How is life as a doctor in Singapore?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

U become their slave lo
Seconded to a sector and goes around clinic to fill spots until maybe a bit of credentials then let us try anchor a clinic.
10.8k is their sign on for 45 hours a week. Annual about 130k.
Lunch time not counted hor.
Must have weekend and night shift

Don't even think about bonus.
14 days of leave a year. I think they add on 2 days every 3 years of service or something till max 21 days
Sat leave is full day unless take 1 week leave.

Can sponsor u do gdfm or gd om. Comes with bond. If u gung ho m.med also can.

Anchor come with anchor stress. U get wonderful email highlighting your prescribing patterns with suggestion on how to prescribe to improve bottom line.
Don't hit target out you go. The CEO want upgrade bunglow give u target to hit u better hit, don't hit out you go.

Raffles good if u no primary care exp, go there learn ropes for few years. If u can get rp ship with polyclinic actually salary same with overall better benefits. Just that pat load higher in day time but every evening u are home

Aiya. Struggle in public few years and become specialist la. After that song song .

Is it difficult to get a job from them or any private chain?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

not sure what's your background, but you prolly haven't worked in many different settings before.
one of the privileges of having rotated through many specialist departments, is seeing how specialists manage stuff.
everything outside of their domain, they will just shoot off a referral letter to someone else.

patient tells cardiologist about skin problem > refer derm
patient tells ortho about AR symptoms > refer ENT
patient tells gastro about headache > refer neuro
patient tells gynae about asthma > refer respi

everybody is referring all over the place. hence the need for generalists.

Just a word of caution for those gung ho generalists/FP.

Be self aware. The cardiologist ortho gastro and gynae will not help you when you screw up managing one of thei cases or missed something. They will say why didnt you refer to me earlier.?

I am pro FP and believe there is a lot of benefit to society to have a strong FP fraternity
But must also see SG culture what do patients want also? Many sg patients prefer see specialists. Sure those got many different discipline problem might be happy with FP.
Just be careful. From experience FP love to talk up very big how they can manage everything but even FP themselves have different interests and expertis and LIMITS!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

u resident from which year, selling koyo to who?

Decant care to community ? Hahah, other than cardio and renal which is overworked, no one ever decant to OPS. Respi keep their very well asthma/copd patient, RHI keep their quiescent RA. Ortho keep their OA knee. Psy keep their well depression. Gastro keep their stable hep B / IBS/ gastritis. Geri keep their well aged. Everyone need to hit their numbers.
Ops doctors keep their well controlled HTN /HLD to ourselves also . Really farm out to APN/ CM all the time meh?

trust me when i tell u that when u start working after ur m.med and u need to see more than 45 patient a day, u dun have energy to be the super generalist GP. You can of course try as i did and nearly break down till i see the light.

Like what someone say, IM, FM , we all refer everywhere.
I also want to manage my patient all the way, but the system neither rewards nor permits me. I'm judged by the number of patient i see a day.

25 year old china national with 3 days dyspesia comes in for scopes as they always do. You want spend the next 15 minutes reassuring her she don't need it ( and eventually she still wants it ) or u ask her which hospital, write patient VERY keen for scope on referral, give her some omperazole , MC and send her on her way? What explore her ICE, explain the science, pls la, survival mode liao.

countless other examples.

Generalist? my foot. The people in MOH are dreaming when they give us 10 minutes per patient and expect us to manage. Oh but NOT ALL YOUR CASES are complex what. Dude, its not the complexity. Its the sheer amount of things we have to care take of. Skin dry, tongue pain, backside itchy and latest common complain, a bit breathless after my covid jab 6 months ago. Somehow the specialist only need to focus on 1 thing but the FP has to take care of ALL the things.
YOU COME AND DO 1 DAY OF MY JOB AND THEN TALK.

anyway, every man for himself
dun get too romanticsed by whatever koyo pple selling you.
u want hear my advice, dun touch FM. Be any chao specialist in hospital at least patient respect u a bit more.

I hear you. Thinking that as a generalist can manage everything is dangerous.

If you work in a big country in a rural area sure generalist is very practical and valuable.

In a metropolitan city with many tertiary hospitals and specialists? Not so much.

