Caring for Our People: 50 Years of Healthcare in Singapore
Ministry of Health
Singapore: Ministry of Health, 2015
ISBN: 9789810962102

Commemorating the advances in Singapore's public healthcare across 50 years since Independence, the book chronicles the transformation of our healthcare system, from one that was focused on basic issues such as health education, personal hygiene and sanitation, to one where we have gained international recognition as a biomedical research and innovation hub and a leader in the delivery of healthcare services. Over 50 interviews are featured in the book spanning seven chapters.

Key thought leaders and healthcare providers share their personal experiences of their profession and how the Singapore healthcare landscape has transformed. The stories and experiences of patients and volunteers are also captured in this book. Besides paying tribute to the men and women who have built up Singapore's healthcare system, the SG50 Healthcare Commemorative Book also takes a look at the way forward, in terms of the transformation of care that is needed to meet the healthcare needs of Singaporeans.

Singapore's Health Care System: What 50 Years Have Achieved
Lee Chien Earn & K. Satku
Singapore: World Scientific, 2015
ISBN: 9789814696043 / 9789814696050

How did Singapore's health care system transform itself into one of the best in the world? It not only provides easy access, but its standards of health care, not only in curative medicine but also in prevention, are exemplary. Fifty years ago, the infant mortality rate (IMR) was 26 per thousand live births; today the IMR is 2. Life expectancy was 64 years then; today, it is 83. The Singapore Medicine brand is trusted internationally, and patients are drawn to Singapore from all over the world. And while many countries struggle to finance their health care, Singapore has developed a health care financing framework that makes health care affordable for its people and gives sustainability to the health care system. Reliability is provided by a professional workforce that seeks to continually learn, improve and become ever more proficient with cutting edge technology while emphasizing the relational aspects of health care by nurturing compassion and maintaining high standards of integrity. Convenience and safety are enhanced by a unifying IT system that enables the portability of medical records across health care institutions. All these have been achieved not by chance but by careful planning, strong leadership and dedicated people who are prepared to learn from Singapore's own experience while adapting best practices from around the world. But the system is not without challenges -- not least those of an aging population, and an increasing market influence.

This book provides a fascinating insight into the development of Singapore's health care system from the early days of fighting infections and providing nutrition supplementation for school children, to today's management of lifestyle diseases and high-end tertiary care. It also discusses how the system must adapt to help Singaporeans continue to "live well, live long, and with peace of mind."

Clinical Psychology in Singapore: An Asian Casebook
Gregor Lange & John Davison (eds.)
Singapore: NUS Press, 2015
ISBN: 9789971698546

This casebook is a unique resource, offering never before documented insights into the practices and principles of clinical psychologists within local mental health services in Singapore. The 20 fascinating chapters provide comprehensive coverage of the assessment, formulation and treatment for clients across the lifespan. It includes accounts of clients with common mental health problems such as depression and panic disorder, as well as more unusual problems like pyromania, exhibitionism and frontal-lobe epilepsy. The authors describe their successes and challenges and share how they grapple with tensions in the therapy room and with cultural and ethical issues. This casebook is an ideal complement to abnormal, counselling or clinical psychology courses.

Liveability in Singapore: Social and Behavioural issues
David Chan
Singapore: World Scientific, 2015
ISBN: 9789814667876

Cities and countries around the world are focused on enhancing their living conditions through ways that go beyond the brick and mortar of urban planning. Just like in other highly-urbanised cities, life and living in Singapore is highly dependent on many other dimensions such as health, access to various services, social interactions, inter-group relations and community bonds. Social and behavioural factors will need to be incorporated when designing and implementing policies and interventions to enhance liveability.

This invaluable book, based on the proceedings at the Behavioural Sciences Institute Conference 2014, documents an exchange of ideas among practitioners, academics and public intellectuals on liveability in Singapore. The book is organized into four parts. Part I provides an overview of liveability issues. Part II examines liveability from the perspectives of health and urban planning. Part III analyses the relationships linking quality of life to social class and social services. Part IV addresses specific questions on liveability in terms of public transport, cost of living, government's public communications, role of free market values in town planning, civil society, citizen well-being and whether there is a psychological gulf between government and people.

This book will provide the reader valuable perspectives, an increased understanding of issues related to the liveability in Singapore and many potential applications to reflect on.

The sound of Sch: A Mental Breakdown, A Life Journey
Danielle Lim
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789810918538

The Sound of Sch (pronounced S-C-H) is the true story of a journey with mental illness, beautifully told by Danielle Lim from a time when she grew up witnessing her uncle's untold struggle with a crippling mental and social disease, and her mother's difficult role as caregiver. The story takes place between 1961 and 1994, backdropped by a fast-globalising Singapore where stigmatisation of persons afflicted with mental illness nevertheless remains deep-seated. Unflinchingly raw and honest in its portrayal of living with schizophrenia, The Sound of Sch is a moving account of human resiliency and sacrifice in the face of brokenness.

