SINGAPORE medical students could soon have better chances of landing internships at Harvard Medical School.

The National University Health System (NUHS) and Harvard University's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre (BIDMC) are in talks to pave the way for doctors, scientists and even medical students from the two institutions to work together.

A memorandum of understanding for exchanges in education, research and clinical care could be signed today - a timely development, given that NUHS starts its US-style residency training scheme in May.

The collaboration will be the first to involve undergraduates, post-graduate students and researchers, Professor John Wong, the dean of the National University of Singapore's Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, told reporters on Wednesday.

Previous tie-ups with prestigious overseas insitutes such as Sweden's Karolinska Institutet have been for research and post-graduate training only.

NUHS' American-style residency training puts graduating medical students through training in one of seven specialities: internal medicine, paediatrics, general surgery, preventive medicine, psychiatry, emergency medicine and pathology.

While Prof Wong hopes the medical school here will benefit from the 110-year-old BIDMC's experience, the American side also sees benefits coming to it. Dr Mark Zeidel, the physician-in-chief and chairman of medicine at BIDMC, said his side hopes to develop novel approaches to diseases in Asians and compare these with approaches for Caucasians. He expects BIDMC students and residents to come here for rotations for exposure.

Prof Wong said top fourth-year medical student and President's Scholar Tan Li Feng has already benefited from the ongoing talks. After failing earlier to get a place to do an elective in geriatric medicine at BIDMC, she has now won a place there and will pack her bags for Boston in May.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.