President’s Message

President's Message 2025

Dear Members,

I thank you all for the opportunity for me to continue serving this professional association.

As our association takes off in earnest, we aim to roll out its activities and member benefits while remaining laser focused on the true organizational goal of promoting our profession’s integrity and interests.

The Mission Statement and the Vision accurately describe this association’s medium and long-term objectives, this message is to inject my personal heart and aspiration into our public strategies.

Lost in our day-to-day routines, it can be easy to take podiatry for granted in Singapore and Asia.  But chat with colleagues and reflect on what we’ve experienced ourselves, and we are reminded of our profession’s vulnerability locally. Podiatry is extinct in territories such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. It is outlawed in Indonesia, stunted in Malaysia, and much smaller in Hong Kong. Without mincing words, it has been stagnant in Singapore compared to the profession in countries where most of us were trained. Our scope has long been restricted compared to our actual training, and our specialty has been steadily encroached by other professionals, often with our unwitting consent. This impacts all of our lives and careers, and is not something we can change alone or in fragmented siloes.  APM(S) is a non-profit professional association, but I envision its ultimate role as a professional guild or union – a platform for collective action.

We participate in an association formed with a can-do pioneering ethos, seeking to strengthen a fledgling profession in a part of the world where it is new.  Although the APM(S)  is promoting activities and benefits generally expected of a professional association, we as members must keep in mind its raison d’etre: The APM(S) was never meant to be just a passive platform for podiatrists to pay an annual fee and get some discounted stuff.  It is an action-oriented vehicle for us to organize as a profession, because together we are stronger, together we can achieve sweeping progress.  If you are anxious about the state of your profession and the direction of your career but feel powerless as an individual, the APM(S) is a way for you to elevate ideas into constructive group action.

As a profession, we face many challenges in Asia. At APM(S)  we are designing strategies to tackles them all, but only with unity and concerted action can we overcome and succeed.  In this journey, we must all do our part.

 

Georgina CALLAGHAN
President
Association of Podiatric Medicine (Singapore)

The Association of Podiatric Medicine (Singapore)