The Bedside Palliative Medicine Handbook
Tan Tock Seng Hospital Palliative Care Service, Dr Allyn Hum & Dr Mervyn Koh (eds.)
Singapore: Armour Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789814461641

Palliative care is an approach to treatment of patients suffering from life-limiting illnesses that focuses on improving the quality of life for them and their families, by providing relief from physical, emotional and spiritual suffering. It is now recognised as a specialty and has become an integral part of good patient care in the continuum of treatments for cancer and chronic illnesses.

To be able to provide good palliative care requires both sound clinical knowledge and compassion. The editors and contributors of The Bedside Palliative Medicine Handbook have taken great care to provide readers with a clear, succinct and practical guide to palliative medicine, which will be useful to all medical practitioners by the patient’s bedside.

Myth or Magic: The Singapore Healthcare System
Jeremy Lim
Singapore: Select Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810773625

This book provides a comprehensive look at the political philosophy that has shaped Singapore's healthcare system over the last five decades, and the financing and delivery of healthcare in Singapore. It delves into different aspects of the Singapore healthcare landscape, including pharmaceutical cost management, medical tourism, doctors' remuneration, medical education, rules and regulations, workforce panning and health promotion. It suggests lessons that the Singapore healthcare story holds for healthcare policy makers and reformers and the challenges that the future holds.

Heartfelt: a Compilation of Short Stories
Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Singapore: Xpress Print, 2013
ISBN: 9789810755447

Ever felt miles apart from the doctor who treats you when you are ill? Heartfelt will break down that fourth wall, unveiling the human being behind the stethoscope.

Prepare to embark on an emotional trajectory as this compilation bring you on an unforgettable journey through the doctors' darkest moments and their sweetest victories. Appealing to the heart, celebrate and cry with the doctors as they share their compelling experiences with their most fascination patients and how they reacted in diverse situations. Cherish this laboured collection of a wide spectum of professionals in the medical field ranging from medical entrepreneurs to clinician scientists who have left their indelible mark on the medical history of Singapore.

Written in support of the Christine Chong Hui Xian Bursary, readers will be treated to never-before-seen up-close and personal moments with the doctors in this precious compilation. Be ready to embrace this universal spirit of humanity as you board this once-in-a-lifetime maiden voyage.

Affordable Excellence: The Singapore Healthcare Story
William A. Haseltine
Singapore: NUS Press & Brookings Institution, 2013
ISBN: 9789971696641

This is the story of the Singapore healthcare system: how it works, how it is financed, its history, where it is going, and what lessons it may hold for national health systems around the world. Singapore ranks sixth in the world in healthcare outcomes, yet spends proportionally less on healthcare than any other high income country.

Singapore achieves its results at less than one-fourth the cost of healthcare in the United States and about half that of Western European countries. This is the first book to set out a comprehensive system-level description of healthcare in Singapore, with a view to understanding what can be learned from Singapore's unique system design and development path.

The lessons from Singapore will be of interest to those currently planning the future of healthcare in emerging economies, as well as those engaged in the urgent debates on healthcare in the wealthier countries faced with serious long term challenges in healthcare financing. Policymakers, legislators, public health officials responsible for healthcare systems planning, finance and operations, as well as those working on healthcare issues in universities and think tanks should understand how the Singapore system works to achieve affordable excellence.

A Clean Breast
Theresa Tan
Singapore: Write Editions, 2012
ISBN: 9789810739294

The morning she woke up with a pain in her right breast, Theresa Tan knew her life would never be the same again. In this deeply personal book, Theresa shares her horrific discovery of breast cancer and the painful loss of her breast to the disease. Journey with her as she emerges through the darkest period of her life to be stronger and fitter than ever, filled with a purpose to help and encourage other women experiencing cancer. Written in an intimate style, speckled with humour, A Clean Breast is the story of a woman who decided to kill cancer before it killed her.

Before We Forget: Grandmother's Garden and Other Stories
Jeremy Boo (ed.)
Singapore: Hachisu, 2012
ISBN: 9789810729479

Dementia does not discriminate. Doctors have no cure. This book brings together the stories of more than 30 people, including writers like Mr Wang Says So and Mr Miyagi, filmmaker Boo Junfeng, and photojournalist Bob Lee, on what happened when their loved ones had dementia. The poetry, prose, photographs, artwork, and illustrations in this book speak of exhaustion, guilt, acceptance, strength, love, and courage.

