SingHealth Group hosts Pakistani doctors for CME program

The Singapore Health Services (SingHealth) played host to a delegation of Pakistani doctors at Singapore General Hospital.
A message received here on Tuesday said that Prof Tay Boon Keng, chairman of the medical board (international) welcomed the delegates and spoke on SingHealth’s strength in patient care and long history teaching medical professionals who desire to upgrade their skills.
He also gave an overview of the two hospitals and five national specialty centers run by SingHealth and their roles in supporting Singapore’s aspiration to become the Asian Medical Hub.
Pakistan High Commissioner Syed Hasan Javed was also present on the occasion and spoke on the need for more collaboration between healthcare providers of the two countries. He was confident that more interaction and research endeavors between doctors from both countries would lead to better patient outcomes.
Professor Pierce Chow, Senior Consultant with the Department of General Surgery at Singapore General Hospital (SGH), gave an enlightening talk on Liver Cancer management that now offers more treatment choices based on research outcomes.
He emphasized the team-based approach to treating liver disease which involves experts from the Departments of Nuclear Medicine and Medical Oncology.
Dr Anthony Goh, Senior Consultant from the Department of Nuclear Medicine, spoke about selective internal radiation therapy (SIR-Spheres) for locally advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.
This treatment modality invited a lot of questions from the visiting doctors from Pakistan who were happy to note that such procedures are offered closer to home and that they can refer patients for treatment to Singapore who meet the criteria mentioned by Dr Goh. Dr Goh also invited researchers from Pakistan to participate in a research study SIR-Sphere.
Dr Toh Han Chong, Senior Consultant and Head of the Department of Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Centre Singapore, shared treatment options for Medical Oncology which was followed by a talk on gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) by Dr Vikneswaran from SGH’s Department of Gastroenterology.
Dr Craig Stenberg of the Duke-NUS Medical Graduate School also spoke at the event and highlighted the medical school’s training curriculum and its efforts to attract the best talent from Asia to this seat of higher learning.
The discussions were very engaging and opened many opportunities for further collaboration between the two countries. The delegates received the certificates at the end of the session.
The organizer of this event, Dr Zakiuddin Ahmed from Pakistan, appreciated the efforts of Vijaya Sreenidhi- Senior Director, SingHealth Services for planning the event and Medi-Connect Singapore-Medical Associates for Pakistan for facilitating the visit to Singapore.
Similar CME programmes are being planned in the future to achieve better synergies in the medical field.