How is life as a doctor in Singapore?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I am a Singaporean Medical Clerk, trained in a Nigerian medical school. Please, I wanna do my residency in Philippines and practice therein afterwards. I will round off my medical training in Nigeria by next year by God's grace. I intend to move to Philippines for my residency upon finishing my medical clerkship in Nigeria by next year. Please, how can I go about it. Please, kindly advise me.
God bless you.
Thanks.

Don't get your hopes up.
Your best bet is a clinical associate position i.e. Service Medical Officer.
This will be on temporary registration i.e. not eligible for residency.
Pay is also lower than the F and C reg'd medical officers.
Hearsay from my Filipino colleagues are that they are reducing recruitment even for CA posts.

You'd be better off seeking employment in England by doing a Royal College degree. (MRCP, MRCS, MRCPG etc)

All the best.

I am a Filipino Medical Clerk, trained in a Singapore medical school. Please, I wanna do my residency in Nigeria and practice therein afterwards. I will round off my medical training in Singapore by next year by God's grace. I intend to move to Nigeria for my residency upon finishing my medical clerkship in Singapore by next year. Please, how can I go about it. Please, kindly advise me.
God bless you.
Thanks.

To those who intend on coming here to work, I suggest you look to US/AUS.

HOs basically have to work 80-90hours a week (granted, it's only for a year but how is this not slavery?) for about 2.8k (post CPF). That amounts to about 10 bucks an hour. Following that you work as an MO for about 4k post CPF for roughly the same number of hours per week. Wages haven't increased with inflation and neither has the healthcare budget allocated to healthcare workers' income.

There is a huge bottleneck at the top of the pyramid and MOH is clamping down hard, with all their propaganda promoting primary healthcare. Once again another reactive response and an utter lack of foresight on their part.

Hi everyone Thank you for all the useful information provided in this forum.
I am a 2nd year Resident trainee from Hong Kong and graduated from CUHK. For personal reason I am keen for moving and working in Sg. I noticed it is quite impossible for me to get in residency training program without working experience in Sg. I am wondering about the level of competition and difficulty to get a resident post from a medical officer post, assuming after working a year in Sg as a Medical officer.

Thank you so much.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi everyone Thank you for all the useful information provided in this forum.
I am a 2nd year Resident trainee from Hong Kong and graduated from CUHK. For personal reason I am keen for moving and working in Sg. I noticed it is quite impossible for me to get in residency training program without working experience in Sg. I am wondering about the level of competition and difficulty to get a resident post from a medical officer post, assuming after working a year in Sg as a Medical officer.

Thank you so much.

I feel that it is easier to get a training position in Hong Kong than in Singapore. You see in Hong Kong , locally trained cuhk or hku grads who completed HK housemanship are eligible for full registration. So even UK Professor cannot get full registration in HK and have to renew on an annual basis and under supervision, unless they decide to take the final exams and undergo horsemanship again.

On the other hand, Singapore is an open system, meaning UK, Chinese, Indian, HK, australia grad can practice here, even they did not complete housemanship in Singapore. This make for a wider pool of junior doctors.

So you are leaving a protected system to work in an open system. Open system inevitably give more competition and lower wages. Hence the benefits and pay of govt Dr is higher in HK than Singapore.

But Singapore property is cheap by Hong Kong standards. Although Singapore pay is lower.

The exact likelihood depends on your CV and performance and specialisation.

In recent years, Singapore adopted a US type residency program which is very efficient in generating specialists. The aggressive specialist trainees recruitment caused a bit of problems downstream. The numbers generated are a bit too much for system to absorb. We are indeed facing with some excess supply now and we are having problems with their disposal. They will have to work as service registrars for a few years after exiting or go back to be general practitioners.

The current excess supply causes a reflex reduction in new trainees number. Most programs are cutting down recruitment, we will need to wait for the excess crop during the good years to be sold, before we can plant more.

If you are willing to sit it out and wait, rotate for a few years as MO . Should be okie.


All in all, I don't think the climate is very conducive. But I think you should still give it a try. If you like Singapore way of living.

Still im not sure since you are already a 2nd year trainee why do you want to transfer to somewhere with lower wages, excess supply , and not really that much of "freedom" that you may so desire.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi everyone Thank you for all the useful information provided in this forum.
I am a 2nd year Resident trainee from Hong Kong and graduated from CUHK. For personal reason I am keen for moving and working in Sg. I noticed it is quite impossible for me to get in residency training program without working experience in Sg. I am wondering about the level of competition and difficulty to get a resident post from a medical officer post, assuming after working a year in Sg as a Medical officer.

