out for her. She spends the bulk of her time attending to complicated cases that are being referred from a wide variety of specialties, and which often come with unexplained fever or symptoms.
Despite the challenges, Dr Chan enjoys her work. "My personal interest lies in infections in immunocompromised patients… I enjoy the complexity and also find it meaningful to be journeying alongside these patients."
In the early part of her career, Dr Chan did not think too much about going into research work. She was very focused on helping patients get better and believed that she could do that best as a clinician. "I was not aware of how clinical trials were run and it seemed too far removed from clinical medicine during my training years."
It was only when her mentor and colleagues, Dr Jenny Low and Dr Shirin Kalimuddin invited her to join them as a co-investigator in their trials, did she start to see the true value of clinical trials. "I learnt more about clinical trials and saw how these trials had the potential to make a difference to patients’ lives and change current clinical practice."
In her clinical trialist hat, she has already been involved in a varied range of trials, from antibiotics, antivirals and antifungal-related trials, to vaccinology. Still she is excited to learn more and hopes to take on more trials so that she can learn more about the conduct of different types of clinical trials.
Whilst the desire is strong, Dr Chan admits that it can be tough finding the time to devote to her clinical trial work. "The amount of time I can spend on clinical trial work is limited to whatever leftover time I have after finishing my clinical work. This can lead to a lack of consistent effort which may have negative effects on the clinical trial, such as slowing down recruitment or delaying administrative tasks."
It was therefore a much-welcome news to learn that she was a recipient of the newly-launched Clinical Trialist Development Programme (CTDP) award in 2022. Through this award, Dr Chan now enjoys 20% protected time (0.2 FTE) to devote to her clinical trial work.
"Conducting trials can be time intensive when it comes to direct contact time with [trial] subjects, administrative work, attending meetings and reading to keep up with the literature… So I would say that the protected time has allowed me to dedicate an appropriate amount of time to clinical trials, to let them grow as they should."
Having experienced first-hand the benefit of protected time through the CTDP award, Dr Chan highly recommends others, who are starting out in clinical trial work as well as those already involved, to apply for the programme.
"[It] gave me the head space and the time needed to conduct [my] trials. I would highly recommend apply for CTDP especially if you will be involved in a few clinical trials. The protected time would afford you what you need so that you can dedicate time specially for the conduct of these trials."
Find out more about the details of the Clinical Trialist Development Programme (CTDP), and learn how you can be a part of it by visiting https://www.singhealthdukenus.com.sg/ctdp.
