Shi Hao

A brief sketch.

I'm an anaesthetist from Singapore. This is where I write — occasionally — about the art and science of medicine, and share what I've found useful along the way.

Beyond clinical work, I'm involved in postgraduate medical education as a core faculty member. I'm also interested in coaching — career direction and the bigger questions about life.

Outside the theatre, I think about compounding — in health, wealth, and relationships. Long horizons, small disciplines. Ignore the noise in between.

Clinical interests

Ambulatory & Fast-Turnover Surgery

Speed without compromise. Processed-EEG-guided anaesthesia, opioid-sparing technique, and recovery-ready extubation — designed for safe same-day discharge.

Regional Anaesthesia

Ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve blocks placed with millimetre precision. Opioid-sparing by design — so patients wake comfortable and mobilise early.

Airway Management

The skill that matters most when it matters most. Video laryngoscopy, advanced airway adjuncts, and fibreoptic intubation deployed deliberately — not reached for in panic.

Philosophy of practice.

My clinical practice is shaped by two Japanese ideas I return to often: shokunin 職人 — the craftsman's devotion to mastery — and shoshin 初心 — beginner's mind, held deliberately. Taken together, they describe a way of working that I find true and worth aiming at, even if I will never fully arrive.

The relentless pursuit of perfection.

Every list, every block, every airway is an opportunity to refine something — technique, judgement, workflow. The standard is set internally, not by what the environment tolerates. Most days the work is quiet and unremarkable. That is the point.

The aggregation of marginal gains.

Great anaesthesia rarely hinges on one heroic decision. It is the sum of many small ones done well — the extra care with positioning, the block placed with precision, the drug titrated to effect. Each alone is minor. Compounded across thousands of cases, they describe a career.

III

Shoshin, held steady over years of experience.

Beginner's mind is easy at the beginning. The harder version is holding it after years of competence — openness, curiosity, and the willingness to be wrong when experience makes it tempting not to be.