Thank you so much.

i dont think it is that hard to get into a specialty trainee position but depending on what you want. internal medicine generally is easier. ortho, ent, eye, paeds, gs are much harder. Singapore govt believes in free market. In hong kong, only drs that have completed local exams and local housemanship are eligible for full registration. Singapore wise, being at a confluence of different cultures, we adopt an open approach. You have UK, Australia, NZ, HK, Malaysian, Georgia, Indian doctors (both at junior and senior levels) So in a open system, wages are much lower than HK and slots are more competitive.

Since 2010, Singapore adopted an efficient ACGME-I accreditated method of generating specialist, and also did heavy foreign recruitment to bolster the ranks specialists in Singapore. As of 2018, this has result an oversupply of new specialist but inadequate positions for them. But taking a macro view, this might be cost and wage effective.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So in a open system, wages are much lower than HK and slots are more competitive.

Since 2010, Singapore adopted an efficient ACGME-I accreditated method of generating specialist, and also did heavy foreign recruitment to bolster the ranks specialists in Singapore. As of 2018, this has result an oversupply of new specialist but inadequate positions for them. But taking a macro view, this might be cost and wage effective.

So the net result of this increased supply is lower pay for doctors in Singapore in the future?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So the net result of this increased supply is lower pay for doctors in Singapore in the future?

I think we must be fair, and cannot consider wages only as a key component of compensation.
Some times knowing that a having good dr to population ratio is good reassurance for us.

With lower pay, we might be able to improve the health of the public more. This has been and should be the primary aim.

3 things here. Manpower cost, drugs cost and diagnostics. Drug and diagnostics are harder to control. Need Appropriate resource utilization. But at least on manpower side, competition is great. We can have dr working at specialist level but paying them senior MO pay.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

i dont think it is that hard to get into a specialty trainee position but depending on what you want. internal medicine generally is easier. ortho, ent, eye, paeds, gs are much harder. Singapore govt believes in free market. In hong kong, only drs that have completed local exams and local housemanship are eligible for full registration. Singapore wise, being at a confluence of different cultures, we adopt an open approach. You have UK, Australia, NZ, HK, Malaysian, Georgia, Indian doctors (both at junior and senior levels) So in a open system, wages are much lower than HK and slots are more competitive.

Since 2010, Singapore adopted an efficient ACGME-I accreditated method of generating specialist, and also did heavy foreign recruitment to bolster the ranks specialists in Singapore. As of 2018, this has result an oversupply of new specialist but inadequate positions for them. But taking a macro view, this might be cost and wage effective.

Thank you for your reply! I am paving my path to be an intensivist through anaesthesia training. Likely to face keen competition I guess. To begin with MO post, should I directly send my application and CV to the intensive care/ anaesthseia unit of those 6 public hospitals and look for vacancies?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I feel that it is easier to get a training position in Hong Kong than in Singapore. You see in Hong Kong , locally trained cuhk or hku grads who completed HK housemanship are eligible for full registration. So even UK Professor cannot get full registration in HK and have to renew on an annual basis and under supervision, unless they decide to take the final exams and undergo horsemanship again.

On the other hand, Singapore is an open system, meaning UK, Chinese, Indian, HK, australia grad can practice here, even they did not complete housemanship in Singapore. This make for a wider pool of junior doctors.

So you are leaving a protected system to work in an open system. Open system inevitably give more competition and lower wages. Hence the benefits and pay of govt Dr is higher in HK than Singapore.

But Singapore property is cheap by Hong Kong standards. Although Singapore pay is lower.

The exact likelihood depends on your CV and performance and specialisation.

In recent years, Singapore adopted a US type residency program which is very efficient in generating specialists. The aggressive specialist trainees recruitment caused a bit of problems downstream. The numbers generated are a bit too much for system to absorb. We are indeed facing with some excess supply now and we are having problems with their disposal. They will have to work as service registrars for a few years after exiting or go back to be general practitioners.

The current excess supply causes a reflex reduction in new trainees number. Most programs are cutting down recruitment, we will need to wait for the excess crop during the good years to be sold, before we can plant more.

If you are willing to sit it out and wait, rotate for a few years as MO . Should be okie.


All in all, I don't think the climate is very conducive. But I think you should still give it a try. If you like Singapore way of living.

Still im not sure since you are already a 2nd year trainee why do you want to transfer to somewhere with lower wages, excess supply , and not really that much of "freedom" that you may so desire.

Thank you for your reply! Indeed I am planning for migration for family. And I would like to try Singapore as my stepping stone.
For my own career, I am paving my path to be an intensivist through anaesthesia training. Likely to face keen competition I guess. To begin with MO post, should I directly send my application and CV to the intensive care/ anaesthseia unit of those 6 public hospitals, or is there a central recruitment system?