Samuel Beckett’s works inspired my exploration of the embodied experience within rigid systems that often fail to capture the nuances of lived experiences. After examining how Beckett’s depiction of loss appeals more to the audience’s intuition than intellect in my 2018 publication, Beckett’s Intuitive Spectator: Me to Play, I turned my attention to the representation of loss in illness narratives. My literary research aligns with my focus on loss in medical humanities, encompassing the loss of physical control, the witnessing of loss, and the experience of dying. My interdisciplinary projects contribute to my ongoing work-in-progress, Care to Imagine, Imagine to Care.

Medical Humanities Approach to the Value of Patient Stories and Narrative Ethics

The study interrogates the concept of ‘value’ in its plural form to challenge the means-ends undertone of the question ‘What is the value of patient stories?’ This interdisciplinary project will expand current understanding of patient stories by foregrounding their transformative relational value and suggest ways that this value could not only guide the collection and use of patient stories on institutional websites, but also their ‘use’ in the medical curricula. Ultimately our findings will not only contribute to academic discourse, it will offer health care professionals profound insights into the lived experience of being a patient.

Principal Investigator/ MOE Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1 Grant: March 2023 – Feb 2026 [Awarded]

Me to Play: Samuel Beckett's Intuitive Spectator

What role does the ‘intuition’ play in the experience of Beckett's drama and prose? To complement my monograph Beckett's Intuitive Spectator: Me to Play (2018), I seek to demonstrate how Beckett’s work can be ‘intuitively’ appreciated by his audiences and readers through a Virtual Reality adaptation of The Lost Ones. Participants who are unfamiliar with his work will be given an immersive experience of the notoriously abstract text. Beckett's oeuvre appeal more to the intuition, than the intellect. The book and the VR installation will inform non-specialists, students and scholars alike on how Beckett stages loss in his work to initiate an intuitive spectating position.

Principal Investigator/ NTU Start-up Grant [Awarded and Completed]
2018-2021

Stroke Care and Recovery I: healthcare worker's journey

A qualitative and interdisciplinary project combining the expertise of doctors, nurses, psychology and literary researchers, the purpose of this study is to (i) find out, beyond official guidelines, the lived experiences of healthcare workers who support stroke patients in Singapore’s rehabilitation unit, and (ii) consider ways to enhance care provision for both healthcare workers and patients.

- 6 key challenges to stroke care were identified
- A Care Continuity Advocate Model (CCAM) was constructed

Technical Principal Investigator/ Rehabilitation Research Grant 3: 2019-2022 [Awarded and Completed]

Stroke Care and Recovery II: stroke survivor's journey

Building on 'Healthcare worker's journey', this is a qualitative and interdisciplinary project that attends to the lived experiences of stroke survivors and their caregivers. The purpose of the study is to (i) find out, beyond textbook understanding, the lived experiences of caring and being cared for, and (ii) consider ways to enhance care provision for patients and their carers. An estimate of 60 patients and caregivers' perspectives will be analysed. The descriptive phenomenological approach to thematic analysis will be employed to interpret the interview transcripts, while patients and caregivers' short stories written in Singapore will be closely read to facilitate a holistic understanding of what quality stroke care should look like in the country.

Principal Investigator/ [Grant Proposal Under Review]

Different Strokes for Different Folks: Towards Holistic Person-centered Care (HPCC) in Singapore

Comparing findings of the two-part Stroke Care and Recovery project, this book-length exploration of time and loss in stroke care narratives, foregrounds a complex sense of sudden loss as patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals navigate through healthcare systems and technologically mediated processes of care and recovery. The book will serve to inform readers of the various shades of loss in stroke narratives, as well as construct a model of quality stroke care to gain a holistic perspective of what quality stroke care in Singapore should look like beyond official guidelines and textbook definitions.