NUS medical school values integrity, compassion in doctors

We refer to Dr Patrick Kee’s letter “Doctors, society need injection of compassion” (May 11) and Dr Daniel Ng’s letter “Why is NUS medical school slipping in rankings?” (May 9).

We share Dr Kee’s view that doctors should be compassionate and ethical. Indeed, empathy and integrity are foremost among the qualities patients seek in doctors.

The NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine is vigorous in its emphasis on professional integrity, compassion and respect for the dignity of the patient in medical practice.

We look out for these traits among aspiring applicants to the school through validated multiple mini-interviews, focused skills assessments and situational judgement tests, and nurture these in our students throughout their five years here.

The school set up the Centre for Biomedical Ethics in 2006 to champion education and research in biomedical ethics.

Ethics and professional behaviour are taught from the first week of medical school. In their first year, students visit patients at home and spend time with them and their families, under the supervision of mentors, to gain a firsthand understanding of how patients and their families cope with illness.

Our students also initiate many local and regional community involvement programmes, which enable them to see, experience and empathise with those they meet in the communities.

The school expects students to uphold the highest standards of professionalism.

Great care is taken to ensure they abide by their undertaking to treat their patients and people they encounter in their professional life with integrity, respect and compassion.

Dr Ng referred to the Quacquarelli Symonds university rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities and asserted that the NUS medical school had fallen out of the latter’s top 100 places.

The various rankings use different criteria. The 2015 QS World University Rankings by Subject placed the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine as 21st globally and second in Asia.

The 2014-2015 Times Higher Education World University Rankings listed the NUS medical school 44th among global universities. The Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014, which has Nobel Prize recipients in part of its criteria, has NUS Medicine in the 101st-150th band.

As a member of Asia’s leading research-intensive university, the school is committed to upholding the highest standards of academic endeavour.

The two former academic employees Dr Ng referred to had left NUS some time ago. They were not medical professionals and neither were they NUS graduates.