Praying to the Goddess of Mercy: A Memoir of Mood Swings
Mahita Vas
Singapore: Monsoon Books, 2012
ISBN: 9789814358910

When Mahita Vas was fifteen, a teacher at her Catholic school in Singapore said she could see the devil in her eyes. Throughout her career with SIA, then as a highflying advertising industry executive, the author led a volatile life: sometimes blissfully and enviably contented, at other times screaming like a lunatic. Born to Indian parents and raised by a Chinese amah, Mahita Vas struggled to fit into a conservative society where exuberance is frowned upon and conformity is a tradition. At nineteen, she started as a flight attendant and worked her up to a senior position at a leading advertising agency. Over the years she found herself working with companies such as BMW, Ogilvy, Four Seasons and L’Oreal. She also got married and raised a family. No one suspected she was mentally ill despite her extreme mood swings. Frequent explosive rants led to a bipolar disorder diagnosis at fortytwo, followed by a suicide attempt where she narrowly escaped death. Set in Singapore, Praying to the Goddess of Mercy charts Mahita’s journey from chaos to stability. It offers insights into an illness for which there is no known cause, no cure and no immunity. It will inspire and enlighten people with mental disorders and the loved ones who suffer with them, and, ultimately, it is about being true to oneself and having the courage to take charge in the pursuit of happiness.

The Eu Yan Sang Way: Renewing a Century of Heritage
William Koh
Singapore: Cengage Learning Asia, 2011
ISBN: 9789814369534

The Eu Yan Sang Way traces how one man, with a deep belief in Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), embarked on a mission to transform the company set up by his forefathers, and make TCM relevant in the 21st century. Richard Eu took over the helm of Eu Yan Sang in 1989 and began the arduous journey of growing the company into a household name in Singapore and Asia.

This book provides insights into Richard Eu's leadership motivation and drive, and his courage and vision in turning Eu Yan Sang into a leading TCM company, and making its products relevant to modern day consumers. It also looks at the importance of effective human resource management and having the right organisational structure and culture to support business growth.

The key engine of growth at Eu Yan Sang is innovation, manifested in the form of its trusted health care products, the professional marketing of such products through the company's retail outlets and the provision of TCM clinical services at the same time.

Come Into My World: 31 Stories of Autism in Singapore
Brenda Tan
Singapore: Brenda Tan, 2010
ISBN: 9789810876364

My son's education costs me ten thousand dollars a month...
Nobody told me having children would be this difficult...
All three of my children have autism...
Doctors thought I was mentally retarded...

Many voices come together to form this collection of true autism stories in Singapore. This book was written not only to support the autism community. It aims, more than anything else, for the public to understand autism better so that our world would become a better place for autistic individuals and their family members.

A Cancer Vaccine That Transformed Singapore and the World: The Battle Against Hepatitis B
Gabriel Oon Chong Jin & Karen Kwek
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2011
ISBN: 9789814266598

Hepatitis B is one of the world's most influential killer diseases - even more contagious than HIV. Today the hep B virus afflicts more than 360 million people worldwide. Between 1983 and 1985, select groups of Singaporeans took part in clinical trials - undertaken by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) - of a revolutionary vaccine against hepatitis B. In Singapore, 1 October 2010 marks the 25th anniversary of the implementation of the National Hepatitis B Vaccination Programme, aimed at eradicating the infectious liver disease from all newborns in the country. The success of this programme led, ten years later, to a gathering of world experts in Singapore to endorse the hepatitis B vaccine as a safe and effective preventive of a disease now recognised as one of the major causes of primary liver cancer in the world.

This book tells the full story of Singapore's groundbreaking hep B vaccination programme - including the medical research, entrepreneurial spirit and political foresight that drove it - and commemorates the work of a handful of pioneers who had the audacity to challenge the conventions of their time and, in so doing, transform national and world history.

Stories of Hope From the Cancer Clinic, Volume 2
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2009
ISBN: 9789814266147

These are true stories told by the patients, doctors and counsellors of the Parkway Cancer Centre (PCC) who have undertaken the challenging journey against cancer.

Cancer is one of the most devastating diseases worldwide. The top five most common types are lung, breast, colorectal, stomach and liver cancer. Around the world, more than 10 million people are diagnosed with cancer each year. However, with advances in cancer treatments, those affected can take heart in knowing that they can be successfully cured.

Words of advice and hope take on a more intense meaning when they come from those who have been diagnosed with cancer, and have gone through cycles of treatment, remission and recurrence of the disease. With professional help and counselling, and the support of family members, many of them have beaten the odds to become cancer survivors.

These stories of hope will inspire everyone, whether they are cancer patients, their families or their friends.