 July 2018, the first LKCMedicine graduands will receive their MBBS degrees awarded jointly by NTU and Imperial College London, at NTU’s Convocation Ceremony.
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Graduates featured in the media: