Overview

Starting Singapore’s first audiology training programme

The NUS Master of Science in Audiology course was started in 2013. With Singapore’s population growing older, the demand for audiology services was increasing, and the idea for a local postgraduate training programme was conceived in order to produce a pool of home-grown audiologists to meet the needs of our ageing population.

On 3 October 2013, then Health Minister Mr Gan Kim Yong graced the official launch of the programme, which was held in the Audiology SMART Classroom, the state-of-the-art training facility where most of the audiology teaching is carried out. The programme and its facilities were funded by a generous $19.5 million donation from Siemens Medical Instruments Pte Ltd (known as WS Audiology today).

To date, the NUS MSc Audiology programme has graduated four cohorts of students, training a total of 56 audiologists who now work in a variety of settings across the globe – in public healthcare institutions, private clinics, hearing device companies and educational institutions.

Conducting research to impact the delivery of hearing healthcare

In 2017, Professor William Hal Martin of the MSc Audiology programme, together with a team of researchers and clinicians from NUS, National University Hospital (NUH) and Singapore General Hospital (SGH), was awarded a grant under the Ministry of Health’s National Innovation Challenge (NIC) on Active and Confident Ageing.

Their project, entitled Healthy Hearing, Healthy Ageing, saw the development of a boothless audiometry protocol that has been adopted for both screening and diagnostic audiometry in Singapore. The boothless audiometry method eliminates the need for sound-treated booths, allowing seniors easier access to hearing services.

In December 2020, the Health Services Division of the Ministry of Health approved the boothless audiometry protocol for use in government-subsidized healthcare settings. Three community-based satellite clinics managed by NUH and SGH started using the NUS boothless audiometry protocol as part of their hearing care services. The hope is that this method will allow hearing services to be provided outside of the hospitals and in the communities, making them more affordable and accessible to the older population.

Continuing to advocate for good hearing health for our population

As we move into the tenth year since the inception of the MSc Audiology course, the Audiology team at NUS remains committed to providing high-quality education for new audiologists, continuing education for current professionals as well as building up its research capabilities to champion good hearing health for the whole of Singapore.