With the national move of healthcare from hospital to the community and the focus on preventive health, Family Medicine at NUHS was formed on 1st February 2018.
Family Medicine at NUHS is represented by two key pillars in education and research. To find out more on the two key pillars, please visit:
For the latest updates on Family Medicine, please follow us at our 'X' (formerly Twitter) handle - @famednusg.
We aim to achieve excellence in Family Medicine education, research and practice. We will actively collaborate with local and international partners to improve health outcomes for the population through Family Medicine education, research, and practice.
We aim to achieve our mission through these key approaches:
We identify and nurture the best talents, locally and internationally, in Family Medicine education and primary care research to deliver the strategic goals of the department.
In collaboration with key partners and stakeholders, we strive to strengthen capabilities for our Primary Care Research Unit (PCRU). We aim to establish NUHS Family Medicine as a key contributor to innovative and impactful medical and health services research.
We strive to deliver high quality teaching and effective learning platforms for medical students and residents in Family Medicine.
In alignment with the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine's global ranking, we will benchmark Family Medicine at NUHS against other world class Family Medicine Departments internationally.
We collaborate with key stakeholders to provide quality patient care to the community.
In tandem with the above, we ensure continuous improvement in effective management and adoption of best practices.
1971: Undergraduate training in Family Medicine in Singapore started National University of Singapore (NUS) medical students were sent on one-week postings to General Practice clinics. These postings were administered by the College of General Practitioners, Singapore. |
1987: Family Medicine was formally recognised as an academic discipline by NUS on 13th February Following a joint memorandum among NUS, the College of General Practitioners and the Ministry of Health, the Department of Social Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) was tasked to teach Family Medicine as a subject. The Department of SMPH later took on a new name to reflect this development and became the Department of Community, Occupational, and Family Medicine (COFM). |
1993: The first Master of Medicine in Family Medicine examination was organised A/Prof Goh Lee Gan, who headed the Family Medicine unit in COFM, spearheaded the establishment of a national three-year postgraduate Family Medicine training programme. The first Master of Medicine in Family Medicine examination was organised by the NUS in 1993. |
2009: Family Medicine moved out of COFM and into the National University Health System (NUHS) as the Division of Family Medicine within the Department of Medicine |
2011: The national three-year Family Medicine training programme was dencentralised to become institution-based Family Medicine Residency programmes​ In the same year, the Division of Family Medicine at NUHS, in partnership with St Luke’s Hospital, Raffles Medical Group, and Frontier Healthcare, admitted the first intake of six residents to the NUHS Family Medicine Residency. |
2017: The Division of Family Medicine at NUHS commemorated 30 years of Academic Family Medicine in Singapore on 25th February |
2018: The Department of Family Medicine in NUHS was established on 1st February, with Professor Doris Young as the inaugural Head of Department |
Learn more about Dr Cheong Pak Yean, Adjunct Associate Professor at NUS Medicine (Class of 1974) as this article traces his journey in family medicine as a student and educator.
Primary care research translates science into the practice of medicine and caring for patients. It provides further understanding of how to better organise health care to meet patient and population needs. The article discusses on the primary care research gap, the necessity of research in primary care in Singapore, types of research in family practice/primary care and the ways forward for primary care research. Read the full article here (PDF, 6.2 MB).
Read the full interview with Professor Doris Young as she shares more about Family Medicine, developing Family Medicine in NUHS as an academic clinical programme as well as the role of Family Medicine in a specialist-centric restructured hospital.
Find out more about the role of family doctors in Singapore and the integration of Family Medicine training programmes in medical schools.
Read the full article here (PDF, 8.1 MB).
With more than 30 years of experience in general practice and primary care research, the first full professor in the Department of Family Medicine, Professor Doris Young, has her mind set on improving the family medicine curriculum at NUS Medicine, in line with Singapore’s new focus on primary care. Read the full interview with Professor Doris Young here (PDF, 5.5 MB).
Undergraduate training in Family Medicine in Singapore began in 1971 as a one-week posting to a general practice (GP) clinic and 10 lectures on "Introduction to General Practice", organised voluntarily by the College of General Practitioners, Singapore. 30 years on, the discipline is a well-established undergraduate programme, as well as a postgraduate curriculum and Masters of Medicine (Family Medicine) examination. Read the full article here.
Published in May 2019, the book, "Being Human - Stories from Family Medicine", shares interesting experience and memorable encounters that make up the Family Physicians' typical and occasionally, atypical work days. Read some of the extracts in the links below.
