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The SingHealth HMDP Award is an annual program centered on developing health talent in the SingHealth cluster. Doctors, nurses, ambulatory staff and health science professionals who win the award are sponsored for further training at an overseas clinical center.
To recognize their achievement, a small reception was held on 12 June 2004 at National Cancer Center Lecture Hall, SGH Campus. This is the first year that a formal awards reception was organized to gather and congratulate the awardees. The reception also featured 2 previous HMDP recipients Dr Tan Ru San (NHC) and Ms Lim Su Fee (SGH), who shared with those present their HMDP experiences.
 The event was graced by Guest-of-Honor Prof. K Satku, Director Medical Services, Ministry of Health, and attended by GCEO Prof. Tan Ser Kiat, Ms Pryscilla Shaw, member of Board of Trustees, SingHealth Foundation, clinical leaders and past and present awardees.
In an impassioned speech peppered with personal anecdotes, GCEO Prof. Tan reminded awardees that it is their duty to return after their training to make a difference to SingHealth. He urged all awardees to share their knowledge selflessly in order to make SingHealth an "intellectually challenging and talent-rich center."
While MOH will continue to support HMDP to allows our medical staff to learn from world renown centers, Prof. Satku took the opportunity to challenge the clusters to "ensure that the local capacity to train has been fully exploited" before going overseas. In order to do this, "paradigm shifts on how training is done" will be required.
Whereas SingHealth has been able to double the number of HMDP awards this year through generous funding from donors of SingHealth Foundation, and whereas this is a reflection of SingHealth's commitment to the provision of excellent medical training, Prof. Satku's call for optimization of training resources is timely as the clusters work to contain healthcare costs.
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