Pioneer of palliative care in Singapore passes away
Dr Cynthia Goh, an Emeritus Consultant in the Division of Supportive & Palliative Care at the National Cancer Centre Singapore and Associate Professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School, passed away recently due to pancreatic cancer. She was an accredited specialist in Internal Medicine and Palliative Medicine, and has a PhD in Molecular Biology. Dr Cynthia was one of the pioneers of hospice in Singapore, starting as a volunteer at St Joseph’s Home in 1986. She was the Founding President of the Hospice Care Association (now HCA Hospice Care). She was Medical Director of Assisi Hospice from 1994 to 1999. She received the national award, the Public Service Medal (PBM), in 1997 for her contributions to hospice care in Singapore. Dr Cynthia started the Department of Palliative Medicine at the National Cancer Centre Singapore in 1999, the first in a government re-structured hospital, and headed it till 2011. This led to palliative care services being established in all public sector hospitals in Singapore, and Palliative Medicine to be recognised as a medical subspecialty in Singapore in 2006. She helped establish the Chapter of Palliative Medicine at the College of Physicians Singapore in 2011. She chaired the Palliative Medicine Subspecialty Training Committee of the Specialist Accreditation Board.