How is life as a doctor in Singapore?

case in point: Dr Alan Cheung

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The funny thing is this guys argument is based solely on entry requirements, which is already shaky considering international acceptance rates at Edin, Top London schools is lower than NTU/NUS acceptance.
What he fails to consider is the quality of education itself. World rankings exist for a reason and they point towards the quality of education being higher at these top unis. After 5 years of high quality training under the best professors in the world, in some of the most prestigious teaching hospitals in the world, do u really think the person is the same as the day they went in?

The issue is he’s using his experience of himself and students who are from in his words “third tier schools” to generalise all overseas medical schools which results in poor judgement. Ultimately there is vast diffeence even within the cohort of overseas students. Why else do u think so many successful doctors sent their children to top overseas unis even though their children could get into NUS/NTU? It’s often hard to debate with someone who has a closed world view and believes that singapore is the pinnacle of training when in reality global ratings compare schools on the same yardstick

nothing funny la
you just refuse to see the fallacy of your arguments

first thing, are u even a medical student? the university doesn't teach medicine. It's the clinician at the hospital that does the teaching. Not sure why u are harping about how good a university is when it's ranking has nothing to do the medical school.

And for all your crap about university rankings, teaching seldom features prominently in the score, much less MEDICAL school teaching. For any major uni, medical student are really a VERY VERY small number of their total student body.

ANYONE can apply to the UK universities. 10000 applicants, 50 get in, acceptance rate is 0.5%. 9500 of the applicants can be damn lousy. It doesn't mean a thing. Of the 500 who are competitive applicants, yea, sure got some rich fellow who is damn good but wants an overseas uni and decline to study in their home country. ( THEY WILL STILL CHOOSE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BTW and NOT a second tier imperial or Edinburgh ).
Most of the 500 will be the rejects from their own country , be it canada, Singapore, malaysia, HK. You just refuse to acknowledge this point which is a fact - most of the internationals apply to "prestigious UK" uni because they can't get into the medical school in their own country.
FYI, from my JC, the 4 chaps who got into Cambridge really did get into NUS as well. 1 drop because no money. 1 decide not to do med all together eventually. both came back. One became a pediatrician and the other a urologist.

Lolz. you can just attack me with my "3rd tier" education. 3rd tier as it is, i ranked 3rd in the national exams at my exit. My beef is with their self imposed sense of superiority of these 2nd tier UK uni students who believe they are very good ( like yourself truly) . It isn't. Just face it.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not a doctor but I studied at an ivy for undergrad.
I always felt that an average students in western countries are quite bad academically vs Singaporeans and school curriculums are made easier to adjust for that.

Simple questions, MCQ, direct recycling of assignment questions, etc.

So I wonder coming out from local med programs, won't you guys know way more than those studying overseas?

Perhaps oxbridge, imperial and ucl may also be quite rigorous but for the rest of the schools - let's say notts, southampton, aussie MDs (without the 3 year science prep), newcastle, etc.
They should be "easier" vs singapore schools. Yet quite a number of old profs came from there. Why didn't the older NUS homegrown profs and HoDs gatekept in the first place and make SG med a local only club?

Without actual experience in this field, I guess the game is not really about your knowledge but more about how you can game for a good CV? Going to a recognized but lower tier international school then you will be competing with the less hardo ang mo, you can easily get distinction in your course, with less time spent on studying (vs local kids who get grilled in exams). With minimum effort and good grade, you get all the resources from your school, pubs before grad and then a good CV to match into good specialty abroad.

Ten years later, you got your FRCS, good specialty, good CV with loads of pubs, consultant in NHS, and you come back with all these pedigree despite you went to an inferior school vs being just a median kid in local school doing FM.

Is my understanding correct or am I missing anything / being out of touch?

Medicine is hard as a subject in all countries whether it’s in SG/UK/AUS. I am referring to those on the second schedule.

