TECH BOOST TO HEALTHCARE

Technology and innovative training are two of the Singapore Armed Forces' (SAF) main priorities, and having proficient personnel is the key to providing effective medical services.

Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant-General (LG) Ng Yat Chung said this at the opening of the 8th SAF Military Medicine Conference (MMC) on 24 Jan.

Held at the SAF Medical Corps' headquarters in Nee Soon Camp, this year's conference had a variety of plenary lectures, symposia and oral papers tackling topics in medical technology and training.

LG Ng noted that advances in medical technology "go beyond the fields of clinical laboratory medicine" and include "the application of information systems and devices to develop better solutions to medical problems or issues".

"The challenge for the Medical Corps would be to translate biomedical breakthroughs into operational capabilities," he added.

This would involve developing "new fields of expertise", nurturing "an environment that encourages the development of innovative technologies" and expanding "its collaboration with other agencies and centres of excellence, both local and overseas".

First organised in 1998 as a local seminar, the MMC has since grown to welcome participants from foreign armed forces, including those in Australia, Malaysia and the United States.

Colonel Robert Vandre from the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in Fort Detrick, Maryland, lectured on high-tech applications in combat casualty care.

Another guest speaker was Commander Andrea Parodi, who talked about minimising the footprint of deployable medical assets in the US Navy.

She found the three-day event "very relevant" to her work at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, California.

"We share very common concerns, challenges and science, and we can gain and learn from one another very easily when we're in face-to-face contact," said the programme manager in field medical technologies.

"It's mutually supportive."