FP in my opinion is best suited for rural medicine practices. Same FPs typically also staff the local ERs. FPs also assist specialists when they come in to do surgeries.

But for city cased FP work it is different. And realy no worth it trying to work like the rural FP.

Might be worthwhile looking into an area of interest for FP. Eg mental health, occupational med, addiction med, sports med.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

you prolly are fairly junior...

for FM - after MMed you are still FP. base pay of $10k but there's still sign on bonus and several months of bonus each month.
you become AC 3 years after MMed (so essentially you reach AC one year slower than an AIM AC: 3 years basic IM and 2 years AIM).

private chains paying 13-14k/month depending on hours - this is literally the base rate and maybe some give 13th month AWS. it will still work out to be less than an AC/C from a PHI with several months of bonuses.
some idiots also quote you 13-14k/month including employer CPF contribution of $1020. so don't be fooled by what is quoted outside.

if you open your FP clinic, the sky is the limit. it's not that difficult, but you burn your hours and nights getting it up and running.
IM senior con - yeah perhaps you could open your private gen med clinic if you have the right connections.

in hospital, almost everyone becomes a C eventually unless you leave for private practice.
in FM, not everyone becomes a C so easily. you have to put in quite a bit of work.
so most of the FP consultants are actually high flyers, clinic directors, and so on..

So conclusion,
- private chain gp pay around same as ops assuming one has mmed and progress to become AC?
- IM earns more than fm, unless fm opens own clinic or set up asthestics chain?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

but we need to quickly up the game of FPs to manage the ageing population.
it's not glamorous, and we live with the reputation that people think that FPs are stupid / rejects. but it's still a pretty darn important job that deserves every bit of respect and renumeration as other specialties.

Not a FP but I would agree with this. In countries like in Canada and Australia where FM physicians are considered specialists, FM residency is much harder to get into than certain specialties like psychiatry or non-procedural IM. To provide some context in Australia where I went to medical school, the RACGP exit exams have a 50-60% failure rate.

But those countries also pay their FM physicians much higher than us, so its not a true apples to apples comparison.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not a FP but I would agree with this. In countries like in Canada and Australia where FM physicians are considered specialists, FM residency is much harder to get into than certain specialties like psychiatry or non-procedural IM. To provide some context in Australia where I went to medical school, the RACGP exit exams have a 50-60% failure rate.

But those countries also pay their FM physicians much higher than us, so its not a true apples to apples comparison.

huh? Since when is it hard to get into GP training in Australia? No one fails to get into GP training eventually, its just how rural u are willingly to go.
It has only become relatively harder compared to previous years due to medical student tsunami, but worldwide, FM training has always been the easiest to get into relative to other specialties. psy and pathology hold fascination for some people only, do it only if u want to do it.

Dun kid yourself.

Also, since when is failure rate 50-60%?
s://1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/racgp/kfp-2020-2-public-exam-report-now-available
81% pass on their first try.

Sg side, except for 2020 exam which was markly different due to Covid, passing rate for each exam is usually 50% of the people who made it to the clinicals. Thats about 40% of the cohort fyi. Its a high stake exam for most of us as the salary doubles after that.

FM is always the poorer cousin to the medical specialties. Don't kid yourself that FM in canada or australia or UK do a lot.

Salary more? I dun think so lei. Remember, in australia, GP are self employed. They usually do shared billing at 60-70% and need to work quite hard to make 200K before tax. While an equivalent FP in singapore employed in what is essentially an iron rice bowl job with insurance, CME, annual leave etc all accounted for makes a bit more after the lower tax in Sg.

so, again dont kid yourself.

I would beg to differ.

I thnk GP/FM salary good. Now community recovery facility recruiting many juniors doctors and paying higher then specialist.

Not sure of the relevance of IM as a specialty since there are already so many specialists around

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So conclusion,
- private chain gp pay around same as ops assuming one has mmed and progress to become AC?
- IM earns more than fm, unless fm opens own clinic or set up asthestics chain?

IM earn more then FM?

Since when? I think IM prob pays the worse in Singapore as a Doctor?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

you sound jaded. you from singhealth?

Can explain why so many nurses and doctors have quit. Already seeing a HCW crisis

With this pandemic, do u think more people want to be doctors or less?