As a physician, I know what a patient should do to get better, but what happens if he or she does not listen? This question has crossed my mind many times. In modern Singapore, we have doctors like Clinical Professor Ng Chirk Jenn, who are dedicating time and effort to answering this question, and on how to provide effective healthcare from the ground up. When he first came across such patients, Clin Prof Ng, currently the Deputy Director for Research at SingHealth Polyclinics, was mystified. However, his desire to help them put him on a path of discovery.
“Shared decision-making taught me that I have to respect patients’ decisions. Don’t give up on them. Just guide them,” he shared, speaking about one of his areas of research.
Clin Prof Ng and I were discussing his research, after a presentation he had delivered to a small group of SingHealth staff members. He was recently conferred the inaugural Agape Professorship in Population Health, which was established through a donation by the Far East Organization. His goals of enabling better patient care and health outcomes for the community and, in particular, vulnerable groups in Singapore, resonated with me.
The soft-spoken clinician-scientist said that he would use the three-year professorship to gain a better understanding of Singaporeans’ needs, as it would take time to get a lay of the land, so to speak.
“Needs assessment is so important. If we bypass that, we may be barking up the wrong tree,” he remarked.
The distinguished professor has also been trying to bridge the patient-physician gap, creating tools to help both sides understand each other better. For example, he had developed what he called a patient decision aid, a booklet with a series of questions to guide patients to make difficult healthcare decisions such as insulin initiation, and early breast and prostate cancer treatment.
Clin Prof Ng had also been studying how to implement effective evidence-based healthcare interventions. For example, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he developed a remote monitoring system to enable COVID-19 patients report how they were doing. This reduced the burden of healthcare workers doing manual home surveillance and making phone calls every day.
“We’re trying to keep people of all ages healthy,” he explained, “not just those who are in their 60s, 70s or 80s.”
As we part ways, I reflect on how farsighted it is to invest in this professorship. It is not just an investment in Clin Prof Ng, but in the health of Singapore’s population. It may just warrant a visit to the further future, to see what impact this professorship will have on Singapore.
