NTU President Speech at the LKCMedicine White Coat Ceremony 2022

Welcome address by 

Professor Subra Suresh

President and Distinguished University Professor

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 

LEE KONG CHIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

WHITE COAT CEREMONY 2022 

Nanyang Auditorium, Nanyang Technological University

Tuesday, 16 August 2022

Professor Joseph Sung, Distinguished University Professor, Dean, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Senior Vice-President (Health & Life Sciences), NTU, 

Associate Professor Tan Tze Lee, President, College of Family Physicians Singapore,

Class of 2027 and parents,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning. I am delighted to welcome you to this year’s White Coat Ceremony for the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine’s Class of 2027. 

My heartiest congratulations to all 168 of you, Class of 2027! I am glad to host you and your parents in person on this very special occasion.

Today, we celebrate all of you. Each one of you has demonstrated perseverance and resilience to achieve your goal of entering medical school despite the lingering challenge posed by the global pandemic. 

I would also like to congratulate all the parents here today. I have a vivid recollection of the White Coat ceremony of our daughter when she began her medical education at an institution half the world away. I have closely watched with admiration – and sometimes with anxiety typically exhibited by any parent – her excitement, dedication, and hard work over the last decade.

It is truly wonderful to see how that education and training have enabled her to become not only a medical doctor, but also a researcher as she contributes to patient care and creation of new knowledge to advance medical diagnostics and treatments.

I share the deep sense of pride and gratitude that you have now as you see your sons and daughters embarking on their medical school journey.

As President of NTU, I am delighted to have the privilege of participating in the inaugural ceremony of the pioneering batch of LKCMedicine graduates in 2018. Five cohorts of doctors from our medical school are now working across public healthcare institutions in Singapore. We have received positive feedback from Singapore’s medical community about their professionalism, performance, and preparation for patient care in the context of family and community.

A few weeks ago, we celebrated the graduation of the LKCMedicine Class of 2022 in this same auditorium. They join the healthcare workforce in the midst of continuing COVID-19 cases and other challenges.

LKCMedicine Class of 2027, you are embarking on your medical education at a truly exciting and challenging time in human history. We live in an increasingly complex and competitive world, one that is rapidly changing due to new and disruptive technologies. The world you are inheriting is one in which medicine, science and technology will play an increasingly central and inter-connected role. 

At the same time, the need for the intertwining of medical care and humanity has never been greater in light of the many challenges faced by the world today. In addition to the lingering global pandemic, the world is facing global conflicts and wars, mass migrations, a worsening climate crisis, and widening inequality in our global society, including inequality in access to routine and specialized medical care, particularly for the most vulnerable including disadvantaged children and senior citizens. As I have shared with the Class of 2022 at NTU’s Convocation just last month: you have inherited some of the toughest global challenges and these require global solutions.

To address these challenges and to seek solutions, it is inevitable that collectively we need to work across sectors and disciplines to gain a better understanding of the full scope and depth of the problem, and to seek sustainable, long-term solutions to complex issues. 

NTU offers our LKCMedicine students unique opportunities to cross boundaries and to connect with educators, scholars and researchers in engineering, natural sciences, business, as well as humanities, arts and social sciences. That journey across disciplinary boundaries is full of opportunities and possibilities for education, scientific discoveries, technological and clinical innovations, and finding solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. 

I know this from my personal experience. Because about 20 years ago, I embarked on a journey starting from engineering and sciences to biotechnology and medicine, working closely with clinicians and biomedical engineers with a wide spectrum of backgrounds in different countries and continents. As an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine in the US, I also learnt much about the challenges of developing policies at the local, national and global levels, through multi-dimensional and multi-sector analyses and perspectives.

At NTU, our innovative curriculum is designed to prepare you for the future of medicine. Following NTU 2025, the university’s five-year strategic plan, the medical school has also formulated a strategic roadmap known as LKCMedicine 2025. It is envisioned to nurture the young medical school  to its next phase of development: to be a leading global medical school at the forefront of medical education and innovative research.

The School has already won strong recognition for its MBBS programme. Last year, LKCMedicine became the first medical school in Singapore and the fourth in Asia to receive the internationally acclaimed ASPIRE award, in recognition of our innovation and excellence in MBBS curriculum development. The School also received a merit award for student engagement. In just 10 years, we are ranked among the top 100 medical schools in the world. This is a remarkable achievement for a young medical school.

The School will continue to redefine itself to stay relevant and ahead of the curve in educating the doctors of tomorrow to meet future healthcare demands. This is in line with our NTU 2025 strategic plan, which details the University’s ambitious goals to tackle some of humanity’s grand challenges, including responding to the needs and challenges of healthy ageing and living.

In my Convocation speech, I emphasised the power of one – the power of one individual, one idea, one act of courage, or one programme to have a significant influence on local and global society. This is especially true for the practice of medicine. Doctors and other medical professionals are at the frontlines of serving people at their most vulnerable situations. In your training to become doctors, I hope that you will be guided by your convictions, grounded in principles and values. As written in the Declaration of a New Medical Student, which you will recite later, remember to practise medicine with integrity, humility, honesty and compassion.

As LKCMedicine graduates and doctors, you will have the opportunity to demonstrate your power of one, not only in Singapore, but also in the global context through your clinical work, patient care, research and medical innovation. 

As you begin your medical education, I wish you all the very best in your journey to advance science, knowledge and medicine for the good of humanity. It will certainly be a challenging five-year  journey but as your seniors will attest, you will also find it immensely rewarding. Congratulations once again, and welcome to our OneNTU community and family! 

Thank you.