President's Award for Nurses 2007

01 Aug 2007

Three nurses, who have displayed exceptional standards of professionalism and service, will be receiving the President’s Award for Nurses at the Istana on Nurses Day this year. For the eighth year, President S R Nathan will confer the prestigious awards to the winners on 1 August 2007.

2 The President's Award for Nurses recognises outstanding nurses who have not only made remarkable contributions to the profession and community at large but are also inspiring epitomes of professionalism in the nursing fraternity.

The three award winners are Ms Gwee Pek Hoon, Ms Tracy Carol Ayre and Ms Elaine Ng Kim Choon. Each will receive a trophy, a certificate and $6,000 to attend conferences for professional and personal enrichment. 

Ms Gwee Pek Hoon, Director of Nursing, SingHealth Polyclinics Head (SHP) Office

Pek Hoon is a people leader. Effective and focused, her nurturing and inspiring leadership has helped to shape fellow and younger nurses’ behaviour and attitude towards the pursuit of service and clinical excellence as well as higher learning. This is evident by the number of awards received over the years by nurses she supervises.

Under her guidance where she constantly challenges nurses to rethink and enhance care delivery for better clinical outcomes, nurses initiate and institute patient management support strategies, such as (i) the development of health education materials and self-monitoring tools and (ii) enhanced health counselling, education and support groups, which resulted in significant outcome of SPH’s clinical indicators.

Innovative and pro-active, Pek Hoon drives a series of disaster preparedness training programmes to help nurses maintain a constant state of operational readiness and capabilities in handling disaster. Creatively, she develops a team of Infection Control nurse champions who are committed to providing ongoing infection control measures training and audit at routine intervals to equip staff with infection control skills and knowledge.

Besides her strong commitment and dedication to nursing, she also has a heart for the community. She led the planning and executions of two large-scale community outreach programmes - “Living with Diabetes outreach programme” and the “Asthma Fair” - aimed at educating the public to self manage their conditions for better health outcomes. Since 2002, she has led her team of nurses in a series of fund-raising activities to raise close to $35,000 for various charitable organisations. This includes a sum of $10,000, which was donated to the Straits Times Pocket Money Fund. 

Additionally, Pek Hoon has a passionate interest in stoma care and was in fact, the first Stoma Therapist to initiate the Stoma Clinic at the SGH in 1984. She presented two papers at the World Council of Enterostomal Therapists (WCET) Biennial Conference, which were both published in the WCET journals. She was also an active volunteer at the Ostomy Club in the Singapore Cancer Society from 1979 to 2005.

Ms Tracy Carol Ayre, Assistant Director of Nursing, Nursing Division, Singapore General Hospital

Tracy is a passionate and highly intellectual nursing academic leader. She was instrumental in spearheading the establishment of an evidence-based nursing programme in SGH and the formation of the SingHealth Evidence-Based Practice Committee. Through her dynamic and capable leadership, she has elevated nursing research in SGH from its infancy stage in the early years to the current average of 15-20 active nursing research studies and systematic reviews per year.

Holding a Master of Science in Nursing from University of California at San Francisco, she continually pursues higher learning and updates herself on new trends in management and development in clinical practice. In her own time, she   delivers   lectures   on   research,   evidence-based   practice and teaching-learning process in the Masters of Clinical Nursing program at the National University of Singapore. Additionally, she has published 10 papers and presented 20 papers at both local and international conferences to date. She is now in the final year of her PhD studies, examining the link between the number and skill mix of nurses on healthcare outcomes.

A vanguard of the nursing fraternity, Tracy challenges assumptions and views situations from many perspectives. She is currently driving the planning, development  and  implementation  of  a  community care solution (Healthphone)  that  would  ensure  connectivity  between  the hospital and community  (step-down facilities and polyclinics), and facilitate patient’s self-care management.

Her  intellect,  coupled  with  her  excellent people skills, have inspired other  nurses  who  view  her  as a role model to emulated. She is often approached by her peers and young nurses for assistance and advice in their projects, work, studies and even personal life.

Ms Elaine Ng Kim Choon, Senior Nurse Clinician, Changi General Hospital

Elaine is a most personable and motivating leader, mentor and friend to other nurses. Her natural and quiet authority engenders respect in her peers and the younger staff. Possessing excellent interpersonal skills, and her ability to speak several languages, this has endeared her to both staff and patients. Morale has risen so much in these two years that there were no resignation from the staff.

A Samaritan at heart, Elaine devotes much time and effort to community work. In 2000 and 2002, she took her own leave to do missionary work in Myanmar, where she gave health talks to villagers and school children. In December, when the Philippines was struck with the Reming Typhoon, she volunteered her selfless assistance there. She went on the medical mission for 12 days, while others were celebrating Christmas and New Year in Singapore. During the Dengue outbreak, she went from house to house to educate residents in Simei.

On top of her community work, Elaine is just as committed and conscientious in her duties. Her pro-activeness is demonstrated by her incessant quest to improve care and services to patients in the Emergency Department. One of her projects involved organising the resuscitation team to improve the nurses’ proficiency in resuscitation, and this has truly helped to improve the survival rate of patients. In 2005, she was the recipient for CGH’s “Best Suggestor Award” for the many changes she executed in the department.

Elaine pursues her personal belief in life-long education just as enthusiastically. She goes to the extent of using her own leave to attend many courses and is also actively involved in teaching in the department, hospital as well as Home Foundation nurses. She is currently embarking on her second Master degree in Business administration and waiting for her registration in the APN register.

In addition, she devotes the same extraordinary commitment to research and participates in several research projects, such as “Determining Register Nurses’ knowledge of Diabetes Mellitus”. She also conducted another research “Improving inpatient care with the help of diabetes resource nurses and educators” which was published in the Singapore Nursing Journal early this year.