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Dr. Yasuo Saijo is a highly esteemed Professor in the Department of Medical Oncology at Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences. Born on April 21, 1959, Dr. Saijo earned his M.D. from Niigata University, School of Medicine in 1984 and completed his Ph.D. at Tohoku University in 1995.
His extensive career spans roles as a Research Instructor at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas and professorships at Tohoku University and Hirosaki University. Since 2012, he has been a pivotal part of Niigata University's faculty, contributing significantly to both education and patient care.
Dr. Saijo holds board certifications from the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine and the Japanese Respiratory Society and is a Diplomate of the Subspecialty Board of Medical Oncology, JSM. His dedication to medical oncology and molecular medicine has set high standards in the medical field, making him a respected figure in oncology research and practice.
Having graduated with a degree in medicine from Akita University in 2013, Dr Hara served as a Senior Resident Paediatrician (2015-2018) and Fellow Resident Pediatric Emergency Medicine & Emergency Medicine (2019-2022) at the Tokyo Metropolitan Children’s Medical Center and later moved on to Okinawa Prefectural Nanbu Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center (2022-2023).
Dr Hara’s vast experience and knowledge enabled him to diagnose and treat various pediatric conditions, ranging from common to rare illnesses, including emergencies. He has a special interest in pediatric nephrology, pulmonology, genetics, child development, trauma, minor emergencies, injuries, burns, and psychiatry.
Dr Hara is fluent in both English and Japanese and plans to build close relationships with our community of families while providing exemplary healthcare services. His wealth of experience and commitment to excellence will help ensure that our young patients at Raffles Medical receive excellent care.
The son of a dentist, Dr. Toshihiko Nakajima had an early interest in medicine that culminated in his studies at the National Akita University in Japan, graduating with his MD in 2003. He gravitated early on in his career towards urology, drawn by its challenges in a country where a urologist must cover both internal medicine and surgical medicine. At the time, he was interested in the clinical breadth of urological care and the opportunity to accompany his patients’ treatment from the first consultation all the way through surgeries, chemotherapy and all related medical care.
Strongly affected by the death of a patient he was treating for terminal cancer, Dr. Toshi decided to focus on palliative care, assisting patients in their final weeks of life. Steeped in such a broad range of clinical situations—from diagnosis and examination through to surgery and chemotherapy as well as palliative care—he realised that he needed to further his core abilities as a GP so as to more effectively treat patients with a range of symptoms, from pain and breathing disturbances through to psychological problems.
To further his training, Dr. Toshi moved to Singapore in 2013 where he studied general practice and tropical medicine for a year, going on to work at the IHH Group hospital. He then continued to hone his skills in general practice at International SOS in Beijing before transferring to Hanoi and then moving on to our clinic in Saigon.
Dr. Toshi has now spent far longer outside of his native country than he initially anticipated, greatly enjoying practicing as a GP at Raffles Medical HCMC—especially given the group’s culture of coordinating medical expertise between doctors as a team. He is proud to support Japanese patients living overseas as well as to provide urological and pain management treatments for the broader community of patients. He envisages returning to Japan to continue in palliative care later in his career, given the increasing need for such specialists in his home country with its ageing population.
Dr. Lai determined that a career in medicine would give him the best chance to help both his family and others, leading him to enroll at the International Medical University in Malaysia—where he graduated with his MBBS in 2006. Going on to work in the field of general practice, Dr. Lai pursued multiple medical interests, enjoying a broader approach to treatment while connecting to varied specialist disciplines as needed.
Following the completion of his medical degree, Dr. Lai was exposed to a broad range of multidisciplinary medical fields during his residency training, including internal medicine, paediatrics, general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, obstetrics & gynecology, as well as both inpatient and community health care management. He was involved with the state public health CDC team during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, an experience that taught him much about the management of pandemics at the country level and the need for systematic approaches and clear roles for doctors and nurses. These insights and other experiences within the public health system have been instrumental within his own private practice in both inpatient and outpatient settings.
Dr. Lai sees himself as being dedicated to his practice at Raffles in Vietnam for the foreseeable future, where he has the chance to interact with doctors from all over the world and learn from their different approaches to achieve a more complete and international grounding in medicine. He is proud to serve the community here—including local Vietnamese patients as well as residents from around the world—and finds in his work a valuable opportunity to grow in many fields.
