SPEECH BY MR TAN KIAT HOW, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT AND INFORMATION & MINISTRY OF HEALTH, AT THE SINGHEALTH DUKE-NUS EDUCATION CONFERENCE, 25 SEPTEMBER 2026

Mr Cheng Wai Keung, Chairman, SingHealth

Professor Fong Kok Yong, Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer (Medical and Clinical Services), SingHealth

Associate Professor Shiva Sarraf-Yazdi, Vice Dean of Education, Duke-NUS Medical School

Professor Fernando Bello and Clinical Assistant Professor Moy Wai Lun, Co-organising Chairpersons of the Conference

1.       A very good morning. This year’s theme, “Learning Reimagined: Education for Tomorrow’s World”, is especially timely.

2.       Healthcare is changing rapidly. The professionals we train today will work in a world very different from the one many of us entered. They will need strong clinical foundations. But they will also need to work across disciplines, adapt to new models of care, use technology intelligently, and keep learning throughout their careers. We cannot simply prepare people for the healthcare system we have today. We have to prepare them to keep learning as the system changes.

3.       Let me begin with something that will remain important whatever happens with technology. There is a lot of excitement around artificial intelligence, AI. There is a lot of excitement about what it can do, but there is a lot of concerns what it might bring as well. So let me talk about something that will remain important, whatever happens with AI and the developments around it. Patients do not experience healthcare as a collection of separate professions. Take an older patient managing several chronic conditions - perhaps diabetes, heart disease and declining mobility. The patient may see a GP, a specialist, a nurse, a pharmacist, a therapist, a medical social worker and community care providers. To the patient, this is one journey. No single profession can provide all the care that this patient needs. So, we need professionals who are excellent within their own disciplines, but who can also work effectively across them.