Alumni Profile: Up Close & Personal with Dr Leon Tan

By Sanjay Devaraja, Editor, LKCMedicine's Redefine Newsletter

A graduate of the pioneer batch of LKCMedicine, Dr Leon Tan Yuan Rui (Class of 2018) received the prestigious Nanyang Alumni Service Award on 15 November 2024. As the founding President of the LKCMedicine Alumni Association, Dr Tan has gone above and beyond to support the medical school community at LKCMedicine. From organising reunion events to creating the MBBS final-year examination tutorial system still used today, his dedication has left a lasting legacy. We speak to him to learn more on his drive to serve and give back to the community.

Tell us about yourself and what was your experience like graduating from the pioneer cohort.

I am currently a Senior Resident in Paediatric Medicine working at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, under the SingHealth Paediatric Medicine Residency programme. I graduated from the first batch of LKCMedicine back in 2018. I am also a Victoria Junior College and Anglican High School Alumnus.

I consider it a privilege to have been a part of the first cohort of LKCMedicine. It was really exciting back then enrolling in a new school, with brand new facilities and a whole new curriculum that our faculty had crafted after many years of hard work. Our faculty had taken much effort in getting esteemed professors – many whom had won outstanding teaching awards – to personally teach and guide our class. Our professors had also done a lot of planning to re-organise the clinical years to give us the best possible training experience.

An example of a good change was shifting the paediatric medicine block from Year 3 to Year 4, thus allowing us to build up our medicine foundation and knowledge first in our Year 3 Internal Medicine block, before we went on to more specialised fields like Paediatric Medicine in Year 4.

Moving the “Family Medicine” rotation from Year 3 to Year 4 also helped, as we were able to appreciate the broadness of outpatient presentations better, after we were more familiar with various approaches we had learnt during our Year 3 foundation clinical year. As our class size was small, our professors knew all of us by names, and it felt very personalised with the faculty doing their best to help each of us succeed. 

Picture: Receiving the LKCMedicine OSCE Gold Medalist Award at the LKCMedicine graduation (2018)

Picture: With my family during graduation day at NTU! 

Share with us more on receiving the Nanyang Alumni Service Award.

I am honoured to have been even nominated for the award, much less receive it later! It came as a pleasant surprise amidst a very busy work schedule. To have received the award alongside many giants in their field, many of whom are so accomplished – was a true blessing indeed. I could not have done it by myself without the support of the LKCMedicine Alumni Association team.

Picture: With both of my parents at the Nanyang Alumni Awards ceremony (2024)

As the founding President of the LKCMedicine Alumni Association, you have gone above and beyond to support our medical school community. Tell us more.

You’re too kind! When I first joined the LKCMedicine Alumni Association, my main goal was to set up a good foundation for future batches to build upon. One way I thought that could help to keep the alumni connected with the medical students was through education. During my clinical years, I was inspired by many of our Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine seniors who took time during their busy work schedules to teach us, as they knew we did not have seniors at that time. Many were so willing to provide resources like textbooks, notes, etc. for us to succeed.

I recall back in my first clinical rotation at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) General Surgery during Year 3 when Dr Caroline Siew who was still a registrar at that time, kindly took my clinical partner Kieng Wee and myself through an abdominal examination during her call. This was despite General Surgery calls being notoriously busy and tiring! That got me thinking – as an alumnus, how can I best contribute back to the School, and make an impact? Education naturally came to mind.

On my first year as LKCMedicine Alumni Association President, I created an Alumni-Y5 tutorial system, where I asked my classmates for volunteers to serve as “core tutors”. For the rest who did not volunteer to be a core tutor, I assigned them randomly into different groups, so that each clinical group would have at least one core tutor and other tutors (if their core tutor was busy).

In this way, my entire cohort could contribute back to LKCMedicine as a tutor for the Year 5 students. A core group of us came together to volunteer as the first core tutors, and we took time during our house officer years to give tutorials to prepare the Year 5 students for the upcoming MBBS exams. I recall that it was very satisfying doing so, as we could use the knowledge learnt through our days at LKCMedicine, apply it to our work, and also provide the clinical perspective (having worked in the clinical setting now) to our juniors. It makes all the hard work in medical school worthwhile.

I hope that the LKCMedicine Alumni Association can serve as a platform to keep alumni connected with each other. I am grateful for the strong support I received from the LKCMedicine AA administrative team that assisted in events that I planned. I recall back in our first year as House Officers, when I organised a Mid Autumn festival get-together event. It was a simple catch-up where some of us brought mooncakes. The administrative team helped to book the venue and coordinate the invites and reminders, making it a lot easier for the LKCMedicine Alumni Association Executive Committee to plan such events.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, you led initiatives to help students continue their clinical learning through innovative online scenarios. How was that done?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the students in their clinical years were unfortunately not able to attend postings in person in the various clinical settings. It was a challenge as most of the key learning in medical school took place in the clinical setting! Seeing a patient and going through their clinical case, and applying our learnt medical knowledge into that scenario, aids in honing clinical acumen – something that cannot be learnt simply from textbooks.

