A leader of Singapore's social work profession has described CQUniversity's Professional Doctorate program as a 'gift' which helped him through a challenging period of his career...

Dr Gilbert Fan has found that the Professional Doctorate is befitting of his own career ambition as a 'professional practitioner, educator and researcher'. 

He learned about the 'Prof Doc' about a year into his term as President of the Singapore Association of Social Workers (SASW).

Dr Gilbert Fan

"Within a year into my term of office, I was overwhelmed with the problems faced by the Association," Dr Fan said.

"I had already begun working on improving the image of the Association and was pleased that members and social workers were positive towards the initiatives that I rolled out then.  I was perplexed with the many issues that I had to face as President of SASW and not knowing exactly how to resolve them.

"The Professional Doctorate was timely as I saw in it the potential to excavate deep issues and view them from a different lens in a real-time industry setting."

Dr Fan says the doctorate widened his toolkit of approaches and enlightened him to a new field, Futures Studies, and a new research methodology, Casual Layered Analysis (CLA).

"With these methodologies, I was able to brand SASW successfully as ‘the people professionals ... the career that makes a difference', a tag-line that is still being used today.

"Even before applying the CLA methodology, I was already amazed with the unquestioned realities that abound in social work and the social worker identity.  CLA broadened my thinking to look deeper into the breadth and depth of these issues.

"Acquiring the knowledge and skills in Futures Studies and in CLA application has been the greatest gift from CQUniversity's Professional Doctorate program.

"CQUniversity has also given me an extremely caring and understanding academic supervisor, Associate Professor Les Killion who has been instrumental in my successful completion.  A/Prof Killion made it his primary mission to understand 'the subject, the research methodology and the student' and offered invaluable comments and advice accordingly.

"A unique feature of the transdisciplinary nature of the Professional Doctorate is the appointment of a local Industry advisor and I have also benefitted from Dr Goh Soon Noi's guidance and advice on my dissertation.  I also enjoyed the online library offered by CQUniversity.  I simply feel that it is first-rate and of world-class standard.

"I must also add that the professional doctorate offered by CQUniversity is a doctorate that is recognized in USA.  I have sent in my transcript to a USA Academic Evaluator and am pleased that it is assessed to be of good standing with American doctorates.  I also applied for recognition of the professional doctorate with the American Psychotherapy Association and am very pleased that they allowed me to use the title of 'Dr' in my clinical practice.  Currently, I am involved in multi-disciplinary research spearheaded by NUS-NCCS involving the Department of Pharmacy and the Department of Psychosocial Oncology on the study of patients' attitudes towards chemotherapy.  I am also recently appointed as an external supervisor to a PhD candidate from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in recognition of me being a subject expert in the candidate's field of research.  I am also completing a chapter of a local book on cancer and am an External Research Advisor to a family service centre."

Dr Fan is a a Clinical Supervisor (Satir), Life Diplomate in Psychotherapy with the American Psychotherapy Association (USA),  and Registered Social Worker with the Social Work Accreditation Board (SWAB, Singapore).

He has now changed roles with the Singapore Association of Social Workers to become the Chair for Training & Professional Development.

The enthusiastic professional has extensive experience as a medical social worker, having worked in both general and tertiary hospitals and having had a short teaching stint at the Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) lecturing in the Behavioural Sciences, in both the basic and advanced diploma programs.

His interest is in griefwork, experiential counselling and groupwork.

He is currently the Deputy Chair for Patient Support Programs and Head of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology, National Cancer Centre Singapore.  His main interests include exploring the application of experiential counselling with cancer patients, especially those with advanced cancers. 

Dr Fan started his career as a human resource executive upon graduation with a B.A. (Labour  Studies) and B.S.W. from McMaster University, Canada in 1985. He could have made a career in human resource management specialising in manpower planning and collective bargaining but he made a career switch into social work as he wanted to practice what he learned in school - helping the disadvantaged.  From 1985 to1989, he worked for the former Ministry of Social Affairs as a Welfare Officer.  He worked mainly with abused children, and in the areas of foster-care, adoption, probation and custody dispute cases.

