Q: What are your views on pursuing lifelong learning in healthcare?
A: Lifelong learning is essential in healthcare because it helps to keep our knowledge current even as healthcare becomes increasingly complex. There are always new things like skills to acquire and novel technologies to learn about, which we can then use to benefit the patients we serve.

Healthcare is an ever-changing field of practice with advances in medicine, treatments, and models of care, and it is vital that we embrace lifelong learning to stay relevant to provide safe and effective patient care. Continuous lifelong learning can also help to open up new doors in your career.

Q: What are the challenges faced by healthcare professionals in continuing education?
A: It can be challenging at times when there are other competing factors for our time e.g. day-to-day clinical work, other roles and responsibilities. I find what helps at the end of the day is a deliberate prioritisation of our time to ensure that we continuously learn regardless of how busy we get. After having learnt something new, we also have to remind ourselves to put it into practice and apply what we have learnt. I find that self-reflection is also a good skill in this respect, as I would ask myself, “now that I have learnt that, how can I do things differently this time?”.

Q: What was a recent CET course that you took with NUS Medicine?
A: One of the most memorable courses was the one on “Leading and Managing in Medical Education”, which was part of the “Foundations in Health Professions Education (FHPE)” series. It featured a mix of online modules and a face-to-face workshop. The online modules were very informative and well thought out, as they provided a good knowledge base preparatory to the ensuing workshop.

I really enjoyed the workshop as there was a good balance of interaction with my course mates and the facilitators, and we discussed cases which were taken from real life scenarios which was extremely valuable to my work as an educator.

Q: How has this CET course supported your career development?
A: The knowledge that I have gained from the courses is very practical and applicable to my area of work in undergraduate and postgraduate education. I have since developed a deeper understanding in areas such as curriculum development and assessment, which has in turn improved the quality of my work. The courses have also allowed me to develop my professional network, which is a valuable resource to tap on when the need arises.

Q: What motivates and drives you to pursue continuing education in healthcare?
A: Knowing that our patients will benefit the most at the end of the day drives me to pursue continuing education. This can be through developing myself to improve direct patient care and safety, or upskilling others to improve the way they care for their patients. Having the right attitude and motivation, or as Simon Sinek puts it, focusing on the “why” rather than the “what” and “how”, can guide us towards the outcomes we want to achieve. It will help to keep us centred, and improve our work performance and resilience.

Click here to view an excerpt of the interview with Dr Matthew Chan.

Click here to view the full video on Lifelong Learning with NUS Medicine.