The Duke-NUS Class of 2020 graduated on 29 May 2020 while the nation was still in circuit-breaker mode. But far from being a muted affair, the event became another first in the School’s — and Singapore’s — history by bringing students and faculty together for a virtual declaration of the Hippocratic Oath.
The Oath is a traditional code of ethics, whereby individual physicians collectively pledge to uphold the highest personal and professional standards in their conduct and practice. They promise to “apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required”. By reciting the Oath, newly minted doctors pledge their commitment to the welfare of their patients as they step into their new roles as doctors; these high ideals and values were never more critical than during Singapore’s fight against the pandemic.
The Class of 2020 faced a difficult final semester before their graduation. The threat posed by the virus had forced the Ministry of Health to suspend all clinical training from 7 February 2020 when the national disease outbreak alert level was raised to orange.
The impact of COVID-19 on clinical training was significant as Professor Ian Curran, Vice-Dean for Education at Duke-NUS, explains: “On a normal ongoing basis, we would have two years out of four in clinical training at any one time. And now all bar the final-year students were back on campus. Our educators flexed rapidly to provide creative and high-quality surrogate learning experiences for all four of our medical cohorts.”
It fell to educators at Duke-NUS like Ms Kirsty Freeman, the then-lead for the Clinical Performance Centre at Duke-NUS, and others across the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre, to make sure that these medical students had the closest analogue to real-world clinical experiences as was possible under the circumstances.
Freeman and the wider team at Duke-NUS had organised exams through videoconferencing, installing cameras on invigilation room walls and using duct tape and pieces of wood to prop up iPads, so examiners could assess the students fully whilst maintaining all necessary safety measures.
“We were really cognizant of what must we do,” says Freeman reflecting on those days. “To both operate within the restrictions, but still provide students the opportunity to graduate in the expected timeframe.”
Speaking at the virtual ceremony, Professor Thomas Coffman, Dean of Duke-NUS, remarked: “Now, you’re officially doctors who have endured some unprecedented times. Also, probably a little nervous about what comes next, but I can assure you that you’re well prepared for this next phase of your postgraduate clinical training.”
“You’re truly a historical class. You will forever be known as the first Duke-NUS Class to graduate virtually,” he added. “But more importantly, as the Class who graduated in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Following their send-off, Duke-NUS’ newest alumni would go on to start work two weeks earlier than originally planned, bolstering the staff numbers of the frontline healthcare workforce as Singapore continued to battle the pandemic at a national level.