Healthcare professionals will need to learn new techniques and technologies, and work in multi-disciplinary teams to treat and manage increasingly complex conditions.

So said Senior Minister Goh, the guest of honour at the National University Hospital's (NUH) 25th anniversary gala dinner at Shangri-La Hotel last night.

SM Goh also welcomed the announcement of the third medical school, saying that it will build on NTU's and Imperial College's strengths in science and technology "to generate new knowledge and innovations to help in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases".

However, SM Goh noted that healthcare goes beyond merely treating a disease in isolation. He pointed out that the challenge of tomorrow's doctors is to deliver holistic, integrated healthcare for their patients. This would require "a strong sense of ethics, an understanding of the patient as a total human being with anxiety needing empathy and support, and the ability to work as a team, acting always in the best interests of the patient," he said.

Calling on doctors to play a bigger part in educating patients on how to maintain their health, and to work effectively with them in managing their conditions, SM Goh also urged them to be "more comfortable stepping beyond their own area of expertise to work with other members of the healthcare system, across organisational and professional boundaries, in order to deliver integrated care."

He noted that the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the various polytechnics have been increasing their intakes for Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Allied Health, but added that quality, rather than quantity, is most important. To this end, more training and education opportunities for healthcare professionals have been developed, including a new residency programme for doctors as well as increased overseas scholarships for physiotherapists and occupational therapists.

The new residency programme, in particular, aims to hone doctors communication and interpersonal skills on top of their medical knowledge, so that they will be able to provided better care for their patients.

Commenting on NUH's successes over the past 25 years, SM expressed his hope that "just as NUH has blazed the trail as the first restructured hospital, it will do so again in showing how we can bring about real health benefits to our people."