​Singapore’s Chief Health Scientist makes first visit to LKCMedicine 

True to form, Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, Chief Health Scientist with the Ministry of Health (MOH), Singapore, arrived at our downtown campus right on the hour at 8am, a good 15 minutes before his scheduled first visit to the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. 

Greeted by Professor James Best, Dean of LKCMedicine and Professor Lionel Lee, Executive Vice-Dean for Strategic Relations and International Affairs, the former President of National University of Singapore was here for the first time since taking on his new role in January last year. Prof Tan is concurrently serving as the Executive Director of MOH’s new Office for Healthcare Transformation.

In a meeting at the School’s boardroom, Prof Best explained that the School is not an offshore school of Imperial College London, but a true partnership between NTU Singapore and Imperial, with clinical training input by the National Healthcare Group, LKCMedicine’s primary clinical partner. 

Said Prof Best, “Our students enjoy the breadth of experiences with our TBL approach, flipped classroom format, and strong emphasis on communication skills. The programme is all IT-enabled such that we are readily and immediately able to monitor the progress of our students. We are quite confident we are benchmarked locally and internationally.”

Prof Best added that the first class of 52 students have since graduated and working in hospitals across Singapore.

As MOH’s Chief Health Scientist, Prof Tan had many questions during the meeting – since his role entails him guiding the ministry’s research and development agenda, particularly in the health and biomedical sciences. 

His remit also includes strengthening the translation of research to develop better ways to manage and treat diseases and deliver clinical care. Cognisant of this, Prof Best and Prof Lee then took Prof Tan on a tour of key labs within the School’s Clinical Sciences Building (CSB) that are looking into main disease areas in Singapore. 

Prof Best said, "On the research side, our strategy is to work to the strengths of NHG namely in dermatology and skin biology, mental health and neuroscience, infection and immunity, as well as metabolism and diabetes. We also have strong capabilities in Population Health, and are now more focussed on regenerative, reparative and rehabilitative medicine.” In looking at these, LKCMedicine is also strengthening its partnership with A*Star and leveraging NTU’s strength in engineering, added Prof Best. 

Showing his support, Prof Tan shares that he’s looking forward to the experts in infectious diseases working together, much like getting the cancer and cardiovascular research teams to work together across Singapore, which took some 10-15 years. 

Prof Tan was then invited to tour LKCMedicine’s teaching facilities, during which he showed keen interest in the School’s use of the Anatomage Table, plastinated specimens and 3D printed specimens to teach anatomy. There was also a quick visit to the Learning Studio where a TBL lesson was being held. His visit was topped off with a stop at the School’s medical library on Level 20 of the CSB where he took in a panoramic view of the Singapore skyline. Ending his visit, he quipped, "Well you seem to be doing things right. I look forward to seeing more success at the School.”