We have the infrastructure to become a leading life-science hub in the world. We have excellent hospitals with a high standard of care. We have research institutions like the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and the Genome Institute. We have multiple science parks and have started the construction of the Biopolis. This is an exciting time to be a young doctor. Twenty years ago, patient care was the main focus of our medical institutions. Medical research was considered a luxury and done after-hours; and a career in medical research was not a practical option for a young Singapore doctor unless he was going to migrate to the USA or Europe.

Today we want out young doctors to develop a research culture. We need doctors not only to carry out cutting edge research in our hospitals, but we need some of them to move into the research institutes, others to carry their research expertise into the pharmaceutical R&D sector and the biotechnology sector. We hope some may even be able to start their own companies in the life-sciences and give rise to Singapore born world class medical enterprises.

I visited the laboratory at Harvard Medical School where the research work on neural pathways of vision that won a Nobel Prize was done. Physically the laboratory looked like the physiology lab in my medical school days 28 years ago at the old medical campus in the college of medicine building. It was unpretentious. We have many well-equipped new shining laboratories in Singapore. But it is not new shining labs that will give rise to world class research. It is enthusiastic, thinking, medical researchers, with a passion for their work, that is the key to success in research. We must create an environment and culture where doctors want to become medical researchers.

To succeed, we must encourage our young doctors to develop a mindset, where they will question the validity of so called accepted knowledge. They would apply scientific reason and analyze knowledge based on the scientific methods of proof. If you are a surgeon, it is no longer acceptable to say I make my incision this way because my surgical master Prof. So-and so does it this way and the blood loss is low and access is good. Today you must go beyond that and question why? Why is the blood loss low? What is the scientific basis for this? Is it related to the microanatomy of the blood supply? Why is the access good? What would happen if you shifted the incision by 1 cm?

Young doctors must also keep up with the advances in the basic sciences that increase our understanding of disease. They must be brave and creative in their research ideas and not be too sensitive if their colleagues do not share the same enthusiasm. When the idea that a slow virus was not a virus but a protein was first suggested or when it was first suggested that bacteria cause ulcers, these suggestions and ideas were initially dismissed. Today they are scientific fact.

Older doctors involved in mentoring and teaching young doctors must encourage them to question more. They must encourage the doctors to pursue their original ideas even if they think that the line of research may not be productive. What is important is that the young researcher is enthusiastic, hard-working and applies scientific methodology in his or her approach to research.

Institutions must accept that some scientific enquiry will lead to a dead end. Scientific research whether it leads to a positive result or a negative result is always of value provided it is done well using all the correct scientific principles of methodology and analysis.

Singapore General Hospital is our leading medical institution. It is no longer enough for it to aim to be the best in Singapore. It must aim to become a world leader in medical care and research. It is not possible to be the best in the world in every area of medicine. SGH should therefore see where its strengths are and identify a few areas where it feels it has a chance of becoming the world leader and by concentrating its resources in these areas, and by collaborating with the other research institutions in Singapore, it should aim to become the world leader in these areas. This is the challenge that SGH must set itself. Looking at the quality and quantity of the scientific work presented at this years annual scientific meeting, I am confident SGH will succeed in becoming a world leader in medical research and a driving force in our efforts to become a life sciences hub.

On this note, it is my pleasure to declare the 13^th Singapore General Hospital Annual Scientific meeting open. I wish you a fruitful meeting.

Thank you.