News Roundup February 2021

On 27 January, LKCMedicine received a NTU Safety Award for its contribution to workplace safety. In observance of the Covid-19 restrictions, NTU's Chief Health & Safety Officer, Dr Goh Chin Foo, personally presented the 'Silver Award in Health & Safety Performance' to Professor Lim Kah Leong, Vice Dean for Research and Chair of LKCMedicine Health & Safety Committee, at the Experimental Medicine Building. Mr Ken Wong also received his Safety Star Individual award from Dr Goh on the same day. The NTU Safety Awards recognise the great efforts put in by the Schools and Centres in fostering safer workplaces at NTU. The LKCMedicine Health & Safety Committee thanks everyone – especially all those who have assumed special safety roles – for their active contribution to making LKCMedicine a safe place to work. 

LKCMedicine Students Shine at National University Health System Debate
On 23 January, two first year LKCMedicine students participated in a debate at the National University Health System (NUHS) Transplant Colloquium 2021, debating on the motion "The house believes that presumed consent legislation is an ethically acceptable and effective way to increase Organ Donation for Transplantation." The proposition and opposition teams consisted of three members from LKCMedicine, NUS Medicine and Duke-NUS. This provided an invaluable opportunity for the students from each institution to interact and work together on the same team. Both students did the School proud, with Lim Rong (M1) being part of the winning proposition team and Shuy Yao Kang (M1) of the opposition team winning Best Speaker.

Congratulations to LKCMedicine Chairman Mr Lim Chuan PohOn 19 January, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that LKCMedicine Chairman of the Board Mr Lim Chuan Poh had been appointed Singapore's Non-Resident Ambassador to the State of Israel. All at LKCMedicine would like to extend their heartfelt congratulations to Mr Lim who received his Instrument of Appointment from President Halimah Yacob.

The LKCMedicine Health & Safety Awards
Safety and health are fundamental to our daily activities. Safety is a shared responsibility for which each of us at LKCMedicine has a part to play and is accountable for keeping the campus safe, protecting our employees, students, visitors, and the University as a whole from harm.

The LKCMedicine Health & Safety Committee together with the School's management constantly explore ways to support and encourage everyone to embrace safe practices in the School and even more so in the research labs. One such initiative, the LKCMedicine Health and Safety Awards for wet labs (research), was launched last year. This initiative is to appreciate and recognise the efforts of the researchers in adopting positive behaviour for safety and thereby building a strong foundation for a safety culture in the School. We would like to thank every lab that had put in so much effort in their submissions for the inaugural awards. The competition was very tough, so our Committee Chairs decided to approve an additional commendation award.

The winning teams put in commendable efforts to keep the Safety Management System folders up to date, attend regular safety rep meetings, improve safety communication among the labs, make timely submission of inventories, maintain housekeeping in the labs and actively participate in safety contests.

In view of these, the top prize winner, Health Screening Centre (HSC), has demonstrated excellent ownership and responsibility pertaining to safety matters. Additionally, HSC's proactive approaches, such as active dissemination of relevant information discussed in safety rep meetings, random spot checks and inspections by Safety reps and an in-house quiz conducted to heighten the safety awareness, speak volumes about the Centre's focus and eye for safety. HSC has also taken initiatives to modify the standard templates of safety documents to incorporate additional information. It has a robust system to track the validity/expiry of all the licences held by Centre. The HSC team also registered the highest participation in the LKCMedicine Safety contest in 2020. HSC has certainly set an example for other labs in many aspects and demonstrated a good safety culture.