The SMSANZ Basic and Advanced Dialect Programme is an annual event organised to allow students to get a better grasp of the common dialects spoken in Singapore. This would better equip medical students with the necessary skills to communicate with patients, especially the older generation, as future practitioners. After receiving opinions from SMSANZ members on various social media platforms, Hokkien and Cantonese were the dialects members were most interested in.
The aims of the programme are:
- To expose participants to the dialect, culture and practices related to the dialect
- To learn simple vocabulary to aid in communication with the target audience (locals that are only capable of speaking dialects).
Singapore Medical Society of Australia and New Zealand 