image: The award acknowledges LKCMedicine's innovative use of technology, such as an AR/3D-enabled in-house app to aid in anatomy teaching. view more
Credit: NTU Singapore
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore)’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) has emerged as the first medical school in Singapore to win the ASPIRE Award in Curriculum Development, in recognition of its excellence in medical education.
LKCMedicine is the fourth Asian university since 2013 to receive the international award, placing it among notable past winners such as the University of Sydney, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, USA, and Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
Sought after by medical schools across the world, the ASPIRE Award is the only award of its kind to recognise schools for excellence in medical education. The award was developed by a group of leading international authorities in medical education and educational bodies, led by the UK-based Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE).
Going beyond the traditional accreditation process, the ASPIRE award recognises that medical school education programmes can be subjected to peer review. The review is done against a set of standards or benchmarks that identify world-class excellence in education.
After undergoing multiple stages and a stringent process of review by an international panel, LKCMedicine emerged as the top performer for its innovation and excellence in curriculum development.
ASPIRE Award in Curriculum Development Panel Chair, Professor Peter McCrorie said, “We are pleased to recommend to the ASPIRE Board that the high standards and innovations of NTU LKCMedicine be recognised through this award for excellence in curriculum development. The panel on Curriculum Development congratulates LKCMedicine on a well-developed application that clearly reflects the strong culture of curriculum development at the school and merits the Award.”
The ASPIRE judging panel highlighted the outstanding features of LKCMedicine’s curriculum development, such as its well-articulated educational principles and a balanced approach to assessment. In addition, the student and patient-centred programmes were also applauded, particularly for its emphasis on team-based learning and early exposure to clinical experiences, as well its innovative use of technology to enhance learning.
For example, to make learning more immersive, LKCMedicine has created an in-house app to aid in anatomy teaching. The app brings anatomy alive through augmented and virtual reality. Using the app, students call up 3D images of dissected plastinated anatomical specimens either by scanning markers on worksheets or from a library of 3D models. After which, they get to interact with the specimens by tapping on various touch points on the images. As they do so, they will learn about the functions of that body part.
The award acknowledges the resilience of LKCMedicine’s curriculum as it withstood the disruptions caused by the unprecedented pandemic in delivering a world-class medical education. The medical school continued to maintain its high educational standards and was able to respond swiftly such as transitioning from physical to online team-based learning seamlessly.
Professor Joseph Sung, Dean at LKCMedicine and NTU Senior Vice President (Health and Life Sciences), said: “Our goal is to prepare and empower our students to be doctors in an evolving healthcare system, and the ASPIRE Award is an affirmation of our innovative hi-tech, hi-touch curriculum. It combines the best of our parent universities, NTU Singapore, and Imperial College London – leveraging the strengths of NTU in engineering, biomedical research, and the humanities, and Imperial’s top-ranked medical curriculum.”
“We are constantly reviewing our programme to ensure that our aspiring young doctors explore the boundaries of medical science for better patient management, working towards competent and compassionate delivery of care.”
Professor Jennifer Cleland, Vice-Dean (Education) at LKCMedicine, said: “The ASPIRE Award attests to our commitment to provide quality and evidence-informed medical education for all our students. We received highly positive feedback from the panel for our student and patient-oriented learning and teaching, based on small group active team-based learning. These features enabled us to be resilient to pandemic disruptions and allowed us to maintain our high educational standards even as we switched to interactive online learning.”
Beyond educational excellence, LKCMedicine actively contributes to the global body of knowledge on effective medical education. For example, the medical school has published research papers in many high-impact international journals including Medical Education, Advances in Health Sciences Education and The Journal of Educational Research to share its approach to team-based learning.
Recognition for student engagement
Aside from the recognition in curriculum development, LKCMedicine was also awarded the ASPIRE Certificate of Merit for student engagement.
As part of the evaluation process, student leaders were surveyed to provide their views on student engagement in various aspects of the school. Participants pointed out LKCMedicine’s emphasis on student feedback and the culture of taking individual ownership of their learning as key strengths. They also underscored regular faculty engagement with students as beneficial for alleviating concerns.
The ASPIRE Award for excellence in curriculum development and the Certificate of Merit for student engagement were presented to LKCMedicine at a virtual award ceremony held on 30 August 2021.
More information on the ASPIRE Award is available at https://amee.org/awards-prizes/aspire-award.
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