Designing the surgery SAP
By Asst Prof Kaushal A Sanghvi, Surgery Student Assistantship Programme Lead, Tan Tock Seng Hospital
When I was asked to craft and construct a Student Assistantship Programme (SAP) for the first exiting batch of students for the general surgery discipline, I knew it was going to be a happy challenge. It was going to be a different programme as the students were starting after their exams. This was a golden opportunity to facilitate a very hands-on immersion programme to empower them to become good house officers.
LKCMedicine Assistant Dean for Year 5 Associate Professor Tham Kum Ying engaged me to develop a surgical schedule to suit the making of a new-age house officer. We wanted to balance the experience such that they would be working like house officers, but under strict supervision. To achieve this, we chose Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH) and Changi General Hospital (CGH) as the lead hospitals for students to complete their postings. We engaged the SAP leads, Associate Professor Adrian Koh and Assistant Professor Lim Kheng Tian from CGH and KTPH respectively, to formulate an impactful SAP programme.
We were inspired by the philosophy of our pioneering Singapore Surgeon Professor Yaya Cohen who said, “Surgery is not only operations. It’s being able to look at a patient and make a correct diagnosis. In fact, a good surgeon will not go rushing in with a knife.”
I can proudly say that the first batch of students have just finished their General Surgery SAP posting and the journey so far has been very encouraging and fulfilling.
