A Prescription for the Humanities: SoH and CoHASS Celebrate Landmark NTU-NHG Health MOU
NHG Health's Institute for Humanistic Medicine (HuMe) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NTU's Centre for Health, Culture and Society (CHCS) to strengthen health professions education and research in Singapore and the region through integrating clinical humanistic practice with interdisciplinary scholarship in medical humanities and social sciences. (Image from NHG Health)
What happens when clinical expertise meets cultural insight? A new kind of healthcare—more compassionate, more ethical, and more human.
On 15 April 2026, at the inaugural NHG Health E3 (Educate, Elevate, Evolve) conference held at the Ng Teng Fong Centre for Healthcare Innovation, NTU Singapore, and NHG Health signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that formally embeds the humanities and social sciences into the future of medical education and research.
The MOU brings together NHG Health's Institute for Humanistic Medicine (HuMe) and NTU's Centre for Health, Culture and Society (CHCS) —a research centre housed under NTU's College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CoHASS), with strong involvement from the School of Humanities. This partnership signals a major step forward in advancing healthcare education through genuine interdisciplinary collaboration.
For the School of Humanities, this MOU affirms that disciplines such as literature, philosophy, history, and cultural studies are not peripheral to medicine but foundational to patient-centred care.
With over 500 healthcare educators and professionals attending the E3 conference, the successful launch of this partnership demonstrates NTU's ongoing commitment to advancing healthcare education through innovation and collaboration, all while maintaining compassionate, patient-centred care as the foundation of medical practice.
The future of medicine is interdisciplinary. And the humanities and social sciences have a central place in it.
Read more:
Official NTU news release: https://www.ntu.edu.sg/news/detail/ntu-and-nhg-health-partner-to-advance-healthcare-education
From left to right: A/Prof Michelle Jong, Group Chief Clinical Education Officer, NHG Health; Prof Chua Hong Choon, Executive President, NHG College; A/Prof Graham Matthews, Director, Centre for Health, Culture & Society, NTU College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences; and Asst Prof Michelle Chiang, NTU College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. (Image from NHG Health)
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