Doctors come from rich background

The current chairman of the Singapore Medical Association (SMA) contributed an article to today's Straits Times.

The gist of Dr Wong Chiang Yin's article is that heartlanders, i.e. those who stay in HDB flats, are under-represented in the medical profession.

While 80% of all Singaporeans stay in HDB apartments, only about 45% to 50% of doctors live in the heartlands.  And this has been the situation for the past 12 years, as observed by Dr Wong.

The SMA chairman cited the following possible reasons for the disparity: long period of study, high tuition fees (currently at $17,520/yr), lack of study loans (or the awareness thereof), richer students perform better in school, and poorer students performing badly in interviews.

I'd like to add one more point: the rich can also send their kids to overseas medical schools when they fail to get a place in NUS, thus boosting the rich-over-poor ratio. Just look at the "celebrity" doctors (i.e. those who always appear in the media) - many of them were educated overseas.

http://www.salary.sg/2006/doctors-co...ch-background/

what are the exact figures? From where you get the above stated figures from? And also, the 80% that you stated are made up of doctors, who have humble beginnings, who made it bigtime or doctors with rich background to begin with?

Robert, I'm not sure if I get your question. The 80% figure refers to the proportion of Singaporeans living in HDB flats. If my memory serves me well, I think the official figure is in the range of 80% to 85%.

why don't you all get an account from those doctors and see if it's true.......

It's patently untrue that medicine students overseas "did not" make it into the local medical school. Students of elite sec schools generally do not study locally. Children of upper middle class and the rich also do not study locally. It's a cultural thing. Don't believe, go to any of the elite sec schools and interview them. All the kids of the rich go overseas, they don't even bother to apply for university here. In fact a high number go overseas directly from O levels.

Second, the local medical school is not well regarded internationally. If the students enrolled in there had the money to attend top UK medical schools, they will not be there.

It's no secret that a sizable number of president's scholars who studied medicine got their parents to pay for their medical studies in Cambridge. The trend was observed even before PSC changed its policy in 2007.

Previously, President's Scholars can go to any top university they want on the government's bill except those who do medicine, have to go to NUS. This is because of the prohibitive cost of medical studies. During that time, at least 3 president's scholars went to Cambridge anyway, making their parents for it while accepting the scholarship in name. One of them was Anne Tan, http://www.sma.org.sg/sma_news/3608/anne_tan.pdf who later became the head of Association of Women's Doctors and championed the lifting of entry ceiling for female medicine applicants here, even though she herself chose not to go local. Another is Audry Lee.

Yup only losers and poor people like me study in Singapore. Let us all work hard so that our children can study overseas in future!

it doesn't really matter, once all these doctors graduate, they will all eventually live in HDB again coz they have such lousy salaries. we're talking like 4-5k / mth especially those public sector ones

Oh! Doctors who go overseas do not need to serve any 'bond' in public hospitals. Only those who went local. You didn't know?

But it's true lah. Those who went local, only draw $4k at the age of 28. That is how old they are after completing their medical studies, one year of housemanship then two years of NS.

By 28 years old, some classes of scholars in the government will be drawing $150k PA already.

Also, do note that people rich enough to pay for themselves to medicine in UK like in Imperial College London, Cambridge, which is anything from $500k to $700k, are mostly from very rich families. They don't have to live in public housing.

4-5k is a lot of money. My father earned 1.5 k all his life.
Seriously drs are overpaid and they should be paid less and do more.

Medicine reject!