How is life as a doctor in Singapore?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Half call $110 weekday $160 weekend
Full call $220 weekday $315 weekend
Rounds on weekend and PH no extra money, but can claim mileage or grab
Oncall on PH gets one day off in lieu or 1 day basic salary extra in addition to call rate ... About $200-$220

Wow thanks for the information. Weekend calls seems quite good. 500 a day

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Wow thanks for the information. Weekend calls seems quite good. 500 a day

U only get $500 if it is PH like cny, xmas...

Originally Posted by Unregistered

U only get $500 if it is PH like cny, xmas...

how about a night float is that considered half call? 3 half calls a month so only around 350 extra every month?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

how about a night float is that considered half call? 3 half calls a month so only around 350 extra every month?

night float is like 5 nights consecutive. so 5*110 = 550

Originally Posted by Unregistered

In Singapore outpatient consult is out of pocket. Outpatient clinic insurance are very limited. A GP charges $50, a derm charges $300. who would you go to for simple cases of eczema or contact dermatitis.

The issue is that most patients are not medically trained, so they don't know what they don't know. Dr. Google can only help so much.

A derm can advise on possible occupational/environmental/dietary factors contributing to the allergic contact dermatitis and how to avoid these triggers, or recalcitrant eczema that should be worked up to rule out mycosis fungoides.

Many common skin conditions are fairly straightforward and a GP should be able to manage. But the medical advice that they will receive from the GP will be limited too. Patients may also require a few extra visits and trials of different medications before finding the right one that works, thereby negating the immediate cost savings through the loss of time and impact on quality of life. Essentially, "you get what you pay for".

Anyone has a rough breakdown of the ratio of GP to Specialists? It seems like most of the posts here are directed towards GP.

Any other forums that are more targeted towards foreign specialists who are looking to relocate to SG? Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Anyone has a rough breakdown of the ratio of GP to Specialists? It seems like most of the posts here are directed towards GP.

Any other forums that are more targeted towards foreign specialists who are looking to relocate to SG? Thanks in advance.

Dont have. Nowadays we have too much specialists in Singapore.
U see in UK it takes about 9 years to train a specialist.
FY1, FY2, CT1, CT2, ST3, ST4, ST5, ST6, ST7.

Ever since we switched to american residency in 2009 it takes about 5years, max 6 years fresh out of medical schools. On paper this is great, because it is faster to train one. If the population did increase at a rate from 2005 to 2010, american system does prevent shortage of specialist.

However, due to electoral pressure in 2011, the population immigration was kept slow.
This causes fundamental imbalance between specialist growth and patient growth.
ten years on, we have plenty of specialists. Finding jobs for the locals is hard enough.

Due to electoral pressure, govt needs to ensure the local specialists have jobs before hiring additional foreigners which will add to the manpower excess.

To solve this problem of manpower excess, we are switching back to a semi uk system will slow down the throughput of specialist production. Let them do compulsory 1 year hoship before they can apply for residency.

Furthermore it is thought that specialist care can be expensive, and more emphasis is placed on primary care to reduce downstream complications and sequelae, hence the recent drive for primary care.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Dont have. Nowadays we have too much specialists in Singapore.
U see in UK it takes about 9 years to train a specialist.
FY1, FY2, CT1, CT2, ST3, ST4, ST5, ST6, ST7.

Ever since we switched to american residency in 2009 it takes about 5years, max 6 years fresh out of medical schools. On paper this is great, because it is faster to train one. If the population did increase at a rate from 2005 to 2010, american system does prevent shortage of specialist.

However, due to electoral pressure in 2011, the population immigration was kept slow.
This causes fundamental imbalance between specialist growth and patient growth.
ten years on, we have plenty of specialists. Finding jobs for the locals is hard enough.

Due to electoral pressure, govt needs to ensure the local specialists have jobs before hiring additional foreigners which will add to the manpower excess.

To solve this problem of manpower excess, we are switching back to a semi uk system will slow down the throughput of specialist production. Let them do compulsory 1 year hoship before they can apply for residency.

Furthermore it is thought that specialist care can be expensive, and more emphasis is placed on primary care to reduce downstream complications and sequelae, hence the recent drive for primary care.

Good to know. Thanks for the analysis!

Returning Aust medical student here, planning to come back to Singapore due to the Australia internship crisis and possibility of getting stuck in a rural placement. How hard is it to get into competitive residencies for example Cardiology in Singapore? I’m a singaporean. Is it possible to get stuck in the hospital as an MO for 10 years++ having no sign of getting in? Is it that competitive? Is there any explicit (or implicit) priority towards local grads even though both perform equally well in hospital rotations? I hope to come back to Singapore and specialise in a field I’m interested in in future.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Returning Aust medical student here, planning to come back to Singapore due to the Australia internship crisis and possibility of getting stuck in a rural placement. How hard is it to get into competitive residencies for example Cardiology in Singapore? I’m a singaporean. Is it possible to get stuck in the hospital as an MO for 10 years++ having no sign of getting in? Is it that competitive? Is there any explicit (or implicit) priority towards local grads even though both perform equally well in hospital rotations? I hope to come back to Singapore and specialise in a field I’m interested in in future.

No. Usually people give up after a while. They see the light, went on to primary care.
Or decided that a worklife balance more impt as an RP. Some go into aesthetics, some go into admin, some do into tech.

Cardio is seriously popular. Each yr many exiting residents from internal medicine junior residency compete for the cardio spots. Some make it, most dont. Most gave up and go for other specs.

Those that secured a cardio spots may however find themselves out of a job at end of cardio SR. Must wait for a few years or get some FTE from research.

You are competing with 300 from nus, 150 from ntu, 80 from nus duke, 250 from returning aussie, 150 returning from uk. All or mostly singaporeans in your batch. So being singaporean citizen is no biggie