News: LKCMedicine Open House 2024

LKCMedicine hosted more than 1,000 visitors at the NTU Main Campus for the Open House held on 2 March 2024. Dozens of LKCMedicine faculty, staff, and student volunteers were stationed at the Experimental Medicine Building at NTU, eager to meet and interact with prospective students and their parents.

Several alumni were warmly welcomed back on campus, as they returned to help out to share their lived experience of how the LKCMedicine programme prepared them well for practice in the hospitals around Singapore, serving patients with confidence and compassion.

The buzz began even before the first sharing session of the day when visitors began streaming in for the “Overview of MBBS Programme and Student Life” talk by Assistant Dean (Admissions and Overseas Electives) Professor Kwek Tong Kiat, together with students Ernest Ong from Year 5 and Vineeta Shankar, a first-year student.

LKCMedicine Dean Professor Joseph Sung joined the session midway to give a personal welcome to those present. He shared that the Ministry of Health has increased the student intake for LKCMedicine starting this year, as testament of the strength of and belief for LKCMedicine’s Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programme.

Speaking on the enhanced MBBS programme, Professor Sung said, “We have put in more new elements such as artificial intelligence (AI), digital health, medical humanities, patient safety, and so on. The programme will be very much based on the previous framework, with newly added elements to prepare our graduates to become doctors of tomorrow. We will also create more opportunities for our students to go abroad for exposure.”

Parents who attended the sessions were just as keen as their children to find out more on LKCMedicine, raising various questions on eligibility, financial aid, and the selection process. Responding to questions by parents who attended the session, Ernest said, “Our outreach programme has been so robust that many parents are actually aware of what is going on at LKCMedicine and they just wanted to be here to confirm their choices.”

First-year student Vineeta Shankar said, “I feel a lot of pride and joy to be advocating for my School. In the past few months, I forged meaningful and great memories at LKCMedicine, and it really feels good to share why I think LKCMedicine is the right choice.

The second talk in the afternoon was helmed by Vice-Dean (Clinical Affairs) Professor Pang Weng Sun, together with students Ruhi Fiza, a second-year student and Nicholas Wong from Year 5 who gladly shared their personal experiences on student life at LKCMedicine. Both talks were over-subscribed; this was the theme throughout the day.

Prospective students were also given a hands-on demonstration of LKCMedicine’s unique pedagogy — Team-based Learning (TBL). Two TBL sessions with facilitators Dr Han Siew Ping and Ms Yang Lishan were presented with every seat in the Seminar Room filled, and then some.

Visitors also had the opportunity to try their hands at various science practicals at the interactive demo sessions. Tay Chor Chng, an 18-year-old from Raffles Institution, said “The curriculum looks pretty interesting yet challenging, and it excites me that if I can join LKCMedicine, I’ll be challenged to my limits.”

Concurrently, the main LKCMedicine booth at the foyer of the School of Biological Sciences saw brisk traffic throughout the day. Prof Sung, Prof Kwek, along with Chief Operating Officer Dr Serene Ng, and several Assistant Deans were on-hand to help other faculty, staff, students and alumni to attend to the crowds, taking turns to field prospective students’ queries.

Yusuf, a 19-year-old student from Nanyang Junior College said that he attended the NTU Open House to see what makes the University’s MBBS programme so unique. “I wanted to draw comparisons between LKCMedicine’s programme and other medicine courses. I have heard good stuff about NTU’s medicine programme and wanted to see for myself how good it could be,” he said.

Judging by smiles all around, our alumni were thrilled to come back to do their part. Dr Gong Haoran (Class of 2020) said, “LKCMedicine provides a very robust and comprehensive teaching pedagogy to ensure that graduates are able to manage a whole spectrum of illnesses. Apart from training competent doctors, what LKCMedicine has that allows it to rise above, compared to other medical schools, is that it has a very strong emphasis on strengthening patient empathy, as well as professionalism.”

The six tours to Experimental Medicine Building that ran throughout the day were very popular, with each one deploying Student Ambassadors leading a group of visitors each.

In between the talks and tours, hands-on demo of our unique TBL as well as our science and anatomy practicals, visitors checked out the Level 3 Collaboration Space where they could speak with our staff and students about admissions, scholarships and financial aid; student life and LKC Students’ Medical Society (LKCMedSoc); and the LKCMedicine dual campus.

For the first time, this year’s Open House featured the showcase of our Medical Library, Scholarly Projects and MedSoc Research Symposium at the Learning Studio@EMB. 

By 6pm, it’s a wrap to a tiring but fulfilling day, marking yet another successful Open House for LKCMedicine.