When Passion Meets Purpose, Learning Never Ends
Ms Susie Goh, Senior Consultant (Wound Care), sharing about wound debridement.
For Ms Susie Goh, a renowned wound care expert in Singapore, sharing knowledge has always been close to her heart. At 70, she continues to share her expertise. While she stepped down as SLEC’s Director of Nursing in December 2025, she continues to advance wound care education through the SLEC CommCare Academy as a senior consultant.
Teaching was her passion. Nursing, meanwhile, was her parents’ wish – a path they hoped would one day allow her to care for them as they grew older. Everything aligned when Susie discovered that nursing could also open the door to education. In 1977, she began her nursing career.
Ms Susie Goh (with flowers), receiving Singapore’s highest nursing honour, the President’s Nurses Award, from then President S R Nathan in 2011.
During Susie’s early nursing student days, she was asked to change the dressing of a painful wound. Under the bandage, she noticed tiny black specks and gently lifted one with a pair of forceps – only to realise it was a maggot! She spent the next 45 minutes cleaning and redressing the wound, eventually removing at least a hundred maggots.
The next morning, the patient told her it was the first night he had slept in two weeks without pain. In that moment, she knew she had found her passion in wound care. “Wound care is both
an art and science. Every wound is different and requires skill and creativity to resolve,” she said.
Touching lives beyond the bedside
Along the way, it was not only patients whose lives she touched. Susie realised that lasting improvements in care depended on the capability of nurses. Although she loved frontline work, she saw gaps in young nurses’ knowledge and confidence, and knew she could make a greater difference through training.
In her 25 years of mentorship, she has trained about 1,500 nurses – local and foreign, through on-the-job training and education platforms such as the annual SLEC CommCare Symposium. These are achievements she treasures most – seeing nurses grow, remain in the profession and make a meaningful impact.
In SLEC, she has helped raise care standards and improve outcomes for elders by implementing nursing strategies and programmes, developing policies and standardised procedures, introducing digital wound documentation, and establishing a wound care fund.
“In nursing, our impact is multiplied through the elders we care for, as well as the people we inspire, teach and empower along the way.” — Ms Susie Goh
Learning for life
Susie remains deeply committed to lifelong learning. She keeps her knowledge and skills current through workshops, conferences and collaborations with specialists and multi disciplinary teams. She also learns new skills outside of work, expressing her creativity through crafts like knitting and rock painting.
Resin artwork by Ms Susie Goh, one of her many creative pursuits.
Wound care has always been Susie’s calling. Even when the work was challenging, she found strength in her purpose and the people she served with. “Passion will sustain you through the challenges and make the work truly meaningful,” she said. Her journey reminds us that when passion meets purpose, learning never ends – and lives are changed because of it.
