Duke-NUS - Admissions Blog

Medical students in Duke-NUS Medical School have been taking charge of the learning of Singapore’s local lingo for a few years now. A student-run course called LINGO was started in 2014, where they learn health-related terms and phrases in languages and dialects that are commonly understood by patients in Singapore. We interviewed Ivy Lau, a final year medical student who is a co-organiser of LINGO for this year. Who runs LINGO? Ivy: LINGO was initiated by our senior and now alumni from the Class of 2015 – Dr Petty Chen. The LINGO programme has been running for four years and this year’s course was organised by my classmates, Tan Yu Bin, Goh Kian Leong, and me. Each year, the project is handed over to the 3rd year class council. Why was LINGO started? Ivy: LINGO was started to improve communication in the wards so that Duke-NUS medical students, who will go on to become doctors, can better understand their patients’ conditions and ultimately improve health outcomes. While there are interpreters in the ward to help with language barriers, they are not always available. Nurses try to help too but they are usually extremely busy with nursing tasks alone. As such, we try to be as self-sufficient as we can, by learning phrases in different languages, and learning from our peers who are better-versed in the languages we encounter.

In May this year, the 'Student Steps Challenge' was launched, spearheaded by Paik Kwan Woo from the Class of 2018. We speak with Kwan to find out more about how the challenge came about. What is the Student Steps Challenge? Kwan: So the Student Steps Challenge is a competition between the four colleges to see which college can amass the most steps within 8 weeks. The college that has the most steps overall will be awarded with a food party + bragging rights. All the students were given a Mi Band at the beginning of the competition in May. They then had to key in their weekly steps at the end of each week into a google form. All the results are then collated into a graph that shows live updates. All this was made possible by the tech savvy (wizardry) of Elysia Su at Student Affairs. In addition to the grand prize for the college, we also have some individual prizes (e.g. ‘Most Steps’ each week, ‘Most Improved’, ‘Best Trash Talker’) to further encourage students to take a few extra steps every day.