ANNUAL DINNER Dr Chan Sing Kit Citation forText by Prof Tan Cheng Lim When the President of SMA asked me to Boon and Dr Tan Kwang Hoh in Paediatric the state is the only employer and deliver this citation for Dr Chan Sing Kit in East and West, SGH. All their special everyone is an employee). She visited honour of her receiving the SMA Honorary talents must have rubbed onto her. centres in Tashkent; Yereven, Armenia; Membership, I was most happy to do so. Sing Kit graduated from the University and Moscow. This eventually led to It was my good fortune to have had of Malaya (Singapore) with MBBS in 1956 the setting up of childcare centres in her as my mentor for paediatrics in the and served a Government scholarship to Singapore in 1964. late sixties, when I was a medical officer the UK to attend courses, and sat for the Sing Kit continued as senior (MO) and she was the Head of Paediatric membership exams and obtained her consultant and head of Paediatric (East), (East), Singapore General Hospital (SGH). DCH (Lon) and MRCP (Glas, Edin & Lon) SGH till 1977 when she went into private between 1961 and 1963. Sing Kit had a kind and warm practice as a paediatric specialist in personality with a strong commitment She was also awarded a Gleneagles Medical Centre till today. I to patient care and had a way of putting Commonwealth Fellowship to study am not sure where she gets her energy everyone at ease, be it doctors, nurses or neonatology under the late Prof Peter from, but she is still going strong after 40 ancillary staff. Tizard at the Hammersmith Hospital, years in private practice. London, from 1968 to 1969. She was As a MO, she had worked under the subsequently awarded the FRACP in She has also been a visiting late Prof Benjamin Sheares in Obstetrics 1971, FRCP (Glasgow) in 1972 and FRCP consultant to Saint Andrew’s Mission and Gynaecology in Kandang Kerbau (Edinburgh) in 1973. Hospital for children since 1969. Hospital; Prof Gordon Arthur Ransome in I thus continue to marvel at the Medical Unit I, SGH; Prof Yeoh Ghim Seng She was a clinical teacher and commitment, dedication and energy that in Surgery A, SGH; and Dr Elaine Field, examiner for the MBBS (NUS) and Dr Chan has had all these years, serving Dr Quah Quee Guan, Prof Wong Hock MMed (Paediatrics) examinations. She also spent one month on a United as a role model for all paediatricians. Nations Children's Fund grant to study May I present Dr Chan Sing Kit to us all childcare set up in the Soviet Union as someone truly worthy to be conferred (then a Communist country where the SMA Honorary Membership. Prof Tan Cheng Lim Dr Chan Sing Kit receiving the SMA Honorary Membership from Minister Gan Kim Yong 12 JUN 2017 SMA News A/Prof Goh Lee Gan Citation forText by A/Prof Cheong Pak Yean Introduction I am very happy to give this citation for A/Prof Goh Lee Gan on his conferment of the SMA Honorary Membership. I am reminded of how Lee Gan would often begin his speeches by quoting his father’s admonition to make only three points, because any more than that, the audience would forget. So in this citation, I would narrate the three roles he played in the medical profession: first as a servant-leader, second as an academic-teacher and the third as a physician-healer. Servant-leader Lee Gan was born to lead by serving. He was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1946 to a Chinese school teacher and a housewife. He was the eldest in a large family with A/Prof Goh Lee Gan listening attentively during the delivery of his citation by A/Prof Cheong Pak Yean ten children; his youngest brother being 21 years his junior. From a young age, Lee Lee Gan also laboured relentlessly in A/Prof Cheong Pak Yean Gan learnt to lead and serve. numerous committees in the Ministry of Health (MOH) for the past 30 years. For I first met Lee Gan 55 years ago in his role as Chairman of AIDs Task Force, Anglo-Chinese School when I joined the he was awarded the Public Service Star stage crew of the Drama Society. This (BBM) in the National Day Awards of team that Lee Gan led was the unseen and unsung hands that set the stage for 2005. He also served the community the actors basking in the limelight. This outside healthcare; for example, as a was the servant-leader role that Lee Gan member of the Public Guardian Board played time and again. of the Ministry of Social & Family Development, Singapore. It was therefore not surprising that Lee Gan chose to study medicine, Outside Singapore, Lee Gan was graduating with MBBS from the the Regional President of the World University of Singapore in 1971 with a Organisation of Family Doctors in