How is life as a doctor in Singapore?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Make bank meh?
People in private have to feed an ecosystem lei
Rent at swanky place 30k a month. Remember hor, novenna medical center is the most expensive place to rent a medical clinic in the entire world. ENITRE WORLD.
Team of receptionist and nurses.
Receptionist with cpf 30k a year each x2
Nurse 50k x2
OT nurse who assist u in surgery or do dressing u better pay well
100k x2

Fix capital cost easily 600 to 800k a year

Often pple see high surgical fee but never see the outlay also high

Work very hard for 1.5 million revenue but maybe 60 percent goes to fix cost

That's if u popular.
Not popular u might just be scrapping by only.

Might not make much more than the consultant in hospital who has minions doing everything for him
Might not make much more than the popular GP who has a lower fix cost

how can be 30k rent. mt e novena and novena is transacting 12-13 dollar psf per mth. typical units 750sqft will cost abt 8k per mth.

your hdb rental bid like mad until 20k. in fact ur hdb gp shop may be more ex than mt e novena

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Can share more about the recent events?

wah so if i dont stay until july, i lose a large portion of my yearly pay? wow.

cumulation of a few things:
1. No pay revision - keep saying to make us stay then no urgency to implement.
2. Hr matters from my side - add on to already difficult workload.
3. Manpower and a lot of good people leaving - culture has changed.

Anyone got advice on how to talk to hr can let me know. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

FM is just a nicer name for generalist.
In all fields it is not good to be a generalist. The pay is lower. Demand is lower as well.
But as a generalist it doesn't mean you cannot move on to specialize or go into niche sub sectors. But need to work on it and find those opportunities.
A common example is Aesthetics. But this example has been used to death frankly.
I am not saying it is easy to find a niche market or to specialize on your own. But there are possibilities. From a non procedural point of view, a generalist can educate themselves to have as much knowledge as a specialist. What they lack though is experience.
Having depth in knowledge is good. But if you don't use the knowledge you will lose it. And as a generalist unfortunately you will usually see all the very common things. So you will lose the fringe knowledge. The specialists will keep up cos they see what they are supposed to see. What is a FM supposed to see? Complicated esoteric cases? I don't think so.
From a career perspective it will be very tiring to try to be everything to everyone and yet be totally aware you are not going to replace the specialists anyway.
Disheartening.

Do you think gdom and being a dwd is a niche market for fps? Another niche market I can think of is palliative (can either do gdpm or go the palliative ast route), I am sure demand for palliative will increase in the coming years as population ages..

Originally Posted by Unregistered

FM is just a nicer name for generalist.
In all fields it is not good to be a generalist. The pay is lower. Demand is lower as well.
But as a generalist it doesn't mean you cannot move on to specialize or go into niche sub sectors. But need to work on it and find those opportunities.
A common example is Aesthetics. But this example has been used to death frankly.
I am not saying it is easy to find a niche market or to specialize on your own. But there are possibilities. From a non procedural point of view, a generalist can educate themselves to have as much knowledge as a specialist. What they lack though is experience.
Having depth in knowledge is good. But if you don't use the knowledge you will lose it. And as a generalist unfortunately you will usually see all the very common things. So you will lose the fringe knowledge. The specialists will keep up cos they see what they are supposed to see. What is a FM supposed to see? Complicated esoteric cases? I don't think so.
From a career perspective it will be very tiring to try to be everything to everyone and yet be totally aware you are not going to replace the specialists anyway.
Disheartening.

Just wondering if gdom (and becoming a dwd) is one of the niche subsectors for fps? Other than going down the specialist route of course (specialist being palliative, or sports med)

Other potential niche area I am thinking of is mic (mobile inpt care), currently being trialled in restructed hospital, I suspect that if this pie continues to grow, gps may start to get involved in one way or other

Originally Posted by Unregistered

wah so if i dont stay until july, i lose a large portion of my yearly pay? wow.

cumulation of a few things:
1. No pay revision - keep saying to make us stay then no urgency to implement.
2. Hr matters from my side - add on to already difficult workload.
3. Manpower and a lot of good people leaving - culture has changed.

Anyone got advice on how to talk to hr can let me know. Thanks.

Aiyah.
Old uncle me around when we still handwrite notes and seeing 120 patients a day is the norm
Let me give u some advice.

There will always be unhappiness at work.
You will always feel underpaid one

End of the day to cope , u have to change your mind set.
Chill, quiet quit or whatever.

