by Ann Hui Ching

Third Spacing is the yet to be defined space between cells and vessels, where fluid moves from one space to another. Third Spacing is a podcast by and for healthcare students where we explore important issues on the peripheries of clinical medicine in Singapore.

Our next podcast series aims to grow the presence of medical humanities in the practice of medicine, especially when it comes to explaining their benefits to colleagues trained in scientific positivism.

We talk to leaders in clinical settings such as Dr Devanand, the Director of SingHealth Medical Humanities Programme, with whom we discuss the role of the Medical Humanities in the hospital and how Medical Humanities can grow in Singapore. We also speak with leaders in Medical Humanities research like Associate Professor Graham Matthews, Head of English at NTU, and the Medical Humanities Research Cluster Coordinator (who tells us why we should care about the field, and its beginnings in Singapore), and with leaders of Medical Education efforts such as Dr Maleena Suppiah, Deputy Director of Clinical Education, National University Health System (who discusses the concept of empathy).

Among our guests are also individuals who practiced medical humanities before the field was named as such. We talk to Dr Justin Ker, Neurosurgeon and author of The Space Between The Raindrops, a series of flash fiction that covers both medical and non-medical stories, and to Dr Chang Tou Liang, a general practitioner and a reviewer of classical music for Singapore’s largest English daily for 23 years, about how their art shapes their clinical practice.

Third Spacing the podcast can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. Find out more on Instagram @thirdspacing and thirdspacing.com.

Ann Hui Ching is a fourth year medical student at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore and host of the Third Spacing the Podcast.