Medical degree from MOH-approved Indian Uni not recognised!

last SG · 2007-10-13T15:20:58+00:00

So, will the government now do an audit of the staff working in the hospitals to make sure the doctors are from MOH approved universities? If not, does it m...

gerald_tan SG

Health Ministry withdraws India's Kasturba Medical College from list
Date : 29 September 2007 1833 hrs (SST)
The Health Ministry has decided to withdraw India's Kasturba Medical College from its list of approved foreign universities.

The College was one of the universities that was included after the Ministry expanded the list of recognised Foreign Medical Schools.

However the Singapore Medical Council was informed by Medical Council of India on Tuesday evening that it had written to the Indian Central Government on 17th September, to recommend withdrawal of recognition of the MBBS degree from Kasturba Medical College. -CNA/vm

Are foreign medical degree holders 'safe'?
Letter from Cheng Shoong Tat

I READ with concern reports that the Ministry of Health (MOH) has withdrawn recognition of the medical degree from an Indian medical school, only after being informed by the Indian authorities that they intend to stop recognising the degree.
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The MOH has assured Singaporeans that only top foreign medical degrees will be recognised here. How then could a "top" Indian medical school be denied recognition in its own country, shortly after being recognised in Singapore?
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Has the MOH done enough to verify the recruitment, teaching, assessment and quality control of the foreign medical degrees it recognises, so as to ensure that doctors with such qualifications practising in Singapore are "safe" and reliable?
Letter from Cheng Shoong Tat

I READ with concern reports that the Ministry of Health (MOH) has withdrawn recognition of the medical degree from an Indian medical school, only after being informed by the Indian authorities that they intend to stop recognising the degree.
.
The MOH has assured Singaporeans that only top foreign medical degrees will be recognised here. How then could a "top" Indian medical school be denied recognition in its own country, shortly after being recognised in Singapore?
.
Has the MOH done enough to verify the recruitment, teaching, assessment and quality control of the foreign medical degrees it recognises, so as to ensure that doctors with such qualifications practising in Singapore are "safe" and reliable?

Obviously something is seriously wrong with the college for the council to withdraw the degree. It is the same as if SMC were to say "NUS doctors are no longer qualified to work in Singapore".

And yet the MOH has recognised these doctors, who won't even be allowed to work back home in India.

I guess this shows how much effort and independent study SMC has put into expanding the list of universities from 20+ to 100+, and what their priorities are regarding quality vs quantity.

Yet another consequence of our Health Minister's efforts to blindly drive down healthcare costs regardless of how it affects the patients.

Darkness_hacker99 SG

No wonder afew days ago I checked the website, it only show 19 new Uni added to the list.

gerald_tan SG

More reassuring news in the Statesman (an Indian newspaper)

Singapore says yes to Indian doctors
Press Trust of India

NEW DELHI, Oct. 2: Doctors and nurses from 29 Indian medical colleges and nursing institutes will be able to work in Singapore without any examination, under the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement between India and the South East Asian economic powerhouse.
The government has identified nine medical colleges and 20 nursing institutes to be recognised by Singapore authorities.
Doctors and nurses will be able to go and work in Singapore without any tests, commerce secretary Mr GK Pillai said.
He said Singapore has agreed to extend this facility to India under CECA which has been in implementation for the last two years and covers investment, trade in services and merchandise goods.

FireIce SG

i know of ppl who failed to make it into local med fac, so go overseas study medicine. come back and were welcomed with open arms.

charlize SG

Maybe they throw darts onto a list to choose which ones are recognised?

Maybe? Laughing

4getmenot SG

maybe they do it while blindfolded to add to the amusement? Mr. Green

mhcampboy SG

to add more amusements.... the ones throwing darts are kindergarten kids!? Mr. Green

Darkness_hacker99 SG

Neutral Neutral Neutral

pearlie27 SG

Someone would say that he was misled.

gerald_tan SG

Indian council itself dropped KMC from its med schools list
Friday October 5, 2007

Letter from Dr Lau Hong Choon
Executive Secretary, S'pore Medical Council and Ms Karen Tan
Director, Corporate Communications
Ministry of Health

Mr Cheng Shoong Tat asked: "Are foreign medical degree holders 'safe'?" (Oct 3), when he noted the withdrawal of our re- cognition of the medical degree from the Kasturba Medical College (KMC) of India.

The KMC is listed in many international directories of recognised medical schools and was consistently ranked among the top 10 Indian medical schools in annual surveys conducted by India Today.

However, when the Indian Medical Council recently withdrew its recognition of KMC, we felt it prudent to follow suit.

Translation:
India say OK, we follow.
India say not OK, we follow.
India say chop, we chop.

