ACV40: The Doctor Who Built An AI Ecosystem (Dr Ngiam Kee Yuan, Group Chief Technological Officer, NUHS)

02/17/21 • 51 min

Dr Ngiam Kee Yuan is the Group Chief Technology Officer of the National University Health System (NUHS) Singapore overseeing technology deployment in Western Healthcare Cluster of Singapore. He is concurrently the Deputy Chief Medical Informatics Officer at the National University Hospital of Singapore and has a special focus on artificial intelligence research and implementation in healthcare. He has certification training by the American Medical Informatics Association and has published in computing and medical journals on topics related to healthcare AI applications and technology.
Dr Ngiam is a Consultant Thyroid and Endocrine Surgeon and Assistant Professor at the Department of Surgery, National University Hospital, Singapore specializing in thyroid oncology and minimally invasive endoscopic and robotic thyroid surgery. Dr. Ngiam also engages in research into endocrine and metabolic surgery as well as artificial intelligence applications in healthcare.He promotes interdisciplinary collaboration throughout the NUS campus, particularly between the schools of medicine, engineering, and computer science for various healthcare applications. He has been awarded the ExxonMobil-NUS Research Fellowship for Clinicians and numerous teaching awards for his work in research and education.
3 THINGS I LEARNED

Take a year out if you would like to explore an area that you want to go into. But be clear about what you want to explore and achieve. Keep in close contact with your mentor to ensure that you are not forgotten or lost. Speak to your employers to ensure that the additional skills you come back with are valued by the organisation and are rewarded accordingly.
You don’t necessarily need to learn how to code to get started on a project - Dr Ngiam certainly did not know how to when he started. Instead crucially he surrounded himself with experts and became good at translating clinical questions into language computer scientists could understand. He picked up computer science concepts along the way - a much more practical way of learning.
Interesting spaces to look at for the future: (1) Automation of basic mundane processes in healthcare (2) Amalgamating data and giving clinicians tools to build better models and improve patient care.

THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT

The origins of Dr Ngiam’s interest in AI and machine learning
How it became apparent to him that a lot of the problems that he was facing in his own research projects were replicated across the entire organisation
The size of this problem and how Dr Ngiam set out to tackle it
Gathering a team and building a community to tackle this problem
Being the person who translated the needs of healthcare professionals into language that computer scientists could understand and problems they could address
Acquiring skill on the job is a better way of learning
Getting senior management buy in and support for the project
Other opportunities, including Medilot, that opened up
The need for clinicians to do more than just their clinical practice
Starting a new track for clinician innovators
Dr Ngiam finding ways to fund his passion - with grant funding and then a job title that gave him time to build this aspect of his career
Taking a year out to pursue other interests and not getting lost along the way
Interesting technological advances that will reshape the future of medicine

Take a year out if you would like to explore an area that you want to go into. But be clear about what you want to explore and achieve. Keep in close contact with your mentor to ensure that you are not forgotten or lost. Speak to your employers to ensure that the additional skills you come back with are valued by the organisation and are rewarded accordingly.
You don’t necessarily need to learn how to code to get started on a project - Dr Ngiam certainly did not know how to when he started. Instead crucially he surrounded himself with experts and became good at translating clinical questions into language computer scientists could understand. He picked up computer science concepts along the way - a much more practical way of learning.
Interesting spaces to look at for the future: (1) Automation of basic mundane processes in healthcare (2) Amalgamating data and giving clinicians tools to build better models and improve patient care.

THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT

The origins of Dr Ngiam’s interest in AI and machine learning
How it became apparent to him that a lot of the problems that he was facing in his own research projects were replicated across the entire organisation
The size of this problem and how Dr Ngiam set out to tackle it
Gathering a team and building a community to tackle this problem
Being the person who translated the needs of healthcare professionals into language that computer scientists could understand and problems they could address
Acquiring skill on the job is a better way of learning
Getting senior management buy in and support for the project
Other opportunities, including Medilot, that opened up
The need for clinicians to do more than just their clinical practice
Starting a new track for clinician innovators
Dr Ngiam finding ways to fund his passion - with grant funding and then a job title that gave him time to build this aspect of his career
Taking a year out to pursue other interests and not getting lost along the way
Interesting technological advances that will reshape the future of medicine

Previous Episode

ACV39: [Masterclass] Exercise, Diets and Supplements For a Healthy Life (Dr Deborah Wong, Doctor / Entrepreneur / Fitness Guru, Part 2)

Dr Deborah Wong is a mother, general practitioner, entrepreneur and fitness guru. Shortly after graduating from medical school, she took over a pilates studio (Breathe Pilates), turned it around and expanded it into a successful and highly profitable chain with 4 locations across Singapore. Breathe Pilates is unique in offering training programmes for pilates instructors in addition to standard pilates classes. Deborah maintains a professional interest in lifestyle medicine, and she has personally experimented with multiple training programmes, diets and supplements.
3 THINGS I LEARNED

Before you get into any diet, take your time to analyze exactly what you want to achieve and how the diet will help you achieve the goal. Also, for pregnant and nursing mums, they need to be extremely careful before getting into any fad diets.
Working from home is never an excuse for you not to exercise. Set aside 15-30 minutes daily to take a walk, go for a jog, or some light exercises like squats. People have no idea what a walk a day can do for their health.
Start with strength training. Strength training would build muscles which are more metabolically active, which means that your body will be burning more calories. It helps with cardiovascular health as well. And importantly, building muscles and being able to lift heavier weights is rewarding, encouraging you to persist with your exercise plan.

TOPICS WE DISCUSSED

Exercises for people who want to stay lean
Deborah’s big picture approach to nutrition
Thoughts about fad diets
Keto diets and whether you should use them
Intermittent fasting
Deborah’s thoughts on supplements
Exercises for people confined to their homes
Advice for young doctors starting their careers
Advice to people who are just starting their business

Next Episode

ACV 41: When Perseverance Meets Opportunity And Wise Mentorship (Dr Daniel Ting, Ophthalmologist / Medical AI Expert)

Dr Daniel Ting is the Consultant, Vitreo-retinal surgeon in the Singapore National Eye Center (SNEC), Head of AI and Digital Innovation in the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI), and an Associate Professor in Ophthalmology with Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore. He is also the visiting Full Professor in Ophthalmology in Zhongshan Ophthalmic Eye Center, Sun Yat-Sen University, China; 2017-2018 US-ASEAN J. W. Fulbright Scholar to Johns Hopkins University, the EXCO of the American Academy Ophthalmology (AAO) AI Task Force and Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Studies (STARD-AI) Task Force. At present, he is the Associate Editor of Nature Digital Medicine, Section Editor (AI and big data) in British Journal of Ophthalmology (BJO) and the Editor of Ophthalmology, Ophthalmology Retina, Ophthalmology Science and Asia-pacific Journal of Ophthalmology.

To date, he has published >180 peer-reviewed papers/book chapters/conference abstracts, including >40 AI and digital technology articles in JAMA, NEJM, Nature Medicine, Nature Digital Medicine, Lancet Digital Health and others. Daniel holds several patents in deep learning systems for medical imaging analysis, and is also the co-founder of an AI spin-off company, EyRIS Pte Ltd. EyRIS has commercialised the Singapore Eye Lesion Analyser and to date has partnered with >20 optometry practices.
3 THINGS I LEARNED

Perseverance is a fundamental ingredient for success. Dr Ting’s initial work was rejected numerous times, but he never gave up. He kept persisting until it was finally accepted into a big journal (Journal of the American Medical Association) - which was the break he needed to launch his career.
Mentors are important, both in terms of giving you advice to guide your career and opening door and providing opportunities for you to build new skills and competencies.
If you want to learn new skills, you have to be ready to read a lot. Today this data is freely available on the internet. Apart from reading and listening to talks, you can also consider following the leading lights in the field on twitter for instance to get a feel for where the cutting edge developments are.