Hence, in order to help the students, Prof Tham Kum Ying proposed the use of SIMTAC (Simulation and Integrated Medical Training Advancement Centre) as a learning ground for them to participate in simulated scenarios with simulated patients, to learn through mock clinical cases. As President of the LKCMedicine Alumni Association at that time, I assisted to coordinate the alumni effort in making this possible, and grouped together alumni who volunteered to assist in creating clinical scenarios for the SIMTAC sessions.

As we had various alumni in different PGY1 postings then (Paediatric Medicine, Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Orthopedics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology), each of us took on different roles in writing up different cases for the students to practice on. The clinical scenarios were formulated into either a short or long case style, and were vetted by both alumni and the School to ensure that they were effective in helping the students learn.

The students were also given “homework” such as mock discharge summaries and blue letter referrals for them to practise, based on case scenarios we created. These “homework” were submitted to alumni, who helped to mark and provide constructive feedback to each student on how to improve.

Picture: Our batch during our ED posting in Year 4 during a SIMTAC session

What are your fondest memories at LKCMedicine?

Picture: My cohort of LKCMedicine classmates (Class of 2018)

I miss the days where my Team-Based Learning (TBL) group went to different places for lunch and explored Novena and Balestier areas for scrumptious food, especially in Year 2. I also miss the days where I stayed back for many hours after class to have a good chat with some of my closest friends.

The time spent in University hall with my medical school classmates were also memorable. We would celebrate each other’s birthdays by decorating each other’s rooms to surprise the birthday pal and spend many late nights together watching shows and movies. We were also given time-off on Wednesday afternoons to pursue activities outside of medical school – something that I didn’t cherish enough back then, but looking back, it was such a privilege to have!

I also recall back in our Year 1 Hospital week, we were given access to the clinical setting for the first time. The School had planned for us to go to the TTSH Helipad! It was such a memorable experience, seeing the beautiful Singapore skyline from the rooftop of TTSH. Dr Terence Huey (General Surgery) was our mentor then, and he was truly such a great mentor to us!

Picture: My first TBL team (Chia Ming Li, Daniel Chong, Moses Ko, Lee Soon Hong, Jeremy Soon, and myself) on the TTSH Rooftop Helipad

Picture: Playing with a laparoscopic set in the Surgeons’ Hall Museum during the overseas elective

The highlight of the 5 years was definitely the overseas elective that I did in Imperial College London. Being able to live abroad for a period of time, and seeing how medicine was taught, learnt and practised in a different city, was truly an eye-opening experience. I also got to watch so many musicals with my friends in London!

Another very memorable experience was being asked to be photographed for a marketing campaign for LKCMedicine. I did not expect that my photograph would eventually end up all over Singapore as part of the Nanyang Technological University Open House advertising – even on buses and at Orchard MRT station! Many of my friends outside of medical school sent me photographs of some of their snaps.

Pictures: Photographs as part of the NTU Open House campaign (2016) – left: orchard MRT, middle: Clementi MRT bus interchange, right: photograph used for the promotional campaign

What are your hobbies? How do you unwind when you’re not at work?

I enjoy listening to music to unwind! My favourite artistes are Taylor Swift and Jay Chou, as they are able to write their own music to express their emotions. Similarly, I channel much of my emotions into songs that I compose on the piano in my free time. I am currently in the midst of learning how to produce these piano pieces into pop tracks.

I try to get some exercise if I end work on time. I enjoy going for runs as it helps to distract me from some of the challenges I face at work. Putting on my airpods, going for a long run, and listening to my favourite songs, whilst feeling the breeze and seeing greenery – that really helps me to unwind at the end of a busy day! If I am not able to go for runs, I would try to exercise by going to the gym or swim. I also enjoy catching up with close friends over a simple meal.

Every week, I would also look forward to attending church service. 

What are your words of wisdom in caring for patients?

I believe that the most important aspect during the provision of patient care is to genuinely care for them. Patients and their relatives are able to tell when we genuinely do so. Instead of rushing in to ask their medical history and clarify about why the patient is admitted, sometimes it helps to slow down, introduce ourselves to the family, and hear them out first before we speak. This is something that I have to constantly remind myself too, as I am also guilty of sometimes rushing through a patient encounter in the midst of a busy day.

In addition, I believe that a good doctor is one who is able to see things from the patient’s point of view. One who has the heart and patience to listen, and one who is able to put themselves in the patients’ shoes and think from their perspective.

Why should future applicants consider pursuing medicine at LKCMedicine?

LKCMedicine focuses a lot on early exposure to patient interaction and communication skills, right from Year 1 through clinical encounter sessions. This assists in building up our confidence in speaking to patients. The use of TBL has also trained us to integrate and work well with different colleagues in the clinical environment, which provides strong foundations for our medical practices. 

We also have an ever-expanding pool of LKCMedicine Alumni in Singapore who are more than happy to help you during your medical school years and journeys!