home b3 friday, may 2, 2014 three ‘visionary’ s’pore docs · lose hair, and people stared....
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By LINETTE LAI
WHEN 20-year-old Teo WeeHong had cancer treatmentthree years ago, he started tolose hair, and people stared.
But yesterday, the leukae-mia survivor had his headshaved on purpose – to showhis support for those still bat-tling the disease.
“When I went throughtreatment... I got a lot of fun-ny looks,” recalled the Nation-al University of Singapore un-dergraduate.
Mr Teo was one of morethan 300 people who signedup to have their locks shornat the first of this year’s Hairfor Hope events, which washeld at the Kong Meng SanPhor Kark See Monastery.
Organised annually by theChildren’s Cancer Founda-tion (CCF), Hair for Hopeaims to raise funds and aware-ness about childhood cancerthrough head-shaving events.
Cancer patients often losetheir hair because powerfulchemotherapy drugs that killthe fast-growing cancer cellsalso attack other fast-grow-ing cells such as hair roots.
Yesterday marked the startof this year’s campaign,which will culminate in atwo-day event in July.
CCF executive directorNeo Lay Tin thanked partici-pants for coming together “totell children with cancer...that they are not alone”.
The foundation hopes toencourage at least 6,500 peo-
ple to “make a bald state-ment” this year, and raiseabout $3.6 million. Last year,more than 7,000 people tookpart, raising about $4 millionfor the charity.
Another participant was ad-ministration officer Vera Koh,40, who first had her headshaved at a Hair for Hopeevent four years ago.
She stopped taking part be-cause her daughter objectedto how she looked. But thisyear, Ms Koh won her daugh-ter’s support by saying thatshaving her head was a “birth-day present” to herself.
“I hardly look in the mir-ror, so I don’t feel any differ-ent,” Ms Koh said. “It is justhair. It will grow back.”
Losing hair for cancer awareness
Mr Samual Tan, 28, and Madam Tan Sai Chang, 69, had their headsshaved at yesterday’s Hair for Hope event. ST PHOTO: LAU FOOK KONG
By SALMA KHALIKSENIOR HEALTH CORRESPONDENT
THREE doctors in Singaporehave made it to the list of theworld’s 100 most influentialpeople in ophthalmology by aBritish professional journal.
Professor Donald Tan, med-ical director of the SingaporeNational Eye Centre, is thirdamong the Who’s Who in eyecare. He is cited for his rolesin myopia trials, cornea sur-gery and transplant. Prof Tanholds the patent to an instru-ment that is now widely usedin eye transplants.
Singapore is a leading eyetransplant centre, and ProfTan said it has trained morethan 70 surgeons from 16countries in the technique.
Only the top 20 people areranked.
The other two Singapore-ans on the list are Professor
Aung Tin, executive directorof Singapore Eye Research In-stitute, and Professor SawSeang Mei, an epidemiologistwith the Saw Swee HockSchool of Public Health.
Prof Aung is best knownfor his insights into angle clo-sure glaucoma, which is thetype half the people get. ProfTan said his discoveries madeit possible to develop new di-agnostic instruments.
Prof Saw is not an eye doc-tor, but has worked extensive-ly in the area of myopia, in-cluding environmental factorsthat affect short-sightedness.She is one of only 13 womento make the list.
Of the 100, 51 are from theUnited States, which is at thecutting-edge of eye care.They are followed by Britainwith 10, Germany with five,and Austria, India, Italy, Ja-pan, Singapore and Switzer-
land with three each.Singapore has done well to
have three on the list, saidProf Tan. “It is a feat indeed,given that we are the smallestcountry by far on this list.”
There are 200,000 ophthal-mologists in the world, andSingapore has less than 0.1per cent of them, he added.He is particularly pleased thatthe nominations came fromoutside of Singapore, as “wedidn’t vote for ourselves”.
Associate Professor Ben-jamin Ong, director of medi-cal services at the Ministry ofHealth, said: “I am pleasedthat our doctors are being rec-ognised by their peers in theglobal arena for their achieve-ments.”
He hopes this recognitionwill spur them to even greaterheights, both in delivering bet-ter eye care and in advancingscience and research in thefield.
The list comes from nomi-nations from readers of TheOphthalmologist – with themost coming from Germany,Australia and the US – fol-lowed by a selection fromamong them by five top eyedoctors from three continents.
Although the journal start-ed only last year and so isquite new, Prof Tan said thelist has many heavyweights.
Heading the list is GermanThoe Seiler, founder of the In-stitute for Refractive and Oph-thalmic Surgery in Zurich. Hedeveloped various laser eyetreatments.
Next is Dr Amar Agarwal,the first to do cataract sur-gery through a 0.7mm inci-sion. He is director of Dr Agar-wal’s Group of Eye Hospitalsin India.
The journal also mentionedanother Singapore doctor,Professor Wong Tien Yin. Heis described as the most prolif-ic author on diabetic macularedema, a major cause of vi-sion loss in diabetics.
Professor Donald Tan, medical director of the Singapore National EyeCentre, is third on the list. He is cited for his roles in myopia trials,cornea surgery and transplant. ST PHOTO: NEO XIAOBIN
They are among top 100 mostinfluential people in ophthalmology
Three ‘visionary’ S’pore docs
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