Prof Jose Maria VALDERAS
Head, Department of Family Medicine, NUHS
Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Professor Valderas is the Head of the Department of Family Medicine and Director for the Centre of Health Services Research at NUHS. He has worked as a General Practitioner in the UK, Spain and in a variety of environments, including developing countries for very brief periods (Tindouf and The Gambia). As an Academic General Practitioner, with a commitment to research that is relevant for decision making in clinical practice and health policy, he has held substantive appointments at the Universities of Exeter, Oxford, Manchester and Johns Hopkins and visiting appointments at the London School of Economics and the Universities of Paris and Sydney.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please click here or download the PDF here (PDF, 285 KB).
Prof Doris YOUNG
Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Professor Young has extensive experience in educating and training medical students, residents, general practitioners, and other health professionals in adolescent medicine, general practice, and primary care research. Her research focuses on trialling innovative models of care in the primary care setting to improve health outcomes for people with chronic diseases, particularly diabetes mellitus.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 201 KB).
A/Prof GOH Lee Gan
Senior Consultant, Department of Family Medicine, NUHS
Associate Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
A/Prof Goh's many interests include health services research, chronic disease management, and medical pedagogy. Over the past few decades, he has been widely and deeply involved in the development of Family Medicine as a discipline, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, in Singapore as well as regionally. He is currently an Associate Programme Director with the NUHS Family Medicine Residency.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please click here or download the PDF here (PDF, 202 KB).
A/Prof LIM Fong Seng
Senior Consultant, Department of Family Medicine, NUHS
Associate Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
A/Prof Lim has been teaching NUS undergraduates since 2000, and Duke-NUS graduate students from 2009 to 2018. He has been a tutor of the Graduate Diploma in Family Medicine programme since the programme inception in 2000 and mentor residents of the NUHS Family Medicine Residency, where he has helmed the Quality Improvement module since the inception of residency training.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please click here or download the PDF here (PDF, 215 KB).
Dr GOH Lay Hoon
Senior Consultant, Department of Family Medicine, NUHS
Senior Consultant, NUP
Assistant Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Dr Goh Lay Hoon is Research Director and Senior Consultant in NUHS Department of Family Medicine. Her research interests are diabetes and chronic diseases, primary care models, mixed-methods analysis, and big data and AI. She is Core Faculty in NUHS Family Medicine Residency in-charge of training in research and evidence-based medicine. Dr Goh is mentor for the Longitudinal Patient Experience and Neighbourhood Health Service (NHS) programmes in NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, which are interprofessional education programmes involving community-dwelling residents.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please click here or download the PDF here (PDF, 216 KB).
Adj A/Prof Victor LOH
Senior Consultant, Department of Family Medicine, NUHS
Adjunct Associate Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Adj A/Prof Victor Loh is Education Director of Family Medicine, and Director of Foundations of Clinical Practice (FCP) at NUS Medicine. He is a senior consultant family physician at Pioneer Polyclinic, National University Polyclinics (NUP). His interests in medical education are in family medicine training and humanistic medical professional identity formation (PIF). For health services research, he leads “Patient Voice” under which he is a Personalised Care and Support Planning (PCSP) practitioner and trainer, and leads research in Youth Mental Health (YMH), and Primary Care Antimicrobial Stewardship (PC-AMS).
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please click here or download the PDF here (PDF, 214 KB).
Dr ONG Chooi Peng
Senior Consultant, Department of Family Medicine, NUHS
Assistant Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Dr Ong teaches undergraduates at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and residents in the NUHS Family Medicine Residency. She is privileged to be involved in Fellowship programme training under the College of Family Physicians, Singapore. In addition to education, she is involved in Family Medicine assessment development, and has also been an examiner in Family Medicine from undergraduate to Fellowship levels.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please click here or download the PDF here (PDF, 189 KB).
Adj A/Prof LEW Yii Jen
Family Physician, Senior Consultant, NUP
Chief Executive Officer, NUP
Adj A/Prof Lew Yii Jen is the Chief Executive Officer of National University Polyclinics (NUP). A practicing family physician, Adj A/Prof Lew obtained his Masters of Medicine, Family Medicine from the National University of Singapore and is a Fellow of the College of Family Physicians, Singapore, FCFP(S).
Adj A/Prof Lew oversees and plans the healthcare services, to enable NUP to be a one stop family health centre. He plans and develops relevant support for good team based family healthcare at the polyclinics. He coordinates with the doctors, nurses, care managers, allied health professionals and the operations staff in the comprehensive care of acute and chronic patients, as well as communicates with the regional hospitals in the integration of care of patients across different institutions.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 168 KB).
