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Old 25-05-2020, 06:22 PM
Palebluedot Palebluedot is offline
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Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
good effort reading the 114 pages, i have been following this thread for a few years now and you have managed to succinctly summarise the current predicament of junior doctors in singapore well. there are other threads on reddit singapore as well if you google "reddit oversupply of specialists" if you have not read them

did your daughter get accepted for local med school or overseas?

i completely agree with your sentiments it is not really worth it to start medical school nowadays if you have the calibre to get into medical school. the only silver lining is the job stability during this pandemic and the incoming recession.

while nobody can predict the market 5 years later, i dont think it will change that much residency wise and everyone will be flooding into the GP market. this will be made worse with the current expansion of medical school spots.

those who dont want to become GPs will either fight it out for residency as MOs or give up and become RPs. alternatively, they can be private hospital MOs or pursue alternative careers after their bond eg pharmaceuticals.

depending on specialty there is higher chance to get a spot in less demanded specialties eg rehabilitation medicine. for competitive specialties like urology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics i think it is gonna be even worse. they might give preference to scholars eg SAF, A*star or med school valedictorians or if they are some form of white horse. residency selection is less tickbox and transparent like in UK and more on connections and being well-liked in sg.

the current sentiment in the local med school is to encourage students become a gp or generalist in hospital to try to curb the demand of residency.

they can also try applying for residency in the US after their bond, or migrate elsewhere as a GP (sg specialist training is not recognised anywhere else in the world).

but i think if the student is not too aspiring they can probably live a middle class lifestyle while having a fulfilling job rather than being a corporate slave. this is the reality of sg being a small country with limited opportunities.

if the student studies abroad, there are probably more opportunities but risk of no job in sg after graduation. eg in the UK, specialty training there is quite attainable even the competitive ones but there is the mess with UK politics, poor pay and being away from home. the uk degree can let them work in australia/NZ easily and specialist training is also recognised in many countries. australian med school grads are finding it difficult to get a HO equivalent job in australia but when they do they can get PR eventually and are paid very well but still difficult to get specialist training. irish grads probably have to come back to sg as there are limited opportunities there.

gone are the old days of specialists earning loads in the private sector, only the absolute top students now will achieve that in the future.
Get accepted to LKC, which according to one poster here, is lowest in hierarchy when vying for specialist opportunities.

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