How is life as a doctor in Singapore?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

How do they see training in US for doctors trained in US wishing to come back to Singapore. In the US, residencies would depend on organization and you can be board certified in psych from MGH or from a no name community hospital.

Let's say goal is to return to SG and become consultant or senior consultant in public hospital before going private after studying in UK/Australia, does it matter if you are trained in US/UK/AU/SG?

Conscious that US training should be fastest but almost impossible for foreign medical grads to get into top programs. UK will take forever but workload wise perhaps comparable to UK.

Would it be possible to train half way in UK like moving back to SG to pursue higher psych training for UK psych trainees or moving back to SG to do less selective IM specialties such as endo/rheum/nephro after IMT in UK and skip the most brutal shift for junior doctors in SG?

Since the aim is to go back to Singapore anyway, I think the best route is to go back to Singapore to train. It would be extremely foolish to spend years overseas training and then find out the training is not recognized in Singapore or no longer recognized in Singapore by the time one finishes overseas. Medicine is one of those fields where qualifications are not easily portable,

Go back to Singapore to train. It is sure to be recognized.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Even local med students can take those paths. Not saying it is easy but it can be done. I did.

The amusing part is that these Singaporean med students overseas already have one foot on that path but want to turn back to Singapore.

It can be done if you are rich enough to break bond.. but then again if you wanna break bond it defeats the purpose of studying local.. because the cost of the bond damages outweighs the cost of studying overseas in the first place

Originally Posted by Unregistered

How do they see training in US for doctors trained in US wishing to come back to Singapore. In the US, residencies would depend on organization and you can be board certified in psych from MGH or from a no name community hospital.

Let's say goal is to return to SG and become consultant or senior consultant in public hospital before going private after studying in UK/Australia, does it matter if you are trained in US/UK/AU/SG?

Conscious that US training should be fastest but almost impossible for foreign medical grads to get into top programs. UK will take forever but workload wise perhaps comparable to UK.

Would it be possible to train half way in UK like moving back to SG to pursue higher psych training for UK psych trainees or moving back to SG to do less selective IM specialties such as endo/rheum/nephro after IMT in UK and skip the most brutal shift for junior doctors in SG?

US the program itself isn’t the one doing the certification. It’s the american board of xyz that’s certifying to get the public cons job. Typically need some experience as a consultant in the US frist for this. But US same issue as SG in terms of hours so it’s out of the frying pan into the fire

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It can be done if you are rich enough to break bond.. but then again if you wanna break bond it defeats the purpose of studying local.. because the cost of the bond damages outweighs the cost of studying overseas in the first place

All these are obstacles to the path. Can pay off bond. Can also wait till bond is served.

The key is the desire to move from Singapore or not.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You can have the best of both worlds by doing your F1/F2 and completing your aesthetics certs in the UK before returning to SG.

Even if you return immediately after graduation as a HO, you still need to clear that HO year to get conditional reg.

So the opportunity cost is only around 1 year. Not to mention if you immediately head back to SG, you lose the competitive advantage of doing your aesthetic certs in the UK.

These 'competitive advantages' are they any useful to getting the job you want outside aesthetics? If not, I see it as we can take one year off and do the certs

My friend graduated from the UK, moved to sg and then tried mopex a bit. Unsuccessful so moved to the aesthetic field. This was then years ago. Now has an aesthetic clinic in orchard.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It can be done if you are rich enough to break bond.. but then again if you wanna break bond it defeats the purpose of studying local.. because the cost of the bond damages outweighs the cost of studying overseas in the first place

It can be done without breaking the bond after you finished serving the bond.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

All these are obstacles to the path. Can pay off bond. Can also wait till bond is served.

The key is the desire to move from Singapore or not.

Well said.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Really counting eggs before they hatch. First you will need to graduate, then come back as a acopic HO like majority of the IMG HOs, or stay in UK for 2 years of foundation training and come back as an acopic MO where your co-MO will need to cover or your local graduate HO will need to help you. Then need to rotate for a few more years before you turn your conditional regirstration to full registration before you can even think about transiting to aesthetics. This is at least a good 5 years from now. Market would be grossly different.

Why so negative? Who hurts you? Sounds like someone stuck in the bond and cannot wait to get out of the system.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Since the aim is to go back to Singapore anyway, I think the best route is to go back to Singapore to train. It would be extremely foolish to spend years overseas training and then find out the training is not recognized in Singapore or no longer recognized in Singapore by the time one finishes overseas. Medicine is one of those fields where qualifications are not easily portable,

Go back to Singapore to train. It is sure to be recognized.

I mean for the past dont know how long, singapore has been recognising a certain set of postgrad qualifications. Moreover, they do periodic reviews regularly with a forward looking approach, which means that at the point where u enter trh training pathway they have looked ahead to asecrtain its credibility. Hence, when you finish it will still be recognised. Same thing happened with irish post grad but there was a grace period of sorts. If u return to singapore to train, sure if eveytning goes well you can reach ur goal but if not, you could end up being unable to pursue ur specialty of choice and get stuck as FP

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I mean for the past dont know how long, singapore has been recognising a certain set of postgrad qualifications. Moreover, they do periodic reviews regularly with a forward looking approach, which means that at the point where u enter trh training pathway they have looked ahead to asecrtain its credibility. Hence, when you finish it will still be recognised. Same thing happened with irish post grad but there was a grace period of sorts. If u return to singapore to train, sure if eveytning goes well you can reach ur goal but if not, you could end up being unable to pursue ur specialty of choice and get stuck as FP

There are also differences in the health systems between countries. These are things that also need some getting used to. Different expectations from patients. Culture.

Training abroad , completing all your training then going to SG to be a specialist is not ideal.

Are specialists who trained abroad able to jump straight into private sector?