Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore

The Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine is the medical faculty of the National University of Singapore and one of three medical schools in Singapore. It is the oldest medical school in Singapore and Malaysia and boasts a list of distinguished alumni, including a Prime Minister of Malaysia, a President of Singapore, the first female Malay physician and notable Malaysian and Singaporean politicians.

The Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine was first established as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay StatesGovernment Medical School in 1905 to train physicians from the British colonies of present-day Singapore and Malaysia.It was renamed King Edward VII College of Medicine in 1921, after receiving a donation from the Edward VII Memorial Fund founded by Lim Boon Keng, and was housed at the heritage-listed College of Medicine and Tan Teck Guan buildings which are both currently owned by the Ministry of Health.

In 1949 the KECM then merged with Raffles College, which specialized in the humanities and teacher training, to form the Singapore campus of the University of Malaya (UM). The medical school was essentially the Faculty of Medicine of UM and students in Malaysia wishing to study medicine would go to the Singapore campus. UM eventually split into UM (Kuala Lumpur) and the University of Singapore in 1962 and UM in Kuala Lumpur established its own medical school.

The medical school continued operating through the mergers of the various predecessor institutions which formed the present-day National University of Singapore. In 2005, NUS’s centenary, it was named after Yong Loo Lin, following a $100 million endowment from the Yong Loo Lin Trust. The gift enabled the medical school to expand its infrastructure and facilities.

The School strives to fulfill its tripartite mission of providing excellent clinical care, training the next generation of healthcare professionals, and fostering research that will transform the practice of medicine. It plays a pivotal role in producing future leaders in healthcare delivery, discovery and public service, as well as in Singapore’s Biomedical Sciences Initiative and SingaporeMedicine, a medical tourism intiative.

The School’s 17 departments in the basic sciences and clinical specialties work closely with the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Anaesthesia, Anatomy, Biochemistry, Diagnostic Radiology, Epidemiology and Public Health, Medicine, Microbiology, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Paediatrics, Pathology, Pharmacology, Physiology, Psychological Medicine, and Surgery.

The School offers undergraduate programmes featuring a wide range of specialties. In addition, PhD, MSc and MCI research and training are also available for suitably qualified candidates.

NUH is a 1,200-bed tertiary hospital and major referral centre for a comprehensive range of medical, surgical and dental specialties. NUH also provides organ transplant programmes for adults (in kidney, liver and pancreas) and is the only public hospital in Singapore to offer a paediatric kidney and liver transplant programme.

Staffed by a team of healthcare professionals who rank among the best in the field, NUH offers quality patient care by embracing innovations and advances in medical treatment.

In 2004, NUH became the first Singapore hospital to receive the Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation, an international stamp for excellent clinical practices in patient care and safety. Today, patient safety and good clinical outcomes remain the focus of the hospital as it continues to play a key role in the training of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals, and in translational research which paves the way for new cures and treatment, offering patients hope and a new lease of life.