Duke-NUS - Admissions Blog

The Cookie Project is a peer teaching initiative started in 2016 by the graduating Class of 2016, to help our junior classes be better equipped in their clinical skills - from bedside tutorials on targeted history taking, physical examination and oral presentation to didactic lectures on topics such as X-Ray and ECG interpretation. This became our final “farewell” gift to our school! How the project came about The idea came about during the long and tedious process of preparing for CPX4, our final MD exam. We were fortunate to have good junior doctors (alumni from both Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Duke-NUS), and senior doctors who took time off their rest hours to give us bedside tutorials. We also had very nice patients who willingly let us examine them so that we could pass our exams and graduate as doctors. After passing CPX4, I thought we should not let the good effort end there. We had a window period of about 2 months before graduation and this was a period where we were at our peak proficiency in our medical school journey. Instead of letting our clinical skills atrophy without further benefitting anyone, a group of us decided that we should pay it forward and organise small group teaching sessions for our juniors.

I embarked on a 6-week long trip to the US for an overseas away elective in Abdominal Transplant Surgery in Duke University Medical Center. I also fortunately planned and had the privilege on going for a major international scientific meeting, the annual ASCO GI Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, California. I started the trip touring the east coast's New York City, Boston and Washington DC for a couple of weeks prior to the commencement of the elective as it was my first time in the USA! I thoroughly enjoyed the Big Apple, spending New Year's eve counting down to 2016 at Times Square, visiting famous medical medical landmarks and national monuments in the nation's capital. I also had to eke out some time from the elective for my International Foundations of Medicine (IFOM) exam and the USMLE Step 2CS (Clinical Skills) Exam! The most memorable though was the chance to fly out in a private jet on a trans-state organ procurement surgery followed by the opportunity for scrub up for multiple surgeries to implant these harvested organs. I must say that it was certainly a rewarding and eye-opening 6 weeks, probably the most enriching time of my life! Here are some snapshots of my amazing time in the US: 1. Traveling and Exploring NYC, Boston, Washington DC before the commencement of my elective at Duke