How is life as a doctor in Singapore?

Life isn't good as a doctor anymore, and it's quite bad during the early stage. Expect 70 hours a week as a medical officer, and occasionally 80 hours a week. This excludes studying for exams (to get promoted to registrar) which you'd have to do so during your own time.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Life isn't good as a doctor anymore, and it's quite bad during the early stage. Expect 70 hours a week as a medical officer, and occasionally 80 hours a week. This excludes studying for exams (to get promoted to registrar) which you'd have to do so during your own time.

Nowadays youngsters complain a lot. It used to be EOD calls. And over 100hours. Actually The manpower has improved a lot. MO are just doing 3-4 calls per mth. But millenials have high expectations.

Honestly the pay as a MO has been more than expected.
$4950 basic for PGY2 completed NS. Add to that On-call pay $900 or so a month.
Guaranteed AWS and civil service bonus. Plus IPB of 2-5 months.
I earned $92,000 last year. Just passed MRCP which is an extra $6000.

Not unheard of for surgical MOs to earn >100k.

This is very competitive - many of my law friends are earning thereabouts. Hours about the same but crammed into 5 days.
We should be thankful. Remuneration isn't as bad as we think.

What is IPB?

I'm a doctor and I have enjoyed reading the posts. You can almost tell by reading the posts, if the posters are doctors, which part of the hierarchy they are in. The MOs usually complain alot, its true they are usually overworked especially if in a busy service. The registrars are senior trainees who are about to see the light at the end, so they will slog out for just a bit more. Life as an associate consultant and above becomes significantly better, because of higher pay and shorter hours and less "active" calls. But responsibility is greater, so its not all cruise and enjoy. Btw, doctors are paid well because we have skills that are specialized. It takes years of training, hardship and delayed gratification to develop these skills.
Ps: doctors are not all money minded, but we do care about money. There is nothing wrong about wanting to be paid well for a job well done. And we are in a salary forum afterall. Of course we ll talk about money

Hi all, I’m a fully registered foreign doctor in Singapore. Would appreciate if I can have some opinion on the options available out there in private sector and what is the prospect like. Thank you!

Dear Members,

We're a health-tech startup in SG looking to partner with GP's & doctors to promote our Health Screening services. The doctors will communicate & help interpret test results for patients. This will likely happen in person in health-camp setting. We have 2 questions:

1) Is there a preference towards more experienced vs. younger Dr. among local population? Esp. when communicating health screening reports/results. A lot of inference is data-analytics driven and we're hoping to ideally have a mix of Dr. for this program.

2) As we begin to empanel Dr. for our program, should we approach younger Dr. first or the more experienced ones to start with? Ultimately we're offering a deep-tech solution but the reports are more traditional (& similar in format to lab test result reports).

Appreciate the feedback.
Thanks.

Originally Posted by InfoSeek

Dear Members,

We're a health-tech startup in SG looking to partner with GP's & doctors to promote our Health Screening services. The doctors will communicate & help interpret test results for patients. This will likely happen in person in health-camp setting. We have 2 questions:

1) Is there a preference towards more experienced vs. younger Dr. among local population? Esp. when communicating health screening reports/results. A lot of inference is data-analytics driven and we're hoping to ideally have a mix of Dr. for this program.

2) As we begin to empanel Dr. for our program, should we approach younger Dr. first or the more experienced ones to start with? Ultimately we're offering a deep-tech solution but the reports are more traditional (& similar in format to lab test result reports).

Appreciate the feedback.
Thanks.

Actually most screening tests are not cost effective nor helpful in asymptomatic population, with exception of colon cancer FIT , colonoscopy, cervical pap smear, HPV genotype, Mammogram, usual fasting blood glucose, lipids, bp measurement.

So deep tech or low tech or no tech may not improve health outcomes.

Since your objective is to make money, then hiring a younger Dr may be cheaper. But u need a facade of seniority, so need at least an older Dr.

am curious.. how much does an MO (with 3 yrs experience) earn per month ?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

am curious.. how much does an MO (with 3 yrs experience) earn per month ?

For govt, MO with NS will be 5.2k- 5.5k pay if you exclude calls. For female without NS is 4.8k - 5.1k. Exact depends on your boss appraisal over the past 3 yrs of MO service. Generally a 5k pay is quite sufficient for a 4rm hdb flat.

Realistically speaking, at age 30 a 5k monthly income is within the top 30% of the earners.