Academic Recognition for Nurses and AHPs

You may refer to the Duke-NUS academic appointment criteria for Faculty Scheme, Non-Faculty Scheme (Education Associate) and Non-Faculty Scheme (Research Fellow).

The appointment criteria apply across all healthcare professions and do not differentiate among doctors, nurses or AHPs.

Besides a NUS email and access to NUS e-library, affiliation to a particular ACP also provides an individual holding an academic appointment access to SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC)'s grants and funding opportunities, and collaboration opportunities with like-minded colleagues for progression in your academic career.

For more information on ACP programme grants, please refer here.

There is no mandatory FTE nor appointment term for an academic appointment. Good track record and continued contribution to academic activities are required of a candidate who currently holds a Duke-NUS academic appointment to be considered for promotion.

Yes, you can still be nominated for Duke-NUS academic appointments. The set of criteria for different grades of academic appointments differs across institutions, appointment with Duke-NUS will be considered based on the candidate's academic credentials.

There are various programmes dedicated to Faculty development in Duke-NUS, find out more here.

Clinical Faculty appointments will be primarily for clinically-centric SingHealth-employed candidates whose focus and contributions are on clinical and medical care at SingHealth institutions, but who also have measurable academic and/or leadership involvement.

The criteria for different levels of Clinical Faculty appointments can be found here.

Regular rank appointments are usually not relevant to most nurses and AHPs who are active practising clinicians. This regular track dedicates a large amount of clinician time (usually 70% - 80%) on academic activities – typically research, e.g. the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Clinician Scientist (CS) awardees.

The criteria for different levels of Faculty appointments can be found here.

Qualification (i.e. Professional doctorates and PhDs) is only one of the criteria for an Assistant Professor appointment. You may refer to the full appointment criteria for Assistant Professor here.

Based on Duke-NUS faculty appointment guidelines, the candidate being put up for faculty appointment should have a terminal degree (Medical degree or PhD qualification) and exceptions would require prior approval of the Dean.

Academic appointments at Duke-NUS can be either Faculty or Non-Faculty appointments.

The minimal criteria for Faculty appointments at Duke-NUS is a terminal degree (i.e. MBBS/MD/BDS for medical/dental professions and PhD or equivalent for non-medical/dental professionals). However, majority of the candidates with Master and Bachelor degrees can still be nominated for Non-Faculty appointments. For candidates holding Master degree(s) with a higher leadership position and contributing to various areas in academic medicine, nomination for Faculty (Clinical) appointments will be considered by Duke-NUS.

Based on Duke-NUS appointment guidelines, a candidate being put up for Faculty appointment should have a terminal degree and exceptions would require prior approval of the Dean.

You may refer to the criteria for Duke-NUS academic appointments Faculty Scheme and Non-Faculty Scheme (Education Associate) and Non-Faculty Scheme (Research Fellow).

Teaching medical students is not a requirement. However in the dossier submission for academic appointments, there is a section on Education Activities (Teaching Portfolio) required in the CV template for Appointment, Promotion, Tenure (APT) Committee's review and evaluation.

*For Clinical Professor appointments, an additional Education Portfolio is strongly encouraged.

For full details on academic appointments processes, please refer here.

The suggested publication criteria for a Professor rank is 75 or more. However, if the candidate possesses other significant credentials, along with other notable contributions in education or leadership, the number of publications required can be below 75.

For nurses who hold Deputy Director positions and above may be considered for the academic title of Clinical Assistant Professor, if they are academic from the ACP's perspective. Nurses who are not in the above leadership positions may be considered for other academic appointments, if the ACP makes the appropriate recommendations. Please refer here for more information on criteria for Duke-NUS Faculty appointments.

Do get affiliated with an ACP by reaching out to the respective ACP administrators to explore how you can contribute and work together with the ACP to build your academic credentials and submit the dossiers for your Duke-NUS academic appointment.

Affiliation to an ACP for nurses and AHPs refers to establishing connections in an academic home which can support interprofessional collaborative practices with like-minded faculty and allow for access to valuable resources such as ACP programme grants and faculty development opportunities available within the ACP. This way, nurses and AHPs would be able to explore their academic interests and at the same time contribute towards our goals in academic medicine.

