Establishment of the Clinician Scientist Development Unit (CSDU) at NUHS-NUS
Published: 30 Apr 2021
The Clinician Scientist Development Unit (CSDU) will replace the Clinician Scientist Unit (CSU) at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, with the appointment of Professor Koh Woon Puay as its Director effective 1 May 2021.
The CSDU will develop junior clinician-researchers who are keen to become research faculty of NUS Medicine or the National Medical Research Council (NMRC)-supported clinician-scientists. Aligned with the School’s research aim of expanding medicine’s frontiers, transforming insights to improve health and healthcare, the CSDU provides guidance and structured training to nurture budding clinician-scientists and develop their research careers spanning from Senior Residents and above across NUHS.
In the last decade, Prof Koh has acquired unique qualities and skill-sets, along with insights and experience in nurturing clinician-scientists. This comes from her role as a mentor to many budding clinician-scientists, and her former leadership roles as Programme Director of the Master of Clinical Investigator (MCI) at NUS (2008 to 2012), and later as the Lead for the Talent Development Core (2013 to 2016) and founding director for the Centre of Clinician-Scientist Development at Duke-NUS (2017 to 2020). Prof Koh is currently the Assistant Dean of Faculty Development at NUS Medicine and responsible for the development of the School’s junior faculty members, particularly young clinicians who are keen to pursue research as part of their career. The School looks forward to her leadership of the Unit in helping our budding clinician-scientists achieve greater heights.
The School would also like to express our deepest appreciation to Associate Professor Allen Yeoh for his leadership as Chairman of the CSU since 2009. Assoc Prof Yeoh has done excellent ground work in building the research culture among junior to mid-level clinician-scientists through a number of initiatives such as the NUHS Clinician Scientist Programme (NCSP), NCSP-Residency, Pitch for Funds rounds, ExxonMobil-NUS Research Fellowship for Clinicians, and personalised research career guidance sessions. He has gone beyond the call of duty on this and the School will always be grateful for his sterling contributions.
We look forward to the CSDU’s contribution under the leadership of Prof Koh Woon Puay to more exciting development and growth in our research culture as well the training of clinician-scientists here at the NUHS and NUS.
