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MEDICAL EXCELLENCE AWARDS
Last night, the Health Ministry gave out National Medical Excellence Awards to the best doctors here in four categories: Outstanding Mentors, Doctors, Doctors in Research and Teams. The winners were judged on their contributions to science and society and to patient safety and care.
WINNERS of the National Outstanding Clinician Mentor Award, Professor Lee Eng Hin (right) and Professor Soo Khee Chee (far right), were honoured for tutoring young doctors while doing cutting-edge research.
Both are described as keen to let junior doctors step up to the spotlight.
Said Prof Lee: "It was very difficult to find established labs in Singapore in the 1970s; so today, with the grants available to me, I can help clinician scientists with potential. These people are the future of Singapore and I am glad to be able to help them."
Prof Lee, 61, is senior consultant of orthopaedic surgery at the National University Hospital and the KK Women's and Children's Hospital.
He is also executive director of the Biomedical Research Council and director of graduate medical studies at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore.
A specialist in bone surgery for children and stem cell research, he is recognised for having set up research centres and training programmes for junior doctors and clinician scientists.
Prof Soo, 57, is the founding director of the National Cancer Centre of Singapore, vice-dean at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School as well as visiting senior consultant at the Singapore General Hospital.
To promote research among clinicians, Prof Soo hopes to see changes in public hospitals. "What most public hospitals are short of are mentors who are senior clinician scientists, a good career structure to keep doctors from moving to the private sector, and laboratories," he said. |
