Campus Director, Education Office
Senior Consultant, Respiratory Medicine Service, Department of Paediatrics
KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital
Professor Chay Oh Moh holds several appointments at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) and Singapore Health Services (SingHealth). She is the Campus Director, Education Office and Senior Consultant, Respiratory Medicine Service, Department of Paediatrics, KKH. At SingHealth, she is the Associate Designated Institutional Official (ADIO), SingHealth Post-Graduate Medical Education; Clinical Physician Faculty Member, Paediatrics; Member, SingHealth Cluster Implementation Workgroup (CIW); and Chair, SingHealth Work Performance Review Committee. She is also a Professor at both Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS) and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (YLLSoM), National University of Singapore (NUS).
For more than 20 years, Prof Chay has been an outstanding mentor and educator par excellence, making significant contributions to the professional initiation and development of innumerable medical students and residents in the areas of paediatrics and paediatric respiratory medicine, with her teaching, training and mentorship. Having been at the forefront of paediatric respiratory medicine, she is endearingly referred to as the “mother” of the specialty; she has diligently nurtured and groomed a new generation of paediatric respiratory physicians, who are now furthering the advancement and development of paediatric respiratory care and medical education in Singapore. A strong believer of the importance of interpersonal communication skills and empathy in the clinical care for patients and support for their caregivers, Prof Chay spearheaded the development and formalised communications courses and workshops, based on experiential learning. Customised for different levels of doctors, these have since been incorporated into the core curriculum of all SingHealth Residency Programs, with a formal “train-the-trainer” model to prepare the next generation of specialists to impart these skills, and ensure the continuity of this endeavour.
As Campus Director of the Education Office at KKH, Prof Chay is instrumental in shaping the education for the next generation of healthcare providers and strongly promotes interprofessional learning. She oversees the education and training of medical, nursing and allied health professionals, including undergraduate and postgraduate education of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G) and Paediatric Academic Clinical Programs (ACP).In 2007, she was made the first Paediatric Clerkship Leader for Duke-NUS, where she played a pivotal role in structuring the Paediatric programme that inculcates greater clinical involvement for students, and promotes self-directed learning. In 2009, she was conferred the titles of Professor and Paediatric Program Leader of Duke-NUS.
As the first Academic Chair of the SingHealth-Duke NUS Paediatric ACP, she established a robust framework that has effectively cultivated strong mentor-mentee relations across all levels of doctors at KKH as well as the academic system.
Professor Chay believes in role modelling and walking the talk. As a mentor, she journeys with her mentees, always listening to their concerns, enabling and facilitating them to explore their strengths, and inspiring them to follow their passion, and work towards their desired goals.
Among her mentees with notable achievements and credentials are A/Prof Ng Kee Chong and Dr Teoh Oon Hoe. A/Prof Ng Kee Chong is Chairman, Division of Medicine, and Head and Senior Consultant of the Department of Emergency Medicine, and Psychosocial Trauma Support Service at KKH. He was mentored by Prof Chay in his leadership roles for the Department of Emergency Medicine as well as Division of Medicine at KKH. As an academician, he is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Duke-NUS, the Academic Chair of the Paediatrics Academic Clinical Program, and Paediatrics Clerkship Director, of SingHealth Duke-NUS. A/Prof Ng is also the Chairman of KKH’s Emergency Preparedness Committee, a member of the National Trauma Committee, the National Resuscitation Council (NRC), and Chair of NRC’s Paediatric Life Support Subcommittee as well as a task force member of the Paediatrics Resuscitation Taskforce of the International Liaison Committee of Resuscitation (ILCOR), run by the American Heart Association and other international resuscitation councils.
Dr Teoh Oon Hoe was mentored by Prof Chay for his leadership roles. He is head and senior consultant of KKH’s Respiratory Medicine Service, and Medical Director of the hospital’s Sleep Disorders Centre. He received the Japanese Respiratory Society Young Investigator Travel Fellowship (Harasawa Fellowship) for the 11th Congress of the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology in 2006 for his work on childhood asthma and a grant under MOH’s Health Manpower Development Plan to pursue advanced training in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine and Sleep Medicine at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney. Dr Teoh represents KKH as an Executive Board Member at the Asia Pacific Child and Family Health Alliance for Tobacco Control, and is a member of MOH’s Advisory Committee on Haze and Child Health. Like Prof Chay, Dr Teoh is a passionate educator and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the YLLSoM and Duke-NUS.
For her distinguished and outstanding contributions as a mentor, teacher, researcher and clinician to the development of Paediatric Medicine in Singapore, Prof Chay is being awarded the 2014 National Outstanding Clinician Mentor Award.