Dr Goh is Centre Director of the Lien Centre for Palliative Care, a centre for palliative care research and education at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore established in 2008. Since 1999 she has been senior consultant and head of the Department of Palliative Medicine at the National Cancer Centre Singapore.
Education & Training
Dr Goh did her undergraduate medical training at the Medical College of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, University of London. After completing postgraduate specialty training in internal medicine, she spent six years doing wet bench laboratory work at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, National University of Singapore, culminating in a PhD in molecular biology. Afterwards, she returned to the clinical arena, working in the area of hospice and palliative care.
Professional & Voluntary Experience
She has been involved in the start of the hospice movement in Singapore in 1986, beginning as a volunteer doctor at St Joseph’s Home, Singapore and going on to establish the first hospice organisation in Singapore, HCA Hospice Care, which runs the largest hospice homecare service in Singapore. She has worked in the field of palliative medicine in Singapore for over 20 years, helping to establish palliative care services in the community and in public sector hospitals. She was awarded the Public Service Medal, a Singapore national award, for her contributions to hospice care in 1997.
After working tirelessly for palliative medicine to be recognised as a medical sub-specialty in Singapore, Dr Goh has been chairing the Palliative Medicine Subspecialty Training Committee of the Specialist Accreditation Board since 2006. She is also chairman of the Section of Palliative Medicine at the College of Physicians Singapore.
Dr Goh was President of the Pain Association of Singapore, the local Chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), from 2001 to 2005. During this time, the new regional grouping of IASP chapters, the Association of South East Pain Societies (ASEAPS) was established, and Dr Goh was its Founding President from 2004 to 2007. She is a member of Council of the IASP since 2008.
In regional and international networking and teaching of palliative care, Dr Goh chairs the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network, set up in 2001 to support the development of palliative care in the Asia-Pacific region. She also co-chairs the Board of Trustees of the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance, an international body set up in 2008, active in advocacy and education in palliative care globally.