[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/no-longer-handmaidens-to-doctors-the-changing-role-of-nurses\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/no-longer-handmaidens-to-doctors-the-changing-role-of-nurses\/","headline":"No longer just handmaidens to doctors: The changing role of nurses","name":"No longer just handmaidens to doctors: The changing role of nurses","description":"The days where one might witness nurses following doctors around wards on their rounds may well be over. Luther Yiew, an Assistant Nurse Clinician at KK Women\u2019s & Children\u2019s Hospital, believes that this \u201crole blur\u201d taking place among healthcare teams now represents the future of the healthcare landscape.\u00a0 In July 2021, Health Minister Ong Ye […]","datePublished":"2021-10-05","dateModified":"2022-04-16","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/#Person","name":"Rachel Teng","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/","identifier":367,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1633426187885_S3_Feature_-_1280_X_626_px_282329.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1633426187885_S3_Feature_-_1280_X_626_px_282329.jpg","height":626,"width":1280},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/no-longer-handmaidens-to-doctors-the-changing-role-of-nurses\/","commentCount":"5","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/no-longer-handmaidens-to-doctors-the-changing-role-of-nurses\/#Comment1","dateCreated":"2026-07-25 21:29:37","description":"Thank you for your sharing. 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Luther Yiew, an Assistant Nurse Clinician at KK Women\u2019s & Children\u2019s Hospital, believes that this \u201crole blur\u201d taking place among healthcare teams now represents the future of the healthcare landscape.\u00a0In July 2021, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung announced that the Singaporean government hopes to have by 2030 up to 700 Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) in Singapore who are licensed to prescribe medication for patients.\u00a0Through the National Collaborative Prescribing Programme (NCPP) established in 2018, APNs and pharmacists can now earn prescribing rights through holistic training. Currently, out of 294 APNs, 57 APNs already have prescribing rights \u2013 and the goal is to have 400 more by 2030.\u00a0Little public awareness of changing nursing scene\u00a0Despite these progressions, the layperson Singaporean has yet to fully grasp the full scope of the nursing profession today.\u00a0\u201cAccording to my research, even patients who are highly educated have little understanding of what an APN is,\u201d says Dr Brigette Woo, research fellow at NUS Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies (NUS Nursing) who is undertaking research on APNs. \u201cMany have the conventional mindset that nurses only do simple tasks like measuring a patient\u2019s blood pressure.\u201d\u00a0She explains that this might be due to the public only observing nurses performing very basic skills and carrying out menial tasks, which is merely a tiny component of what nurses do today.\u00a0Dr Chong Yap Seng, Obstetrician and Dean of NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, adds that APNs are often confused with other medical professionals by the public. \u201cWhen people visit family clinics, they might think that they are observing nurses assisting doctors, but they are actually clinical assistants. Nurses have higher qualifications these days,\u201d he says.\u00a0Even patients who might have been seeing APNs for an entire year may have thought that they were seeing a doctor the entire time, according to Dr Woo\u2019s study.\u00a0An atrial fibrillation clinic helmed by an Advanced Practice Nurse at the Bukit Batok Polyclinic. (Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Health)This lack of public awareness might seem inconsequential, but are directly felt by those who pursue nursing as a profession at one point or another.\u00a0\u201cDuring an open house, one of my ex-students came with his parents and he addressed me as \u2018Dr Shefaly\u2019. I remember having to explain to his confused parents for the next 15 minutes how nurses can also do PhDs,\u201d says Dr Shefaly Shorey, Assistant Professor at the NUS Nursing. \u201cIt\u2019s still hard for people to understand that nurses can also be \u2018doctors\u2019.\u201d\u00a0She shares that it is not uncommon for the public to think of nursing as the option students take when their grades aren\u2019t good enough, and they have no other course to take, even though that is often far from the truth.\u00a0For her, nursing was a calling. She saw how her terminally-ill grandmother-in-law was provided holistic care by the nurses. \u201cThey made a huge impact on me, because I noticed that despite all the pain she was going through, she would be very grateful to the nurses and give blessings to them,\u201d says Dr Shefaly.\u00a0She made a mid-career switch from teaching into nursing and has never looked back.\u00a0This was also the case for Dr Zhou Wentao, an APN and Programme Director of the Master of Nursing Programme at NUS Nursing. After entering medical school in China and accepting a Ministry of Health scholarship in her first year, Dr Zhou came to Singapore to pursue nursing.\u00a0Her mother, who was a doctor, wasn\u2019t thrilled by the idea at first.