Dr Meena SUNDRAM
Family Physician, Senior Consultant, NUP
Dr Meena is a Senior Consultant Family Physician in National University Polyclinics (NUP) and she leads the department of Family Medicine Development (FMD) in NUP since its establishment in 2017. Dr Meena and her team strongly believes that education is fundamental to robust clinical practice and the delivery of quality patient care and they take great effort in training a community of competent, nurturing and confident educators. Dr Meena is appointed as Assistant Professor for both NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and NTU Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. She is also the member of FM Residency Standards Settings Committee and Core Faculty for NUHS Family Medicine Residency programme.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 251 KB).
Adj A/Prof David TAN
Family Physician, Senior Consultant, NUP
Adjunct Associate Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Adj A/Prof Tan is a Family Physician, Senior Consultant at the NUP, Associate Programme Director for the NUHS Family Medicine Residency, and Deputy Director in CEO’s Office and Family Medicine Development, NUP. He tutors doctors undergoing their Masters of Medicine and Graduate Diploma in Family Medicine courses, as well as medical students from NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. He is also an examiner for the Family Medicine examinations of various levels. In 2012 and 2019, he did his HMDP in the area of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), respiratory medicine in primary care, and medical education and continues to have a special interest in respiratory medicine.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 185 KB).
Dr Keith TSOU
Family Physician, Senior Consultant, NUP
Dr Tsou is a Family Physician, Senior Consultant and Director, Clinical Services at National University Polyclinics (NUP). He oversees all aspects of clinical services, including professional standards, General Practitioner-Hospital collaborations, medical manpower, allied health services and medico-legal matters. He is also the Deputy Chairman/Deputy Chief Examiner (Joint Examinations) of the Family Medicine Examination Committee at the Ministry of Health. This role involves the development and standard setting of the M.Med (FM) and Graduate Diploma in Family Medicine examinations. He continues to practise and see patients in the Bukit Batok Polyclinic.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 231 KB).
Dr Ruth ZHENG
Family Physician, Senior Consultant, NUP
Dr Ruth Zheng is the Programme Director of the Family Medicine Residency Programme at the National University Health System (NUHS). She practises in the National University Polyclinics (NUP) as a senior consultant family physician. She also holds the position of Programme Director of the Family Physician Consultant Development Programme under NUP, where physicians are supported in their Fellowship training. Her research interests include inter-professional collaboration and child health. She is also the principal investigator for a study on screening for autism in low-risk toddlers in primary care clinics.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 183 KB).
Dr Desmond ONG
Family Physician, Consultant, NUP
Dr Ong obtained his M.Med degree in Family Medicine in 2010, and passed the FCFP in 2016. He is currently working in Jurong Polyclinic. On top of seeing patients, as key trainer in Jurong Polyclinic, he has been responsible for the teaching of doctors, keeping them up to date in medical education. On the institutional level, he is the lead in the Women's Health Specialty Advisory Group (SAG) in NUP, and has successfully overseen the transition from the old cervical screening guideline to the new one, changing from the conventional Pap smear to liquid-based cytology, and incorporating HPV testing.
Dr Ong is a Lecturer at the Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS. He has a strong interest in teaching, being a clinical tutor to students for both NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. He is a member of the core faculty of the Family Medicine Residency Programme at NUHS, as well as a supervisor for the FCFP. He is also keen on research, and is particularly interested in the areas of Women's Health, and chronic diseases.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 192 KB).
Dr ANG Lai Lai
Family Physician, Associate Consultant, NUP
Dr Ang is currently working as a Family Physician at the Clementi Polyclinic. She is Head, Neurology Specialty Advisory Group at National University Polyclinics (NUP). She has been a clinical tutor for the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine since 2010. Dr Ang joined the Department of Family Medicine at the National University Health System (NUHS) in January 2021 to oversee the Phase 3 Family Medicine Programme. She is passionate about teaching and training future doctors. It gives her great joy to see her students become competent, compassionate, caring and respected doctors.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 187 KB).
Dr Sky KOH
Family Physician, Associate Consultant, NUP
Dr Sky graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2015, and was conferred with the Masters in Family Medicine, NUS, in 2019. As an Academic Scholar, he is involved in undergraduate teaching and research with the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He is involved in undergraduate teaching as a Clinical Teacher and Clinical Practice Facilitator with Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, National Technological University. He is also involved postgraduate teaching as a Physician Faculty with the Family Medicine Residency Programme, National University Health System (NUHS). Dr Sky is also a Clinical Tutor for the National Collaborative Prescribing Programme, co-hosted by Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies and Department of Pharmacy, for Advanced Practice Nurses and Pharmacists to become competent as collaborative prescribers. He currently practises at Bukit Batok Polyclinic.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 216 KB).
