Ms Faye Ng Yu Ci, a Year Four student at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, has won the prestigious Prize in Poetry awarded by Annals of Internal Medicine. The poem she wrote, A Pink Crease, was inspired by an encounter with an elderly patient with colorectal cancer during her posting at a hospital for surgical training in 2020. Ms Ng is the first undergraduate to receive the award. She will be donating the US$500 (S$682) prize to the National University Hospital (NUH) Children's Fund, which supports needy patients of the Khoo Teck Puat-National University Children's Medical institute (KTP-NUCMI) at NUH.
Ms Jane Sum, Research Assistant at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s Centre for Holistic Initiatives for Learning & Development (CHILD), is using what she has learnt from her background in psychology to build a more inclusive learning environment for children with learning difficulties. She is working on a new school readiness assessment with an algorithm to identify at-risk children. As NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine is also part of National University Health System (NUHS), she gets to shadow a psychologist and a paediatrician to learn more about cognitive and behavioural difficulties children face. The exposure helps her to frame research questions from a clinical perspective.
A/Prof Alfred Kow from the Department of Surgery at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine was conferred the Outstanding Educator Award at the National University Singapore University Awards 2021 ceremony. A/Prof Kow is also Head and Senior Consultant at the Division of Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic Surgery at National University Hospital.
At a virtual conference organised by NUHS Women in Science and Healthcare (WISH), President Halimah Yacob lauded A/Prof Sophia Archuleta, Head and Senior Consultant, Division of Infectious Diseases, who also heads the WISH team, and Ms Katherine Leong, Assistant Director of Nursing, NUH, for playing important roles during the COVID-19 pandemic, while balancing work and their caregiving duties to their families.
In conjunction with World Social Work Day on 15 March, Medical Social Workers Ms Adalia Tan of the National University Hospital (NUH), Mr Samuel Tan of Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH) and Ms Lim Yu Bing of Alexandra Hospital (AH), shared what their job entails, and how they assist patients and their families cope with emotional, psycho-social, financial and care problems arising from ill health and traumatic injuries.
In an interview on National University Health System (NUHS) clinching the silver award for ‘Excellence in Digital Transformation’ at the Human Resource Excellence Awards 2021, Ms Priscilla Teo, Group Chief Human Resource Officer, NUHS, shared that its corporate strategy and initiatives have helped to harmonise and simplify policies and processes across all NUHS institutions, achieving better efficiency and reduction of turnaround time in the workflows. NUHS is the first public healthcare cluster to pilot and move into a cloud-based HR platform through a 10-month implementation period.
In a letter to Zaobao Forum, Ms Ang Geok Lan shared that her eldest brother had been admitted to National University Hospital since July 2021 and passed away on 30 January 2022. On behalf of her family, Ms Ang expressed her deepest gratitude towards all the healthcare staff who had taken care of her brother, especially Dr Ng Jun Jie, Consultant, Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, National University Heart Centre Singapore, who was the patient’s attending physician. Ms Ang shared that Dr Ng would always take the trouble to communicate with the family. When her brother would rather die than undergo an operation to amputate his leg as a result of his diabetic wound, Dr Ng never gave up. He tried different treatments and managed to save the patient’s leg. Ms Ang commented that Dr Ng is a role model, exemplifying the value of benevolence in healthcare workers.
In a new book, In This Together: Singapore’s COVID-19 Story, published by Straits Times Press, Mr Nathanael Tan, Senior Staff Nurse, NUH, shared a personal account of how he experienced public paranoia over healthcare workers being contaminated with the virus during the initial stages of the pandemic.
Ms Clara Sin, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Group Service Transformation & Medical Records, NUHS and COO, NUH, highlighted the OneNUHS app jointly developed by NUHS and IHiS. She noted that the app was the first mobile app by a public healthcare cluster to provide a teleconsult functionality.
Ms Wong Soo Min, Group Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Office Chief-of-Staff, NUHS, shared that she is thankful to have an agile and resilient team in NUHS and IHiS who worked behind the scene to harmonise, streamline and simplify processes and be among the first in healthcare to roll out Robotic Processing Automation for repetitive activities.
This year’s President’s Technology Award went to A/Prof Too Heng-Phon, Department of Biochemistry, NUS Medicine, who pioneered non-invasive cancer detection methods so that patients with gastric cancer can be diagnosed early.
Lianhe Zaobao featured Ms Eileen Nah, Senior Enrolled Nurse, National University Hospital (NUH), who shared her experiences taking care of patients. Ms Nah is one of the winners of this year's Tan Chin Tuan Nursing Award.
A group of NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine students are worried that in the future, hospital emergency departments and clinics will be flooded with patients agonised by heat exhaustion and mosquito-borne diseases. The Straits Times interviewed Ms Anbudurai Manisha, an NUS Medicine fourth-year student, who is part of a group of medical and healthcare students who run a podcast called Third Spacing, which delves into healthcare issues.
Ms Clara Su, Assistant Nurse Clinician in Paediatrics Oncology, KTP-NUCMI, National University Hospital (NUH), is a volunteer Wish Granter with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Singapore. CNA Singapore After Work followed Ms Su as she worked towards granting the wish of her young patient who survived leukaemia and wished to become a ballerina.
Emily Yuen, Nurse Clinician, Emergency Department, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, has been a night shift nurse for the past 20 years. She explained that this work arrangement allows her to spend more time with her children in the day. She elaborated that there isn’t a lull period for the emergency healthcare team as there are always patients admitted for various reasons. She also recounted an episode where a three-year-old girl was admitted for abuse, but unfortunately did not survive.
Jurong Community Hospital's (JCH) Healthcare Assistant Mr Ilandari Deva Nishantha always pays close attention to his patients' needs, and is able to connect with unresponsive or uncommunicative patients. Displaying outstanding patience and often going beyond the call of duty, Nishantha also offers help to his patients who face issues settling back at home after discharge. He recently received the Exemplary Service Excellence Award at the Public Sector Transformation Awards 2021 for his outstanding service.
Assistant Nurse Clinician Ms Tomomi Ogura from NUH Neonatal Intensive Care Unit said what makes her job rewarding is knowing that she is helping the sick, something that she knew she wanted to do since she was young. She said: “That’s the main thing – I feel very satisfied because this job is really about helping people.” She is one of the 125 nurses who were presented the Nurses’ Merit Award by the Ministry of Health this year in 2021.
Ms Margaret Lee, Chief Nurse, Alexandra Hospital (AH) started a system at the hospital that allows nurses to take the lead in caring for certain groups of patients, such as those who are undergoing certain treatments, those in rehabilitation, and patients who are almost ready to be discharged. Last year, when COVID-19 measures led to restrictions in hospital visiting, many elderly patients at AH were left without caregivers by their side. CN Margaret is now piloting a project in which caregivers are involved in the patient's hospital care.