Hwa Chong Institution tops Anatomy Challenge 2019
.jpg)
Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) did it again!
Repeating a 2017 feat, a team of four HCI students emerged champions at this year’s LKCMedicine Anatomy Challenge held on 20 April.
The third edition of this inter-school competition saw the highest number of participants with 260 pre-university students from 22 junior colleges and polytechnics.
The team from HCI comprised Yau Chun En, Kueh Ming Xuan, Cheong Zi Yu and Lim Jay. On winning the top prize, team leader Zi Yu was ecstatic.
“It was a good learning experience for us joining the Anatomy Challenge. We are passionate about sciences, particularly medical sciences as we are interested in how the system works,” he added.
Another team member, Lim Jay said the competition has exposed him to more aspects of the brain.
“The brain is a mysterious part of our human body, and from today’s competition, I learn more about the brain. I am more inspired to learn more about neuroanatomy”.
Organised and run by LKCMedicine students, the competition was held at LKCMedicine’s Ong Tiong Tat and Irene Tan Liang Kheng Auditorium of the Clinical Sciences Building in the Novena campus.
The competition comprised an Individual Challenge and a Team Challenge. Participants were quizzed on this year’s theme – Neuroanatomy – which is the structure and organisation of the nervous system in the body.
For the competition, LKCMedicine students worked with the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), giving participants a glimpse into the clinical practice of neurology and neurosurgery.
The competition kicked off with a welcome address by LKCMedicine Year 2 student and organising chairperson of the competition Enver Shee, who said the human brain is “most possibly the most complex organ in the human body”.
“It’s made up of many components – each working in tandem to perform a specific task – which come together in order to allow us to perceive and interact with the world around us,” said Enver. Yet many of the brain’s inner workings still remain a mystery, he added.
After his address, Guest-of-Honour Associate Professor Ng Wai Hoe, deputy group chairman of SingHealth’s medical board and medical director at NNI, took the stage.
In his opening address, Assoc Prof Ng said one of the three great mysteries known to mankind is the human brain. Echoing Enver, he said that there is so much that is unknown when it comes to the brain.
Participants then sat for a grueling Individual Challenge which tests their neuroanatomy knowledge through 40 multiple-choice questions.
Following the Individual Challenge, NNI Consultant Neurosurgeon and the Head of Neurosurgical Service at Changi General Hospital Assistant Professor Jai Prashanth Rao delivered a keynote address.
Titled – “Unboxing the brain: The body’s information superhighway”, the session looked at the various components of the brain and how these allow us humans to act, behave and interact with the world we live in. Some topics Asst Prof Rao shared include the function of the brainstem, the job of a neurosurgeon and how the brain communicates with the rest of the body.
After his address, participants had their lunch break. During the lunch break, participants had the chance to view LKCMedicine’s use of the latest technology in anatomy education, research and clinical practice, through various exhibition booths by LKCMedicine faculty, researchers and students, as well as LKCMedicine’s primary clinical teaching partner, Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
.jpg)
After lunch, the top five teams whose players accumulated the highest cumulative score during the Individual Challenge were revealed in the Auditorium. The teams were HCI, Anglo Chinese Junior College (ACJC), National Junior College (NJC), Eunoia Junior College (EJC) and Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP). The five teams pitted their knowledge against each other over six rounds during the Team Challenge.
They were assessed by a four-member judging panel. The panel included LKCMedicine Head of Anatomy Asst Prof Sreenivasulu Reddy Mogali, NNI Department of Neurology Senior Consultant Assoc Prof Umapathi Thirugnanam, NNI Department of Neurology Senior Consultant and Chairman of the Chapter of Neurology, Academy of Medicine Assoc Prof Nagendran Kandiah and Asst Prof Rao.
NYP clinched the second spot, while NJC came in third. ACJC was in the fourth place, while EJC came in fifth in the competition. Medals and book prizes were also given to each of the top three individual scorers in the Individual Challenge. They are: Yau Chun En from HCI (top scorer), Yim Si Yue Tammy from HCI (second highest score) and Ethan Goh Wei Cheng from NYP (third highest score).
In closing, LKCMedicine Vice-Dean of Education Professor Naomi Low-Beer congratulated all winners, and applauded the high level of competition and knowledge of the participating students, saying that their performance was impressive.
“I would like to share how much this event means to the School. It’s a medical School that has been set up to train the next generation of doctors in Singapore. But it’s also very important for us as a School that we go beyond that, that we engage broadly with the pre-university students and encourage them to be interested in science, anatomy, physiology and we want to do more of these with them,” she added.
Prof Low-Beer ended by announcing an exciting upcoming event, the inaugural LKCMedicine Anatomy & Physiology Workshop for Pre-University Students, to be conducted by the School’s eminent faculty, on 17 and 18 June at the Novena campus.

Photo Credits: Anatomy Challenge 2019 team