Associate Professor Ng Kee Chong (left) and Associate Professor Lim Poh Lian (third from left) received the National Outstanding Clinician Award; Clinical Professor Chan Choong Meng (second from left) received the National Outstanding Clinician Educator Award; and Professor Marcus Ong Eng Hock (right) received the National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award. ST PHOTOS: DESMOND WEE
The Straits Times (27 September 2022)
Two doctors who played key clinical roles in the Covid-19 pandemic were recognised on Monday as outstanding clinicians of the year.
Before Singapore received doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in late December 2020, Associate Professor Lim Poh Lian, senior consultant and head of the Travellers’ Health and Vaccination Clinic at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, was busy helping to calm public anxiety about the safety and efficacy of the shots.
As a member of the Ministry of Health’s Expert Committee on Covid-19 Vaccination, she also dealt with the inevitable logistical hurdles that were posed by the sheer number of people to be vaccinated. Prof Lim, who also helped identify Singapore’s first case of monkeypox in 2019, has more than two decades of expertise in managing disease outbreaks.
She was awarded the National Outstanding Clinician Award on Monday.
The award also went to Associate Professor Ng Kee Chong, a pioneer in paediatric emergency medicine who established the paediatric emergency preparedness plan in response to the rapidly evolving Covid-19 pandemic, as well as helped to advance clinical education in maternal and child health.
Prof Ng, who is chairman of the medical board and senior consultant at the emergency medicine department at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, was instrumental in establishing Singapore’s first children’s emergency service at the hospital in 1997, said the Ministry of Health on Monday.
Health Minister Ong Ye Kung gave out the National Medical Excellence Awards at a ceremony held at W Singapore in Sentosa.
Professor Marcus Ong Eng Hock, a senior consultant and clinician scientist at the Singapore General Hospital’s (SGH) emergency medicine department, received the National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award.
Senior consultant Daniel Goh Yam Thiam of Khoo Teck Puat-National University Children’s Medical Institute’s paediatrics department, who has mentored paediatricians for nearly 30 years, received the National Outstanding Clinician Mentor Award.
The National Outstanding Clinician Educator Award went to Clinical Professor Chan Choong Meng, a senior consultant at SGH’s renal medicine department and SingHealth’s group chief education officer.
The team behind CareLine, a 24/7 personal care telephone service pioneered by Changi General Hospital (CGH) for vulnerable seniors in need of urgent assistance, received the National Clinical Excellence Team Award.
Led by Adjunct Associate Professor Eugene Shum Jin-wen, CGH’s chief community development officer, CareLine has helped nearly 19,000 seniors age well in the community since it started in 2016.
The team award also went to the Community Health Assessment Team, or Chat, at the Institute of Mental Health. Chat, headed by Associate Professor Swapna Kamal Verma, offers free and confidential mental health assessments for distressed youth and advocates youth mental health literacy.