Duke-NUS Medical School equips students not only with the rigour of medical training but also with cutting-edge research capabilities for novel treatments. Read more at straitstimes.com.
A first-year house officer at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Dr Michelle Ko is responsible for caring for patients aged under 19 years old in the paediatrics department. Her main priority is making sure that her young patients are comfortable during medical examinations.
Dr Ko was able to conduct her study as a student, thanks to Duke-NUS' unique focus on providing an intensive mentored research experience for students in their third year. With a first degree in life sciences and a minor in psychology, she wanted to leverage her psychology background in doing her research. Dr Ko was particularly interested in paediatrics because she found it fulfilling when children got better.
In Dr Ko’s case, she was paired with Dr Lee Jan Hau, a senior consultant in KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. With Dr Lee’s network, Dr Ko was able to collaborate with a team across two academic sites, including a research librarian, a statistician, doctors and nurses, to review over 9,000 scientific papers for her research.
The first option was removal of the cancerous tumour via surgery. The second option, called Y90 radioembolisation, was a minimally invasive procedure where very small radioactive glass beads are inserted into the blood vessels to target the tumour with radiation therapy.