Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine

The Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine is the medical faculty of the National University of Singapore. The faculty is the oldest medical school in Singapore and was set up before the other two medical schools, the Duke–NUS Medical School and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. It 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.

Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Former names
  • Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School
    (1905–1921)
  • King Edward VII College of Medicine
    (1929–1949)
  • Faculty of Medicine, NUS
    (1949-2005)
TypePublic
Established1905
Parent institution
National University of Singapore
DeanProf Chong Yap Seng
Location
Kent Ridge
,
Singapore
Websitenusmedicine.nus.edu.sg

History

The Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine was first established as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School in 1905 to train physicians from the British colonies of present-day Singapore and Malaysia.[1] It was located within a former women's mental asylum at Sepoy Lines. The start of this medical school was significant in two ways. It was meant to train local men and women to bring Western medicine to the local population. It was handsomely supported by local merchants who took advantage of the tax exemptions of the time not to garner more wealth, but to give generously to public causes. Tan Jiak Kim gave the largest individual sum. Another donor, Tan Chay Hoon donated a building to the school in memory of his father, Tan Teck Guan. The Tan Teck Guan Building was built in 1911.

In 1921, the school was renamed the King Edward VII College of Medicine after receiving a donation from the Edward VII Memorial Fund[2] founded by Lim Boon Keng. In 1926, the College of Medicine Building was built to house the college in addition to the Tan Teck Guan Building. The dental school was founded soon after.

During World War II, the college continued operating even with the Japanese occupation of Singapore, but not without consequences. The first casualty was a fourth-year medical student based at Tan Tock Seng Hospital who was fatally wounded by Japanese shells during the Battle of Singapore. While his friends were burying him, they were spotted by Japanese soldiers and eleven were killed on the spot. The dead are commemorated by the SGH War Memorial.

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 became the Faculty of Medicine of UM, and students in Malaysia wishing to study medicine would go to the campus in Singapore. UM eventually split into UM (Kuala Lumpur) and the University of Singapore in 1962, with the medical school coming under the University of Singapore while and UM in Kuala Lumpur established its own medical school.

Through a series of mergers with other universities, the University of Singapore would eventually form the National University of Singapore (NUS). The medical school became the Faculty of Medicine within the university and in 1982, it left its old buildings at Sepoy Lines behind to move into its new campus at Kent Ridge. The historic College of Medicine and Tan Teck Guan buildings which it previously occupied are currently owned by the Ministry of Health and listed as national monuments by the National Heritage Board.

In 2005, the centenary of the medical school and also that of the university, the medical school was renamed the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine in honour of philanthropist and doctor Yong Loo Lin following a SG$100 million endowment from the Yong Kang Ren Trust. The gift enabled the medical school to expand its infrastructure and facilities.[3]

Departments

The School comprises 18 departments and 2 centres such as the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Anaesthesia, Anatomy, Biochemistry, Diagnostic Radiology, Medicine, Microbiology, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Paediatrics, Pathology, Pharmacology, Physiology, Psychological Medicine, and Surgery.

Admission and Programmes

The School uses the British undergraduate medical system, offering a full-time undergraduate programme leading to the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS). For Nursing, the Bachelor of Science (Nursing) (conducted by the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies) is offered.

Notable people

Alumni
  • Vivian Balakrishnan, Singaporean ophthalmologist and politician
  • Lam Pin Min, Singaporean pediatric ophthalmologist and politician
  • Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik, Malaysian politician and former President of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA)
  • Mak Joon Wah (1967), Malaysian pathologist
  • Mok Ying Ren (2012), Singaporean athlete and SEA Games gold medalist
  • Ng Eng Hen, Singaporean oncologist and politician
  • Balaji Sadasivan, Singaporean neurosurgeon and politician
  • Tan Cheng Bock, Singaporean physician, businessman and politician
  • Tan Chorh Chuan (1983), former President of the National University of Singapore
  • Robert Tan, physician specializing in men's health
  • Wong Meng Kong (1987), Singaporean chess grandmaster
  • Tien Wong, Singaporean ophthalmologist
  • Woffles Wu, Singaporean plastic surgeon
King Edward VIII College of Medicine (1925–49)
  • Tun Datuk Dr Haji Awang Hassan (1934), 5th Yang di-Pertua Negeri of Penang
  • Sir Han Hoe Lim, Singaporean physician and politician
  • Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad (1953), 4th and 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia
  • Tan Sri Dr Salma Ismail (1947), first Malay woman to qualify as a physician[4]
  • Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali, wife of Mahathir
  • Benjamin Sheares GCB (LMS 1929), 2nd President of Singapore[5]
  • Tan Sri Dr David Tan Chee Khoon (1949), Malaysian politician known as "Mr Opposition", co-founder of Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia
Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School (1905-1921)
  • Abdul Latiff bin Abdul Razak (1919), the first ethnic Malay to be a qualified physician[6]
  • Chen Su Lan (1910), social reformer and anti-opium activist
  • Charles Joseph Pemberton-Paglar (1917), founder of Paglar Maternity and Nursing Home (now Parkway East Hospital)

Faculty
  • Roy Yorke Calne, British surgeon
  • Jannie Chan, Singaporean entrepreneur, former lecturer in physiology and pharmacology
  • Ong Teck Chin, Principal of Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) (1994-2010), former physiology lecturer
  • Lim Pin, former Vice-Chancellor of the National University of Singapore
  • Shan Ratnam, physician specializing in contraception, former Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
  • Paola Ricciardi-Castagnoli, Italian immunologist and Scientific Director of the Singapore Immunology Network
  • Benjamin Sheares, served as Professor of Obstetrics at King Edward VII College
  • James Whyte Black, Scottish Pharmacologist, Nobel Laureate, formerly Senior Lecturer at King Edward VII College.

See also
  • National University Hospital

References
  1. Manderson, Lenore (2002). Sickness and the State: Health and Illness in Colonial Malaya, 1870-1940. Cambridge University Press. p. 15. ISBN 9780521524483.
  2. Heritage Places of Singapore. Marshall Cavendish International. 2011. p. 165. ISBN 9789814312950.
  3. History Archived April 15, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  4. "First Malay woman doctor dies". The New Paper. 21 July 2014.
  5. "Former Presidents – Benjamin Sheares". istana.gov.sg.
  6. Biography of the Early Malay Doctors 1900-1957 Malaya and Singapore. [[Xlibris]]. 2012. ISBN 9781477159965.
Other

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