What others say about Boon Tat

Boon Tat is a very dedicated pharmacist whose contributions have touched many lives. He is definitely an excellent role model to young aspiring pharmacists. 

He is a humble, dedicated teacher who never boasts of his strengths. Definitely a pharmacist you will like to consult matters with as he has a passion to help and ever willing to share his knowledge. 

Boon Tat is a very nice person to work with.

About Boon Tat

Mr Ng Boon Tat is among many who witnessed the growth of psychiatric pharmacy practice over the years. As a NUS graduate, He embarked on his career in IMH/ WH 8 years ago, after pre-registration training with Tan Tock Seng Hospital. What inspired his interest into psychiatry was witnessing the miracle of how recommending an appropriate treatment with Clozapine had effectively transformed a malodorous, functionally impaired and psychotic patient into a groomed gentleman regaining his function, sanity and dignity in society, appearing no differently from a fellow man on the street. In his opinion, psychiatry is one of several areas in this profession where pharmacists can visually appreciate such dramatic and positive impact with specific medication treatment they’re involved in, far above merely monitoring lab values or parameters.

The path to build a pharmacy practice to optimize psychiatric care has been fraught with many difficulties. Mr Ng believes that mental health pharmacists should stay competent and prepared for these challenges. He subjected himself to various postgraduate training in both clinical and psychiatric pharmacy with renowned universities in UK, Australia and US, as well as certification programs in pharmacotherapy, psychiatric and geriatric pharmacy with the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties and Commission of Certification in Geriatric Pharmacy in US. He advocates that formal training can better equip pharmacists to contribute more into direct patient care and outcomes, enabling them to take their dreams higher with others who aspires the same in mental health.

In a working environment of loving hearts and beautiful minds, Mr Ng bears testimony to how IMH believes in investing in the continual growth of mental health pharmacists along with the rest of the healthcare team. IMH/ WH pharmacists have been offered various opportunities for postgraduate education, overseas training and residency programs. In only 3 years, IMH/ WH have now groomed six Board Certified Psychiatric Pharmacists (BCPPs), the largest of its professional group in Singapore and Asia. Advanced training is also in progress for those specializing in mental health. In recent years, clinical outpatient services were also initiated by psychiatric pharmacists in the Community Wellness Centre (CWC) and Specialist Outpatient Clinics (SOC), building the potential for ambulatory psychiatric pharmacy practice.

With this small a beginning in psychiatric pharmacy practice, Mr Ng hopes that IMH/ WH can attract, nurture and retain more pharmacists with a passion for serving in mental health, and develop this practice with other partners in healthcare, to establish a fulfilling specialty for future pharmacists to deliver optimal pharmaceutical care for patients and families affected by psychiatric conditions.

About Psychiatric Pharmacy Practice in Singapore

The Institute of Mental Health/ Woodbridge Hospital (IMH/ WH) has had more than 80 years of illustrious history in providing psychiatric treatment and support to patients and families affected by mental illnesses and behavioural health problems. As the state psychiatric hospital, IMH/ WH has also been the celebrated leading institution in training existing and future clinicians and mental health professionals who are heeding their calling into compassionate psychiatric service.

To foster this worthy pursuit of enhancing and expanding quality psychiatric services, clinical pharmacy services were implemented in all inpatient acute wards by 2006 for promoting the safe, rational, effective and economical use of psychotropic medications in IMH/ WH.

Since then, pharmacists are becoming increasingly integrated into the multidisciplinary teams led by psychiatrists in IMH/ WH, complementing the much needed additional support to serve a challenging patient population in which medication concordance is often compromised. Mental patients are also known to be more likely to have multiple comorbidities that may complicate their psychiatric treatment. Therefore, the psychiatric pharmacist’s role as the licensed medication expert in general pharmacotherapy and psychopharmacology becomes instrumental in augmenting the safety and efficacy of drug treatment together with the team.

Besides providing inpidualized medication education and counseling with assessment and management of adverse effects to help patients and caregivers adhere to the prescribed drug treatment, psychiatric pharmacists also assist psychiatrists and the team with comprehensive management of patient’s overall medication needs, such as via collation of medication history, medication reconciliation, evaluation of any clinically significant drug-drug or drug-disease interactions, recommending and following up on appropriately devised treatment plans, monitoring patient’s tolerability and response to drug treatment, as well as identifying and resolving any current or potential drug-related problems.

Clinical pharmacists in mental health specifically address the value-added pharmaceutical care of patients with psychiatric disorders because this nature of service has been studied to show minimization of drug-induced side effects as well as improvements in patients’ adherence to medication, psychiatric clinical response and level of functioning, culminating in reduced costs of medical and pharmaceutical care.