The quota for intake into NUS Medicine is kept extremely low every year, making it notoriously difficult for local students to get into Medicine (every year *thousands* of students with straight As apply for the limited 200+ places), so much so that every year thousands of Singaporean students have to spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars (per student) to study Medicine overseas (the fact that they suceeded qualifying into and graduating from foreign Medical schools implies that at least most of these Singaporeans do have the competence to practice medicine but were denied the opportunity locally), while at the same time the government declares Singapore is (and have been, for many years) suffering a severe shortage of doctors, and are urgently inviting thousands of foreign talent doctors into Singapore every year to practice medicine here.
The following is a letter from Kojak, a concerned Singaporean who has repeatedly and tirelessly voiced his concerns regarding Singaporean matters of all kinds, to the authorities throughout the years.
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from BT Kojak ([email protected])
to [email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected]
date Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 12:44 AM
subject Concerns over the qualifications of foreign doctors practising in Singapore
mailed-by gmail.com
To:
Board of Directors
Singapore Medical Council
Singapore
Dear Sir(s),
I'm a member of the public. I would like to draw your attention to the article published on Temasek Review:
http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/06/04/lee-wei-ling-27-percent-of-docs-at-nni-are-indians/
It has triggered much discussions among netizens with regard to the quality of foreign doctors who are now being employed in large numbers in our public hospitals and polyclinics. There are fears that some of these foreign doctors may be entering Singapore with fake degrees.
Following is a report in India of a CNN-IBN investigation showing that many doctors working in Delhi’s top hospitals don’t even hold real medical degrees:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mci-fallout-doctors-with-fake-medical-degrees/115384-3.html?from=tn
Also, CNN-IBN has reported high level of corruption inside the Medical Council of India (MCI) involving its Chairman last year. MCI is supposed to ensure that medical colleges in India offer quality education and the doctors they produce are not below par. However, many medical institutes were given accreditation by MCI in exchange for money. MCI together with the some of the medical colleges were also involved in selling study places to students who wanted to take up medicine:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cbi-unravels-web-of-mci-corruption/114075-3.html
Such news does not give much confidence to the Singaporean public that the foreign doctors in our public hospitals and polyclinics are trustworthy. Already, at polyclinics or hospitals, some Singaporean patients are rejecting seeing foreign doctors and requesting to see Singaporean doctors instead. Also, read this about a NSF's parents also questioning the quality of the foreign doctor who was going to operate on their son:
http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/0...-questionable-overseas-ft-doctors-to-operate/
I would like to stress that if we have even 1 single case of a foreign doctor with fake degree granted a licence to practise in Singapore by SMC, later resulting in the death of any Singaporean patients, the public will surely be very angry with SMC and will not hesitate to hold SMC responsible for such deaths. How can the SMC assure the public that the foreign doctors are carefully vetted by SMC before granting licence to them? How can the SMC guarantee the public that no foreign doctors with fake degrees will be allowed to practise in Singapore?
On a different note, I'm not sure if the Singapore medical education is under the purview of SMC but many netizens are also wondering why Singapore didn't train more doctors previously. If our universities have trained more doctors locally in the past, we won't be scrambling to get more foreign doctors now.
Appreciate if you can answer.
Yours sincerely,
Kojakbt
The following is a letter from Kojak, a concerned Singaporean who has repeatedly and tirelessly voiced his concerns regarding Singaporean matters of all kinds, to the authorities throughout the years.
-----------------------------------------------------------
from BT Kojak ([email protected])
to [email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected]
date Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 12:44 AM
subject Concerns over the qualifications of foreign doctors practising in Singapore
mailed-by gmail.com
To:
Board of Directors
Singapore Medical Council
Singapore
Dear Sir(s),
I'm a member of the public. I would like to draw your attention to the article published on Temasek Review:
http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/06/04/lee-wei-ling-27-percent-of-docs-at-nni-are-indians/
It has triggered much discussions among netizens with regard to the quality of foreign doctors who are now being employed in large numbers in our public hospitals and polyclinics. There are fears that some of these foreign doctors may be entering Singapore with fake degrees.
Following is a report in India of a CNN-IBN investigation showing that many doctors working in Delhi’s top hospitals don’t even hold real medical degrees:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mci-fallout-doctors-with-fake-medical-degrees/115384-3.html?from=tn
Also, CNN-IBN has reported high level of corruption inside the Medical Council of India (MCI) involving its Chairman last year. MCI is supposed to ensure that medical colleges in India offer quality education and the doctors they produce are not below par. However, many medical institutes were given accreditation by MCI in exchange for money. MCI together with the some of the medical colleges were also involved in selling study places to students who wanted to take up medicine:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cbi-unravels-web-of-mci-corruption/114075-3.html
Such news does not give much confidence to the Singaporean public that the foreign doctors in our public hospitals and polyclinics are trustworthy. Already, at polyclinics or hospitals, some Singaporean patients are rejecting seeing foreign doctors and requesting to see Singaporean doctors instead. Also, read this about a NSF's parents also questioning the quality of the foreign doctor who was going to operate on their son:
http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/0...-questionable-overseas-ft-doctors-to-operate/
I would like to stress that if we have even 1 single case of a foreign doctor with fake degree granted a licence to practise in Singapore by SMC, later resulting in the death of any Singaporean patients, the public will surely be very angry with SMC and will not hesitate to hold SMC responsible for such deaths. How can the SMC assure the public that the foreign doctors are carefully vetted by SMC before granting licence to them? How can the SMC guarantee the public that no foreign doctors with fake degrees will be allowed to practise in Singapore?
On a different note, I'm not sure if the Singapore medical education is under the purview of SMC but many netizens are also wondering why Singapore didn't train more doctors previously. If our universities have trained more doctors locally in the past, we won't be scrambling to get more foreign doctors now.
Appreciate if you can answer.
Yours sincerely,
Kojakbt
