Achieving International Standing

At the moment, the most prominent, internationally recognised academic position Dr Wong holds is Associate Editor at the British Journal of Urology, a post he has held since May 2013. “I am currently the only one from Asia-Pacific on the editorial board for BJUI Knowledge,” he reveals. “In fact, they are flying me up to London for an editorial board meeting in October, and I realise that there are no Asians except me - the others are from England, Europe and North America.”

He is concurrently the Deputy Director of the Asian School of Urology. He is in charge of the School’s academic curriculum, which serves to educate and train other urologists in Southeast Asia, Indochina, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand. He is also one of three cochairmen of the WHO 2nd International Consultation on Urinary Stone Diseases in Paris.

Not many in the medical fraternity know this, but they almost lost Dr Wong to hotel management or engineering - these were careers that he was seriously contemplating before a seed was planted in his mind to study medicine instead.

Although he fared poorly in his Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), he recovered to do “very well” in his A-levels. From a young age, he knew that he was a people person and longed for a job that required lots of interaction with people - “I felt that I wanted to explore hotel management at Cornell University with the Shangri-la Scholarship in 1979.” At the same time, he was toying with the idea of studying engineering as his brother did as an undergraduate at Oxford. Despite doing well in physics, chemistry and mathematics, he was advised by his brother that he was not suitable for engineering. “It was tough to accept that my brother was right!”

“In the late 1970s, it was my impression that the government was encouraging top high school students towards humanities, accountancy, business administration and professions other than medicine to spread Singapore talent across the various industries,” Dr Wong reminisces. “So doing well in 1979 was a real problem, not a blessing, as I was keen on doing medicine!”

Which was why, when he was invited for an interview for a spot in the Faculty of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, Dr Wong decided to go for broke. That year, there were 299 interviewees, but the fact remains that the majority of the top scorers will be cut after the interview. “In an interview where you are almost certain that you will be kicked out, you have to hold their attention. It did not help that the top A level student of 1979 was in the same room!” recalls an animated Dr Wong.

Dr Wong was inspired to take up surgery after meeting two surgeons who were missionaries in Africa during his undergraduate days. Then in 1990, he suffered a urinary stone, “the closest to labour pains any man can experience”, which he took as a sign to specialise in urology. After finishing his residency in urology, Dr Wong decided to train and work overseas.

He was supposed to only spend one year in the US, courtesy of a Ministry of Health sponsorship. But, deciding that he needed more surgical experience, he took no-pay leave for another year of training in the US. Although he had no salary, he felt it was worth the sacrifice because he got to train with a top American urologist, Professor James E. Lingeman, who was famous for his expertise in kidney stones and the prostate.