\u00a0\u201cAlthough she had reservations about me taking up nursing, she was reminded of the Chinese idiom, \u2018a person\u2019s healing process is 30 per cent treatment and 70 per cent care\u2019, so she agreed to me taking up nursing eventually,\u201d she shares.\u00a0Far from being a \u201cbackup choice\u201d, Dr Woo believes that it takes copious amounts of resilience to become a nurse.\u00a0\u201cI always tell my students that if they don\u2019t have the passion for nursing, then they really need to think twice about pursuing this career path,\u201d she says. \u201cPassion is the one thing that drives our work, and I wouldn\u2019t want any Tom, Dick, or Harry to join our industry either.\u201d\u00a0\u201cMedicine is also a tough job, but doctors receive recognition and respect. As a nurse, you can be doing a lot of things under the radar, and you don\u2019t get celebrated, acknowledged, or even properly remunerated at times,\u201d she added.\u00a0Remnants of the stigma against male nursing still exist\u00a0This stigma can sometimes be conflated with the outdated notion that nursing is a female profession. Mr Yiew, who is also the first male nurse to work in KKH\u2019s wards, shares that KKH previously only allowed male nurses to work in the children\u2019s ICU, operating theatre and children\u2019s emergency wards.\u00a0\u201cThey initially thought that by confining male nurses to certain care contexts, it would be more advantageous to us,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I think that restricted some of us who were interested in nursing children in [regular] wards, like myself.\u201d\u00a0Thanks to his self-advocacy, Mr Yiew\u2019s male juniors can now exercise the same vocational options as their female counterparts.\u00a0Luther Yiew is a second-year Master of Nursing student at the NUS Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies. The assistant nurse clinician at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital will be the hospital’s first male Advanced Practice Nurse when he graduates from the programme. (Photo courtesy of NUS Nursing)Mr Yiew is currently pursuing a Master of Nursing degree, which will make him the first male APN at KKH.\u201cI think some members of the public are apprehensive about the care provided by male nurses,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is why we conduct ourselves professionally and make sure that we uphold our profession and have flawless standards of care.\u201d\u00a0Mr Yiew is currently one of the 15 nurses in a hospital with more than 1,800 nurses, but he believes that the novelty puts him at an advantage. Many a time, it works as a great conversation starter and gives him an entry into better patient interaction.\u00a0\u201cIn terms of direct care, it doesn\u2019t impede us \u2013 in fact, it empowers us,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I nurse male teenagers or children who need an invasive procedure like inserting a suppository, they often prefer that I do it for them because I\u2019m a fellow male, so it\u2019s less uncomfortable.\u201d\u00a0Dr Zhou believes that patients\u2019 receptivity towards nurses is a matter of personal preference. \u201cA female patient might prefer a male nurse to take care of her because of his caring nature, and vice versa. We need to look beyond stereotyping nurses by gender,\u201d she adds.\u00a0Similarly, at the end of the day, joining nursing is a personal preference and calling. \u201cRegardless of care context, we will always need both high-quality male and female nurses to complement patients\u2019 needs,\u201d she says. Some care contexts such as disaster care might even require more male nurses.\u00a0Currently, 11 per cent of the registered nurse population is male, but that number is steadily rising thanks to the likes of Mr Yiew, who proudly channelled his aptitude for care into his profession.\u00a0\u201cIt was through my undergraduate studies that I realised my flair for giving children comfort, as well as having their parents instil confidence in my care. I realised that was something very worthwhile to me,\u201d he shares.\u00a0Having been brought up in a family of engineers, Mr Yiew\u2019s parents were initially hesitant. But as he started providing care for their chronic ailment, his vocation became something they started to see value in and gradually support.\u00a0Changing public perceptions\u00a0Moving forward, Dr Zhou emphasises that nurses themselves need to promote themselves more holistically to the general public, by redefining their roles and revaluing their work based on their patients\u2019 recovery journeys.\u201cMy students sometimes get bothered by the fact that society is unaware of the full scope of the nursing profession,\u201d says Dr Shefaly. \u201cI would like to believe that this is changing, but if people still approach me on the issue, I\u2019ll see it as a wonderful opportunity for me to educate my fellow Singaporeans on what we nurses do.\u201d\u00a0Find out more about the scope of responsibilities nurses have in the latter of this two-part series: No longer just handmaidens to doctors: Nurses take on more leadership roles.Join the conversations on TheHomeGround Asia’s Facebook and Instagram, and get the latest updates via Telegram.\u00a0"},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"No longer just handmaidens to doctors: The changing role of nurses","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/no-longer-handmaidens-to-doctors-the-changing-role-of-nurses\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]