It was a wonderful sharing session by our surgical friends from Duke.  Surgeons invent all the time. Nuances in every operation require surgeons to innovate and think through variations of technique to address patient and disease specific issues and anatomical variations.  

Technology has also advanced tremendously and surgical instruments have become smaller, more remote and even automated at times like in minimally invasive and robotic surgery and certainly navigational systems have allowed more precise localisation and placements.   

The challenge for surgeons is always how to balance clinical time with research time, and the statement that “the operating theatre is your laboratory” certainly is the way to go and highlights that clinical practice and research time are not mutually exclusive but oftentimes integrative and interactive. 

To this end, Surgery ACP has been focusing on areas of research that surgeons are passionate about – developing devices and techniques that can help in our surgical care for patients. 

Over the last four years, we have been actively engaging the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign Fellowship Programme which is a one year program, 6 months in Stanford and 6 months locally at AStar to teach four specially selected individuals (a mix of doctor and engineers) the skills essential for device development. 

We are pleased indeed to report that in every year’s scholarship awards, we have always had one scholar come from Surgery ACP in the National open exercise, including the scholar for next year’s programme. 

In addition, the MedTech interest group among our students at Duke-NUS promises to be a great pipeline of future surgical innovators to support our research enterprise. 

Another key take home message from the session was that even for those who do not do research actively, it is still important for them to support those who do.  This message speaks to each and every one of us. Collectively we can make a difference to our patients. 

With the quality of our surgeons in the SingHealth institutions, I am indeed optimistic that we will make a difference.

Prof London Lucien Ooi is Academic Chair of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Surgery Academic Clinical Program, and also Chairman of the SGH Division of Surgery.