By Sara Grosse, Channel NewsAsia, 12 May 2012
Former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was conferred an Honorary Membership by the Singapore Medical Association at its 53rd Anniversary Dinner on Saturday.
It was the highest honour that the association could confer.
Mr Lee was presented with a scroll which was inscribed with a Chinese phrase, "four seas receiving the wind", which represented his influence as an international statesman.
In a citation for Mr Lee delivered by SMA President associate professor Chin Jing Jih, the association said the reasons for conferring the honorary membership go beyond the physical and statistical accomplishments that Mr Lee has achieved in Singapore.
It also recognised the ideals, values and principles that Mr Lee has held on to, such as meritocracy, inter-racial and inter-religious harmony.
Mr Lee said as Singapore faces a growing silver population, more doctors will be needed.
"We have ten thousand doctors here. We shall need more with an ageing population. Out of the ten thousand, two thousand are foreigners so they neither speak dialects nor the languages that some of our older patients speak, like malay," Mr Lee said.
"But this is part of a transition. We are producing 250 doctors a year. It will not be enough. So we would have to keep on recruiting from the many students who have not got into our medical school and have gone abroad."
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