Candidates who are interested to be affiliated with an ACP can approach the respective ACP administrators to seek advice on the ways you can contribute to the ACP and how to build your portfolio for a Duke-NUS academic appointment. Please keep your representative from SingHealth Group Nursing/Group Allied Health informed.

There are many ways which nurses and AHPs may contribute to the ACP – either in joint research/QI/innovation projects with other professional groups in the ACP or leading such projects to add to the body of knowledge within the ACP, or in teaching activities in the respective ACP. These academic activities contribute to improved patient care for the specialty and educating the future generation of healthcare professionals. As an individual, the support from your ACP will push you to explore your full potential and develop your strengths in the main clinical, education and research areas.

The ACPs will nominate nurses and AHPs for Duke-NUS academic appointments to recognise them for their roles, contributions and collaborations within the ACP. These roles may already reflect what the nurses and AHPs are doing in their regular work or can be new areas in discussion with the ACP Chair.

It is easier for nurses and AHPs working in National Specialty Centres, you may approach the respective centre-based ACPs (i.e. EYE ACP, NEUROSC ACP, CVS ACP, ONCO ACP or ORH ACP) for the nomination.

For nurses and AHPs who are in collaboration with multiple ACPs, nomination of academic appointments may be accommodated within the Duke-NUS Office of Academic Medicine (OAM) for a selected group of nurses and AHPs who do not fit into any specific ACP. Recommendation for such cases should come from SingHealth Group Chief Nurse/Group Chief Pharmacist/Group Chief Allied Health Professional.

However, it is still encouraged for nurses and AHPs to be nominated for academic appointments through an ACP that you are most closely affiliated to. An ACP affiliation is not solely for the purpose of academic appointments, it also paves the way for an individual to have opportunity to work with the community for close collaborations, e.g. to apply for joint grants with fellow doctors, nurses and AHPs in the same ACP.

cademic appointments and promotion are important because it allows Duke-NUS and SingHealth to retain outstanding clinicians, educators, and researchers who will contribute to the scholarly environment and the delivery of high-quality clinical care. The institutional portfolio of academic ranks is a marker of academic success, bringing prestige to Duke-NUS, departments and specialties.

Each institution in SingHealth has a nursing research unit. There are different criteria and track definition for nurses participating in the research track. Please feel free to approach the nursing division of your institution to find out more on how you can be part of the team.

You can also read SSN Lim Siew Hoon's journey as a Nurse Researcher in SGH here (intranet access only).

The usual career path leading towards nurse academic is through maintaining an education portfolio. There are existing resources and support to help develop nurses in becoming nurse educators through postgraduate studies (i.e. Master in Education Programme) then followed by various exposures to conduct education activities. SingHealth has various collaborations with academic institutions that provide a very good platform to progress educators towards nurse academics. The engagements may support adjunct appointments by academic institutions.

The SingHealth College of Clinical Nursing has a Faculty Development taskforce looking into the development and possibly mentoring of young educators who aspire to pursue their career in nursing education and/or nurse academics.

It is not compulsory for all nurses/AHPs to obtain academic appointments, however it is highly encouraged for nurses/AHPs to work with relevant ACPs to put up for academic appointment application if they do meet the appointment criteria. An academic appointment is a form of recognition for their contributions in academic activities such as education and research. There are also benefits which come with a Duke-NUS academic appointment such as access to NUS e-library and SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC's grants and funding opportunities.

The academic appointment is a way to recognise your contributions to Academic Medicine. The appointment scheme is not pegged to promotion or monetary incentives (i.e. bonus). Promotion scheme will still rely on the performance review with your Reporting Officer in your institution. 

There is no perfect solution to this. However, clinician-academicians take pride in integrating clinical work with scholarly work so that much of the clinical work is considered academic contribution. Some examples include:

1. Publication – writing up our projects (QI or research) and get it published!
2. Education – be actively involved in education tasks (for undergraduate/postgraduate students [all professions] or in-service nurses)
3. Collaboration – be engaged as part of a team to work on projects with Allied Health and medical professionals. These projects could be QI, workgroup for clinical service process, research or others. 

​We want to believe that demand for teaching (regardless of specialty/profession) is always there, what can help educators initiate education plans is needs assessment. From such assessment, an educator can streamline the specific and required content for teaching.