How is life as a doctor in Singapore?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

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

Roughly how long down the road being a MO will one get the chance to be a RP? 🤔

Originally Posted by Unregistered

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

How hard is it to get internal medicine subspecialties in general in medicine in Singapore as a returning Aust medical graduate who’s a Singaporean? For example, like neurology, oncology and dermatology? Is a doctor who spends a reasonable amount of time as an MO able to have a decent chance in getting into one of these subspecialties. I’m considering my options in mind of planning my life after I finish my MBBS. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

How hard is it to get internal medicine subspecialties in general in medicine in Singapore as a returning Aust medical graduate who’s a Singaporean? For example, like neurology, oncology and dermatology? Is a doctor who spends a reasonable amount of time as an MO able to have a decent chance in getting into one of these subspecialties. I’m considering my options in mind of planning my life after I finish my MBBS. Thanks.

Internal med junior res = easy to moderate

For SR
Advanced internal med = easy to moderate
Dermatology = very very difficult
Oncology = moderate
Neurology = moderate

Originally Posted by Unregistered

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

What's the average lifespan of a mo? How long do people try after giving up?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What's the average lifespan of a mo? How long do people try after giving up?

An MO that lives to 26 years in 2019 can expect to live for another 60 - 65 years, reaching a mean life expectancy of 91 years.

This may be a conservative estimate as improvement in heathcare may enable him to cross 100 mark

Caveats include global warming, droughts, crop failures, new epidemics which can reduce expectancy markedly.

If such disaster occur perhaps a projected Total lifespan of 40-50 years is more accurate.

Is there a realistic chance of doctors becoming jobless in the next 5-10 years? (I guess eventually gps and rps jobs/market will also become saturated if we continue to produce 500 new doctor every year)

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Is there a realistic chance of doctors becoming jobless in the next 5-10 years? (I guess eventually gps and rps jobs/market will also become saturated if we continue to produce 500 new doctor every year)

Not so drastic but more of drop in income. It is a function of demand and supply.

Demand wise, Population is aging. So per head, there is higher healthcare consumption because people are living longer. But a lot of money goes to drug companies and insurance companies, not just to the doctors.

The drastic increase in supply shifts the supply curve to the rightwards, so the price will drop.
Reasons for increase in supply:

1) a lot more doctors nowadays
2) nurses and pharmacist can actually do some or most of doctor job
3) increasing use of technology.


So price will drop and doctor income will fall. Already we are seeing it.
The reduction in income will spur less students to study mbbs or md.

I personally dont think it is an economical decision to spend $400k to study medicine.
Since income likely to stagnate.

This is not necessarily a bad thing for society as a whole due to cheaper doctor labour with the slight excess manpower capacity. But there is one caveat. With the reduction in income, some doctors may overtreat and monetise the smaller pool of patients.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not so drastic but more of drop in income. It is a function of demand and supply.

Demand wise, Population is aging. So per head, there is higher healthcare consumption because people are living longer. But a lot of money goes to drug companies and insurance companies, not just to the doctors.

The drastic increase in supply shifts the supply curve to the rightwards, so the price will drop.
Reasons for increase in supply:

1) a lot more doctors nowadays
2) nurses and pharmacist can actually do some or most of doctor job
3) increasing use of technology.


So price will drop and doctor income will fall. Already we are seeing it.
The reduction in income will spur less students to study mbbs or md.

I personally dont think it is an economical decision to spend $400k to study medicine.
Since income likely to stagnate.

This is not necessarily a bad thing for society as a whole due to cheaper doctor labour with the slight excess manpower capacity. But there is one caveat. With the reduction in income, some doctors may overtreat and monetise the smaller pool of patients.

So the caveat here is just try to stay away from Primary Care where other healthcare professionals can do to certain extents and try to find a niche field eg Cardiology where there is still a high demand albeit short supply of Doctors fulfilling that role. Remember, Doctors aren’t all the same, you can’t group all Doctors into one group, it also depends on the demographic of society, if there’s a lot of elderly people, then you would expect the demand of cardiologist and ophthalmologists to increase as the elderly tend to develop chronic illnesses like high blood pressure and glaucoma. The list just doesn’t end there, I can even say Orthopedic surgeons are in a good spot, since 60% of elderly experience Osteoarthritis one way or the other and require some form of joint replacement. I would say Doctors instead aren’t in a bad spot as it has always been, although I agree it isn’t as good as it once was, but then again when there were only 300 graduates a year, the population was 800 thousand to 1 million less than it was today. We can expect the number to grow exponentially seeing as the government is targeting 6.9 million population.

If we mirror ourselves to Australia, all the major population centres, Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne, discounting the more rural cities like Perth with very low comparative population. Each city produces 500+ Domestic graduates every year, and yet they are still in need of Doctors. I think 500 as it stands is not as bad as people claim it is, unless we open another medical school, we shouldn’t be too worried about the current medical landscape as we speak. It’s difficult to envision medicine becoming an inferior course in Singapore which is the case in China where there were reports of many students generally placing medicine as their backup option if they didn’t get into engineering school.

The US has pushed other healthcare professions to fill the gap of Doctors by creating roles such as Physician assistant which essentially is just a Primary Care Doctor operating under guidance of a MD. The Salary of Doctors there are still very competitive even when we look at Primary Care Physicians there. Unless we open the gates, and decrease the standards of training to be able to churn out as many Doctors as we can, which is a fools move considering that Doctors deal with people’s lives and we cannot afford to put people who aren’t serious and capable into such a position of responsibility, it’s hard to see the field of medicine to slip from its place in our society today. Therefore, I think it’s an overgeneralization and I would say fear mongering think that the prospect of Doctors is all doom and gloom.

kk hospital doctors and nurses were just missing the mark for me. absolute disaster. and you chaps are here talking about salaries and promotions and what not. Crap!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Is there a realistic chance of doctors becoming jobless in the next 5-10 years? (I guess eventually gps and rps jobs/market will also become saturated if we continue to produce 500 new doctor every year)

Doctors income will definitely drop in the next 5-10 years due to CECA doctors. And less positions across all specialties for Singaporean doctors. You can thank the government for that.