Dr LIOW Yiyang
Family Physician, NUP
Dr Liow graduated from NUS Medicine in 2015 with the Gordon Arthur Ransome Gold Medal and Prize in Internal Medicine. He completed a Masters in Family Medicine in 2019. He is a Lecturer at the Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS) and is involved in undergraduate and family medicine education. He currently practices at Queenstown Polyclinic.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 187 KB).
Dr Alicia ONG
Family Physician, NUP
Dr Ong graduated from Duke-NUS Medical School in 2017, and was conferred with the Masters in Family Medicine, NUS, in 2022. She currently practises at Bukit Batok Polyclinic and is involved in undergraduate teaching and research with the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. She is interested in research on improving healthcare delivery systems and in promoting chronic disease management.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 179 KB).
Dr TAN Hwei Ming
Family Physician, NUP
Dr Tan graduated from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS in 2015 and she completed her Masters in Family Medicine in 2020. She currently practises at Queenstown Polyclinic and is a lecturer at the Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS. In addition to undergraduate and postgraduate Family Medicine education, she also works as the medical chairperson for the National University Polyclinics' Falls Prevention Committee. She is interested in furthering research to promote healthy longevity and add value to years of life.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 265 KB).
Dr Anne YEO Kwee Kee
Core Faculty, Family Medicine Residency Programme, NUHS
Senior Family Physician and Partner, Frontier Healthcare Group
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Dr Yeo is a Senior Family Physician in the Frontier Healthcare Group, helping to run a heartland general practice clinic. She has a keen interest in chronic disease management and takes care of her patients in an old estate. She is a core faculty in the Residency Programme in NUHS. She mentors the residents during their residency years and prepares them for their examinations. As a clinician educator in the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine undergraduate programme, she is passionate about impacting her knowledge to mould the young minds of the medical students. She works closely with the team in curriculum planning and assessments for the third year Family Medicine posting.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 186 KB).
Dr Kenneth TAN
Family Physician, Kenneth Tan Medical Clinic
Adjunct Lecturer, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Dr Tan practises as a Family Physician in a general practice clinic in the heartlands. He believes in providing patient-centred care and contributing to healthcare transformation. He enjoys learning and participating in medical education at the undergraduate and post-graduate level.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 257 KB).
Dr Vivien LEE
Family Physician, IDHealth
Lecturer, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Dr Lee graduated from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS in 2016 and she completed her Masters in Family Medicine in 2020. She currently practises at IDHealth, a community-based, integrated health team serving adults with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers. She is also a lecturer at the Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 206 KB).
Dr Anna SZUECS
Research Fellow, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Physician Faculty, Family Medicine Residency, NUHS
Dr Anna Szuecs completed her medical studies at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, in 2013. She acquired clinical experience in geriatric internal medicine and psychiatry at the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), Switzerland. In 2017, she joined the Decision Neuroscience and Psychopathology Lab and the Longitudinal Research Program in Late-life Suicide at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, as a Visiting Scholar to familiarise herself with psychiatric and behavioural research. She currently works at the Division of Family Medicine of the National University of Singapore as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 233 KB).
Dr Laurie GOLDSMITH
Senior Research Fellow, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Dr. Laurie J. Goldsmith is a qualitative and mixed methods health services and health policy researcher. She has conducted research in Singapore, Canada, and the United States through multidisciplinary collaborations, including partnerships with patients, providers, and health system decision makers at federal, provincial, state, and local levels. Her research focuses on the patient and physician experience of receiving and delivering health care and the influence of health care structure on health care delivery.
Email: [email protected]
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 219 KB).
Dr Stephanie LUBBE
Research Fellow / Data Scientist, Division of Family Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Research Fellow, Department of Family Medicine, NUHS
Dr. Stephanie is a research fellow and data scientist at the Division of Family Medicine (NUS). She obtained her Masters in Chemistry (Molecular Simulation and Photonics) in 2016, and obtained her PhD in computational chemistry with cum laude distinction. After working one more year in Amsterdam as a postdoctoral fellow, Dr Stephanie started as a research fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore. In this position, she applied computational models on next-generation batteries and worked on model development and data analysis using Python. In April 2023, she started as a research fellow and data scientist in the division of Family Medicine.
For full profile, please download the PDF here (PDF, 226 KB).
Dr Jonathan Chew
Assistant Director (Administration)
Department of Family Medicine, NUHS
Dr Jonathan Chew is an Administration Director in NUHS Department of Family Medicine. He provides oversight to the overall administration and operations of the department, including human resources planning and financial budgeting. He also supports the department in formulating and implementing the annual work plans, which includes setting strategic goals and deliverables for programmes and initiatives that are related to clinical services, education, and research.
