On 20 April, 50 health professionals from National Healthcare Group (NHG) and Singapore Health Services (SingHealth) graduated from the final run of NHG's signature faculty development programme- "Health Professions Educators' Essentials" (HaPEE).
Organised by NHG College since 2008, HaPEE comprises four modules that are constructed around themes of teaching, learning, interprofessional education and a scholarly approach to health professions education. The programme draws expertise and faculty members from NHG and Harvard Macy Institute (HMI).
In the fourth and last module that spanned 4.5 days, HMI facilitators Drs Susan Farrell and Alex Johnson, along with the support from local faculty, brought the participants and faculty through the principles and behaviours of effective leadership for promoting health professions education initiatives including analysing relevant organisational structures, negotiation, relationship building and strategies for change management. Participants also learnt about the various professional development aspects of education scholarship such as writing skills for scholarly publication, and building educator portfolios.
One of the highlights for the module was the sharing session by esteemed education leaders, namely, Professor Pang Weng Sun, Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer (Population Health) of NHG, and Professor Lim Shin-Hui, Senior Associate Dean, Department of Academic Development, Office of Academic and Clinical Development of Duke-NUS Medical School. Their inspiring stories, experiences and insights about change management, and leading teams at different stages of their careers, fittingly wrapped up the final segment of the module.
As HaPEE drew to a close, a Chinese calligraphy scroll was presented to the HMI faculty by Associate Professor Wong Teck Yee, Academic Director of NHG College, to celebrate and commemorate the decade of friendship and collaboration in fostering educators and teachers at NHG.
