...our medical faculty initiated the formation of the Medical Education Unit (MEU) in line with current practice in many leading medical schools in the world. ... I would now like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to President Shih and Provost Chong Chi Tat, for the strong support that they have provided to our educational initiative and for making it a reality.

(Welcome Address by *Professor Lee Eng Hin, then Dean, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore.)

Our medical education unit (MEU) was thus established in January 2002 representing a major milestone in the history of medical education in Singapore, The intent and spirit for the formation of our medical education unit has been a long educational journey for a few committed and dedicated teaching faculty who could foresee the need for such an educational entity to provide support for and to enhance the education mission of our medical school (then the only medical school in Singapore). The primary aim of establishing our MEU was, and still is, to provide pedagogical support to teachers in the faculty of medicine so that they will have opportunities to develop educationally and enhance their teaching skills. Ultimately, our medical students will be the beneficiaries of such an educational endeavour.

In November 2014, MEU was expanded as a centre (Centre for Medical Education - CenMED) taking into consideration the scope of practice by NUS Provost Office.

CenMED conducts several medical education workshops (e.g Learning in the 21st Century, Workplace-Based Assessments, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) which are offered as faculty development programmes in each academic year. Why should CenMED conduct such workshops? Perhaps, this is best answered in the words of the leading medical educationists LuAnn Wilkerson and Irby DM (1998) who emphasised that "Learning to teach from experience alone can be a slow and painful process. Faculty development programs were begun to reduce the time required to learn to teach and to provide guidance for teaching improvement." Additionally, our CenMED also initiated the annual Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference (APMEC) in 2004, and this has provided an excellent platform for us to grow, develop our capabilities and potential, and to extend our influence in the region and beyond.

Our quest for our CenMED is to ensure that, as generations of medical students leave the portals of our medical school to become practitioners, we will also have the capability to establish our CenMED as a centre of excellence in medical education in the region and beyond.