Asia- distinction in Social Medicine and Public Pacific (WONCA) for six years, from 2001 Health. He then underwent training in to 2007. His professional achievements internal medicine (IM), culminating in were recognised by fellowships conferred the Master of Medicine (IM) in 1977. by many institutions: The Academy of Medicine and College of Family We all know Lee Gan’s immense Physicians in Singapore, Academies of contribution to the medical profession Family Medicine (FM) in Malaysia and the as a servant-leader. He served in various Philippines, and the Royal Colleges of capacities in many professional bodies; General Practitioners in UK and Australia. notably as President of SMA from 1999 to 2001, and as President of the College He also championed training projects of Family Physicians Singapore (College) in Singapore and overseas. He is presently from 2007 to 2011. the deputy team leader of a Singapore JUN 2017 SMA News 13 tending to the suffering of the chronic sick. He is presently the medical director of Bethany Methodist Nursing Home and also the liaison physician for the Agency for Integrated Care HOME programme in NUH. To him, healing transcends the body. When one colleague became severely depressed and lost his will to live, I saw how Lee Gan carried him by spending an inordinate amount of time being with him. His unconditional positive regard carried the day. He attributed his energies to answering “God’s assignments”, which Ms Chan Swee Swan, the woman behind the successful man he never flinched from. International Foundation (SIF) project to “No, I am just the midwife.” Midwife Back to family enhance healthcare services for the elderly indeed! In February this year, NUS Lee Gan is happily married to Chan in Yunnan, China, and was SIF’s expert in celebrated thirty years of Academic Swee Swan. Their son, Terence Goh, a FM to Indonesia for ten years from 1995. Family Medicine. consultant plastic surgeon in Singapore Lee Gan is an accomplished General Hospital, happily married Academic-teacher academic. His 60 publications cited Marilyn Liew last year. They are a happy In 1987, Lee Gan left private practice to in the PubMed literature spanned family. I do not want to ask Swee Swan answer the call to start academic FM in the panoply of FM and public health whether she was happy to share Lee the National University of Singapore (NUS). (PH). His present research interests are Gan with us for the past four decades related to FM training,1 assessing mental He was Divisional Head, Department of but certainly, in honouring Lee Gan capacity2 and translational research on Community, Occupational and Family tonight, we are also honouring Swee dementia prevention. Medicine, from 1987 to 2008. When FM Swan for her sacrifice. joined the National University Hospital However, Lee Gan would be As a close friend of Lee Gan, I tried (NUH) in 2008, he took on the role of remembered best by generations of to convince him to say “No” to some of the Head of the Division of FM in the doctors as a compassionate teacher. the onerous demands on his time. But if Department of Medicine for the next He taught FM as a holistic discipline of he had taken my advice, he would not three years. breadth, often reminding his students have lived his life so fully. Many doctors not to be daunted, as we can “eat the FM would be contented to be recognised Lee Gan led many sentinel College elephant in parts”. and MOH committees that laid the as leaders, academics or physicians, but tonight we have the rare occasion to foundation of FM training in Singapore. Physician-healer As Deputy Chairman, FM Committee, honour one of our own as a composite servant-leader, academic-teacher and School of Postgraduate Medical Studies, Lee Gan is a three-in-one generalist physician straddling the world of FM, physician-healer. from 1993 to 2011, he directed its PH and IM. development. Lee Gan was, and still is, SMA President Tien Hua, the stalwart of various FM academic He worked in the joint FM and PH distinguished guests and colleagues, programmes in Singapore. Department in NUS, consulting and I present A/Prof Goh Lee Gan as most publishing papers in both disciplines worthy of being conferred the SMA Presently, Lee Gan is an associate for two decades since 1987. Trained as Honorary Membership. programme director of the National an IM specialist, he continues to run an University Hospital System FM residency IM clinic in NUH. This clinical work, he programme. His teaching tasks range from tells me, provides contemporary and References supervising FM residents in clinical work contextual clinical experience to teach 1.