The renal transplant program at SGH is an academic training program and provides post-graduate transplant education to senior residents in renal medicine from both the SingHealth and National Healthcare Group cluster. We offer fellowship programs for overseas doctors who would like to get more experience in renal transplantation. These latter fellowship programs are administered by the postgraduate medical institute of SGH.
Senior residents and fellows who spend their time in the program will be offered opportunities to be involved in all aspects of renal transplant care under close guidance of faculty from the renal transplant program. There are also opportunities to enhance the training experience by undertaking research and quality improvement projects. The Department of Renal Medicine where the renal transplant program is based is also a participant of the International Society of Nephrology Sister Renal Centre Program.
The renal transplant program at SGH is committed to a journey of finding new ways to improve patient care and outcomes. It is focus on 3 main areas of research including
The programme collaborates with haematologists and scientists in developing cellular therapies for alternative ways to prevent rejection and treat other complications. It is currently engaging in research to use cellular therapies to avoid the use of drugs for long-term immunosuppression and to treat specific viral infections that occur after transplantation. In addition, the renal transplant program conducts clinical trials on newer immunosuppressive regimens that can potentially improve outcomes after transplantation.
The program is involved in an ongoing study where it collaborates with the Duke Transplant Centre in the United States and the SingHealth Translational Immunology and Inflammation Centre to examine for any racial differences in the immune system that may potentially become a biomarker for rejection. The discovery of such biomarkers can then avoid the need for an invasive transplant biopsy in the future. The program also collaborates with the Department of Pharmacy to explore how pharmacogenomics (the study of genes that affect a patient's response to therapeutic drugs) may help optimise dosing of immunosuppressive medications for individual patients.
The renal transplant program at SGH recognizes that a successful transplant does not only depend on the surgeon and immunosuppressive medications but a wider range of factors that interact with each other to influence the ultimate fate of the kidney transplant and its recipient. As a result, the program is involved in research to identify risk factors for poor outcomes and develop new diagnostic and therapeutic protocols to improve those outcomes.
The renal transplant program always believes it can do better for patients and therefore has an active quality improvement (QI) program. Some of its quality improvement projects have received both local and international awards for their innovative methods in improving work processes and the patient journey.
Reducing evaluation period for renal transplantation
Reducing response time to treatment plan in renal transplant recipients