Ops is quasi gov. It's a iron rice bowl to be honest unless u go molest patient or something
There will be high flyers meant for greater office. They might be your junior by many years but end up become your boss. Live with it. Colleagues come and go. They are not important. Your family and friends are the really important ones.
You will have gp friends who make how much money etc or tell u how good their job is.
But like social media, people never share the bad or difficult side of things.

After so long
To me, a job is a job. Sometimes I really help someone
To me that's a bonus, not something I aim to do everyday
My job on reaching my clinic is to get out as early as possible without me

A. Feeling overwork
B. Feeling irritated by stupid pple
C. No one dies under my watch.

I work out my hourly rate. Then I work out that each patient I see I get about 25 bucks
When u see it that way, u feel better.
Becuase at the 4th patient I already earn 100 bucks liao.
U try thinking this way, u will feel better.
Although I must admit, not too long ago 100 bucks is a decent amt while now it's not worth a lot.


This kind of increment news over the years not many times.
They are always too late and when they come, always too little.
It wouldn't be life changing no matter what.
You are not making a low wage tbh
Even if give u 20 percent more, your life style wouldnt change much.
So dun look so forward to it and be disappointed
Take it as a suprise when it comes instead of being angry when it doesn't

Just my very old and tarnished with age 20 cents

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Aiyah.
Old uncle me around when we still handwrite notes and seeing 120 patients a day is the norm
Let me give u some advice.

There will always be unhappiness at work.
You will always feel underpaid one

End of the day to cope , u have to change your mind set.
Chill, quiet quit or whatever.

Ops is quasi gov. It's a iron rice bowl to be honest unless u go molest patient or something
There will be high flyers meant for greater office. They might be your junior by many years but end up become your boss. Live with it. Colleagues come and go. They are not important. Your family and friends are the really important ones.
You will have gp friends who make how much money etc or tell u how good their job is.
But like social media, people never share the bad or difficult side of things.

After so long
To me, a job is a job. Sometimes I really help someone
To me that's a bonus, not something I aim to do everyday
My job on reaching my clinic is to get out as early as possible without me

A. Feeling overwork
B. Feeling irritated by stupid pple
C. No one dies under my watch.

I work out my hourly rate. Then I work out that each patient I see I get about 25 bucks
When u see it that way, u feel better.
Becuase at the 4th patient I already earn 100 bucks liao.
U try thinking this way, u will feel better.
Although I must admit, not too long ago 100 bucks is a decent amt while now it's not worth a lot.


This kind of increment news over the years not many times.
They are always too late and when they come, always too little.
It wouldn't be life changing no matter what.
You are not making a low wage tbh
Even if give u 20 percent more, your life style wouldnt change much.
So dun look so forward to it and be disappointed
Take it as a suprise when it comes instead of being angry when it doesn't

Just my very old and tarnished with age 20 cents

Actually how easy is it for one to return to ops after leaving for private if he has the qualifications (e.g mmed)

E.g I pass mmed, go out to private for 5-10 years for e.g, can I walk back to ops a mmed fp in the future if I subsequently don't like private life?
- I actually told hr that I am planning to take a sabbatical upon completion of mmed recently. Surprisingly, they were quite ok, and the hr person told me to contact her anytime should I decide to join them in the future. Not sure if that means that the ops door is forever open should you have a mmed. (Tbh, they are really building more ops in the coming years la, maybe that's why)

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Nope.
Early feb time best, if not is early August. Else they can claw back
Dec u get aws and 1month.
Jan quit best.
Spend the next few months locum ba

If you quit 1 day after your Dec payroll, they will claw back your aws?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Actually how easy is it for one to return to ops after leaving for private if he has the qualifications (e.g mmed)

E.g I pass mmed, go out to private for 5-10 years for e.g, can I walk back to ops a mmed fp in the future if I subsequently don't like private life?
- I actually told hr that I am planning to take a sabbatical upon completion of mmed recently. Surprisingly, they were quite ok, and the hr person told me to contact her anytime should I decide to join them in the future. Not sure if that means that the ops door is forever open should you have a mmed. (Tbh, they are really building more ops in the coming years la, maybe that's why)

Of course can la. Manpower in OPS is so shitty they are even bringing NTS doctors soon. As long as you didn't screw up too much when in there and don't burn bridge, I don't see why not.

I am curious, if a consultant is not covering the ward, and has no clinic or OT (for surgeons) for the day, does he even need to turn up for work?

What are the most important factors when picking specialists?

Cheapest? Shortest wait time? Word of mouth? Convenient/Central location? Reputable organization (Gleneagles/Mount Elizabeth vs. Novena/Paragon vs. HDB)? Western uni grad (USA/UK/Canada) vs. Asian uni grad (India, China) vs. local grad?