The only difference is the leeway given to students. Some universities allow for multiple repeat exams and some don’t care about your clinical attendance. So it’s more advantageous to study outside of SG if you value freedom and want to study at your own pace.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Medicine is hard as a subject in all countries whether it’s in SG/UK/AUS. I am referring to those on the second schedule.

The only difference is the leeway given to students. Some universities allow for multiple repeat exams and some don’t care about your clinical attendance. So it’s more advantageous to study outside of SG if you value freedom and want to study at your own pace.

Argh, got posted to cgh im! FML!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

nothing funny la
you just refuse to see the fallacy of your arguments

first thing, are u even a medical student? the university doesn't teach medicine. It's the clinician at the hospital that does the teaching. Not sure why u are harping about how good a university is when it's ranking has nothing to do the medical school.

And for all your crap about university rankings, teaching seldom features prominently in the score, much less MEDICAL school teaching. For any major uni, medical student are really a VERY VERY small number of their total student body.

ANYONE can apply to the UK universities. 10000 applicants, 50 get in, acceptance rate is 0.5%. 9500 of the applicants can be damn lousy. It doesn't mean a thing. Of the 500 who are competitive applicants, yea, sure got some rich fellow who is damn good but wants an overseas uni and decline to study in their home country. ( THEY WILL STILL CHOOSE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BTW and NOT a second tier imperial or Edinburgh ).
Most of the 500 will be the rejects from their own country , be it canada, Singapore, malaysia, HK. You just refuse to acknowledge this point which is a fact - most of the internationals apply to "prestigious UK" uni because they can't get into the medical school in their own country.
FYI, from my JC, the 4 chaps who got into Cambridge really did get into NUS as well. 1 drop because no money. 1 decide not to do med all together eventually. both came back. One became a pediatrician and the other a urologist.

Lolz. you can just attack me with my "3rd tier" education. 3rd tier as it is, i ranked 3rd in the national exams at my exit. My beef is with their self imposed sense of superiority of these 2nd tier UK uni students who believe they are very good ( like yourself truly) . It isn't. Just face it.

bro u are literally agreeing with me. You are looking down on urself and your medical school unnecessarily. You have an inferiority complex ingrained. Don’t you think your uni at least contributed in part to you scoring 3rd in the exit exam? Do u really still think u aren’t the cream of the crop and that ur inferior even though u didn’t study in sg?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Argh, got posted to cgh im! FML!

Do start doing coc in aesthetics?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I was like you 3 years ago when I graduated med school in the UK.. took a leap of faith by taking a gap year to spend time with my rich Korean girlfriend back in her country. Now I am happily married to her and helping her to manage her parents multi million dollar mart business.

In the real world, no one cares whether you have a med degree or even a degree at all. Anything less than 10 million usd net worth in today’s worth is not considered rich. So chasing a medical edcuation and being a doctor is only a guaranteed path to being upper middle class, not upper class.

Private specialist making 1 mil or more per year will be guaranteed more than 10mil usd net worth even if they squander off everything they made pre-private practice.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Do start doing coc in aesthetics?

haha not necessarily. Imo even if u wanna do surg residency, makes sense to do one IM rotation to sort of get a feel for how things work

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Private specialist making 1 mil or more per year will be guaranteed more than 10mil usd net worth even if they squander off everything they made pre-private practice.

ofc la but this guy money literally fall from sky private specialist still need go to work

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Private specialist making 1 mil or more per year will be guaranteed more than 10mil usd net worth even if they squander off everything they made pre-private practice.

how long will you take to reach that level??? residency-AC-consultant-private practice.. the whole process takes at least 20 years before you can make that amount as a private spec.

And it depends on the speciality.. good luck trying to make 1 mil or more a year as a renal or infectious disease doc.

Just do aesthetics if you want money.. base salary starts at 200k an annum for fresh entry and increases rapidly to 400k an annum after 5-6 years.

the sky is the limit if you go solo prop or partner.. worst case I heard is someone making 600k an annum in a struggling aesthetics practice. best case is someone making upwards of 5 million a year in a multi-chain practice