This year has been a whirlwind that began with choosing between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Master’s in Global Health Policy and Johns Hopkins’ MPH, acceptances I aptly first received while at the Thai-Myanmar border for a project. It has also marked the start of a new chapter of learning, juggling both a part-time Master’s and full-time clinical work which will see me rotating out of my Emergency Department for training over the next few years. Managed to squeeze in ICEM 2026 in Hamburg with some of my wonderful ED mentors, learning lots presenting on POCUS (featuring a P3 patient who walked in and ended up with 1.4L of pericardial fluid drained) and hearing from international experts.

This patient was my introduction to eye ultrasound, and this case write-up not only taught me about differentials to floaters and the approach to eye POCUS, but also illustrated how POCUS in ED is not limited to critical care use. Dr Ang Joo Shiang was the first to show me how sounding from head to toe can be valuable in timely diagnostics, and it was a great pleasure learning from him through this and many other cases.

The latest edition of SMA News (Sept 2025) features a DIT special spread where our Doctors In Training committee highlighted key issues facing junior doctors and offered insights and suggested solutions to pressing challenges. I was asked to write a piece offering guidelines for junior doctor rostering, an area that I’ve seen cause many a junior doc much anguish, stress, and even contribute to burnout and patient safety issues. Together with Calvin, we came up with some suggestions we hope will take out the “monster” in “roster monster” and show what fair, transparent, effective rostering can do to improve healthcare workplaces and patient care. // **2026 UPDATE: am now part of SMA’S DIT’s ongoing study on manpower rostering, intrigued to see what we will find as we look to identify challenges, best practices, and potentially craft better means to improve our healthcare workplaces

Our poster as featured in the ongoing ERC Congress in Rotterdam! Proud of our study team that prepared for and visited Hyderabad in March this year, scouring through data and interviewing EMS personnel to help identify gaps and potential solutions to better manage heat injuries.

I travelled to the Thai border city of Mae Sot late last year with a group of Singapore clinicians to help out at a clinic serving refugees from Myanmar, which is setting up its new Emergency Care Unit. There, I met so many individuals passionate about improving border health despite limited resources, including Dr Tiah Ling. I wrote about her incredible journey and the efforts from the Singapore team thus far in this SMA News piece.

Had the honour of being invited to join an ACEM 2023 panel to discuss #EmergencyMedicine education & training experiences + challenges across Asia, alongside esteemed peers, colleagues, and mentors. Was not able to fly to Manila due to exams and clerkships but tuned in remotely and learned lots from fellow panelists, moderators, and participants.

Had a wonderful time learning at EACEM 2022 + WINFOCUS 2022 plus got to explore beautiful Antalya, including climbing some amazing rock walls at Geyikbayiri thanks to conference colleagues and the local climbing community. Took to the stage for an oral presentation of proposed simulation training and competitions (SimWars) for medical students, and how this form of education can be designed and used to improve junior doctor competency. This framework was used in the first-ever med student #SimWars in Singapore in the same month. Full abstract available in the EACEM publication.