Vice-Dean's Message
With the ever-increasing demands on today’s healthcare system, Singapore requires creative and innovative solutions. Here at Duke-NUS Medical School, we train high-quality clinicians but we also nurture our clinicians so that they develop broader capabilities such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and entrepreneurial mindset. This will ensure they have the ability to come up with the innovative and progressive solutions required to overcome current and future healthcare challenges.
Duke-NUS Medical School places increased emphasis on educating students in design thinking, innovation, population health, and health economics going well beyond the traditional medical curricula staples of biochemistry, physiology, human anatomy, pathology, and pharmacology; we cover those too by the way! Clinicians cure diseases but they must also recognise the importance of their role in health promotion, health advocacy, and disease prevention.
Our innovative Duke-NUS curriculum, 'Clinician First, Clinician Plus', incorporates and champions important additional elements of healthcare practice such as patient safety, quality improvement, systems thinking and healthcare leadership as tomorrow’s medicine will not just be about treating diseases but will also be about leading the fight against disease, developing new healthcare innovations, new healthcare systems and promoting healthier lifestyles and choices. This will need a new type of doctor. I am proud that Duke-NUS Medical School is pioneering these developments.
Professor Ian Edward Curran
Vice Dean, Education