Gilbert assisted in the planning and development of a community-based anti-inhalant abuse program and also initiated a group work program with educationally subnormal children under institutional care.  He was also a member of the Secretariat to the Taskforce on the 'Review of Children and Youth Services' within the Ministry.  He was also a member of the Secretariat to the 'Family Life Committee' under the National Advisory Council on Family & Youths.

Switching to specialise in medical social work, Dr Fan joined the National University Hospital (NUH) from 1989 to 1993.

At NUH, he handled casework with cardiac, diabetic and renal patients and their families.  He also covered surgery, oncology and neurology cases, attempted suicide, spousal abuse and sexual assault cases (males). 

Gilbert spearheaded and conducted the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program (MSW Component), Renal Interactional Group and Home-visitation Program and planned the Diabetic In/Outpatient Programs. It was during his stint as a Behavioural Science Lecturer at the Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) that he  embarked on doing his M.Ed (Educational Studies) with the University of Sheffield,U.K. in 1994.  He taught sociology courses for basic and advanced diplomas to allied health students.  Gilbert started a drama group known as ‘StageArts' while in NYP and has produced a full-length play each year while he was still lecturing there.

Dr Fan joined Changi General Hospital (CGH) in 1996 as a Senior Medical Social Worker.  His primary duties included co-ordinating/facilitating set up of the department at the Changi General Hospital, training of staff from hospitals, nursing homes and social service agencies in the psychosocial management of patients and their families, casework (primary caseload is in psychiatric social work with special interest in depression counselling and marital & family counselling), program planning and development, mentoring of junior staff and being placement tutor for the National University of Singapore (NUS)  social work students' attachments.  Gilbert initiated a structured placement-learning program and assessment of students' performance.   He was also involved in staff counselling and employee assistance programs.

It was during his stint at CGH that Dr Fan took on clinical studies in an experiential psychotherapy program.  He decided to pursue a Post-Graduate Diploma in Satir Systemic Brief Therapy in 1998.  He trained under two renowned Satir Therapists, Dr John Banmen and Ms Kathlyne Maki-Banmen.  He experimented and designed a couple of individual and group therapeutic interventions using the Satir Model for people in grief.  He also started the Singapore Oncology Social Work Network (SWON), a local platform for oncology social workers.  It was his work with cancer patients and their caregivers that made him a household name for Oncology Social Work in Singapore.

Whilst working for the National Cancer Centre Singapore, Dr Fan pursued his doctoral studies with CQUniversity.  It was in 2001 that he was elected as the President of the Singapore Association of Social Workers (SASW).  From 2001 to present, Gilbert has remained actively involved with SASW in key positions, being re-elected twice as its President in 2002 and 2007.  Though Gilbert was not the pioneer in mooting the registration of social workers in Singapore, he was instrumental in its birth in 2004 and in the planning and implementation of the national voluntary accreditation of social workers and social service practitioners under the Social Work Accreditation Board (SWAB, Singapore).

While pursuing his doctoral studies, Dr Fan also embarked on a two-year clinical supervision program using the Satir Model of Therapy.  It was both demanding and challenging for Gilbert to juggle with two very different forms of studies - an academic and a clinical programme.  He excelled in both.

Dr Fan remains a sought-after speaker on psychosocial oncology.  He was the lead trainer and helped to design a two-year training in psychosocial skills in palliative care for a cancer hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam.  The training program has successfully ended and the audit report was very encouraging.  This may eventually lead to the setting up of a new service within the hospital.  

Besides his active stint with the Singapore Association of Social Workers, Dr Fan has been a Board Member of TRANS Centre (a family service centre), the (former) Head of the Allied Health Professionals Workgroup of the Singapore Hospice Council and a Professional Member of Hospice Care Association, Singapore.