Might as well fire the people in SMC and MOH and outsource their jobs to India.

pooh_bear SG

Maybe should change the dart board to the health minister's face. Laughing

Othello_Red SG

Well, well. These kinda things are bound to happen. When there's a shortage, just pack bodies in. It's happening with medicine and its happening with law.

For law, previously it was a minimum of 2nd upper class honours from recognised UK and Aust unis. Now, its 2nd lower for unis from UK and 2nd upper for Aust unis. Soon, the Aust ones will follow suit.

But seriously, I feel that there's not going to be much of a point if you pack the people in and they don't stay.

oxford mushroom SG

yi fen qian, yi fen huo

If Singaporeans think $8 consultation fees at the polyclinic is too expensive and complain about having to wait to see a doctor, they are forcing the government to open the floodgates to cheaper foreign medical graduates.

Of course there must be a quality issue between a doctor trained in NUS for $40k a year and one from an unknown college in India. You want better quality, then you jolly well pay for it Rolling Eyes

rmyfrm SG

You know what's the difference between UK and AU law degree?

Practically every half assed law faculty in the UK is recognised as compared to Australia, where only the green light is given to the law schools of the top institutions, of which, only 6 of the 8 (or is it now 10) are worth mentioning - Melbourne, Monash, Sydney, UNSW, ANU and UWA (arguably). This is substantiated by the university rankings (Times/Newsweek etc.).

Half the UK law schools (uni) recognised by the Board of Legal Education don't even place in the top 100 - whereas every AU institution I have mentioned (I cannot confirm for UWA) is in the top 40.

In the UK, if you don't get at least 2nd lower, you really must have f**ked up your studies - it's just like with NUS law - everyone who passes gets at least a 2nd lower. However in Australia, 2nd upper class is only awarded to those belonging in the top 10-20/25th percentile. Let us also not forget that just like Medicine, Law is very selective in its intake - there are limited places catering for only the better students; competition is incredible.

With all due respect don't shoot your mouth without doing your research. As a law student you should know better than that.

As to why the BLE takes such a biased attitude towards AU LLBs - that's a matter of speculation and conspiracy theories; I've heard everything from MM Lee being fiercely defensive of his LLB, to that too many sub-quality poly/jc students go over.

In any case, it sure ruins the market for the SGporeans studying law here. No doubt there are a fair number of cases of SGporeans dropping out of law school because of the immense workload and pressure, but alot of them do graduate and eventually practice in AU/HK/UK/US for higher pay, but that is not the point - the point is, they have been driven out of their own country.

In any case, I'm straying off topic.

Hocklez SG

u going overseas for medical degree?

Othello_Red SG

Pray tell how I am shooting off my mouth here?

All I'm suggesting is that there seems to be a trend of relaxing the standards in order to meet the demand for that specific profession. I'm pointing out that it started with the UK unis and might very well follow with Australian unis because of the similarities of the legal systems and because of the sheer number of Singaporeans who go to such unis. Would it not make sense to try attracting your own citizens back?

Also, this current incident with the medical school seems to affirm this trend. It is fairly indicative of the amount of effort they devote to examining the quality of these schools. It isn't as clear with the legal profession possibly because Singapore isn't a litigious society, hence there isn't as great a need for lawyers as for doctors. But I'm purely speculating.

Besides, I'm already one of those sub-quality students reading law in a country where the workload is supposedly lesser and the pay is higher, relative to Singapore. Why would I care about trying to get myself into a place where the pay is low and the workload immense? I may not be as bright, but surely I can read the warning signs?

With the utmost respect, university rankings are controversial as I'm sure a person who's done his research like you would know. I'm afraid to disappoint, but only 1 of the Australian universities is in the top 40 according to the Newsweek rankings you cited while 4 from Australia made it into the top 40 according to Times Higher Education rankings or was it Time Magazine? Besides, the two can't agree on the rankings, with NUS for example being listed as 36th on the former and 19th on the latter.

But I'm sure you already knew all that.

gerald_tan SG

With regards to Othello's post above,

I do agree that it makes sense to attract your own citizens back, because (1)they are more likely to stay (2)they have the innate cultural, language etc. advantages as compared to foreigners.

Unfortunately, by also inviting non-Singaporeans to work here, you end up displacing not only (1)returning Singaporeans, but also (2)existing locally-graduated Singaporeans.

I have seen this phenomenon with my own eyes, both in the medical field (friends gone to Australia, UK and US), and legal profession (gone to HK). These are local NUS grads mind you.

For the simple reason that, as Otello pointed out, pay there is high and workload is low.

Not only are Singaporeans not stupid, the imported 'foreign talent' is also not stupid. Do you seriously think they plan to stay here for ever? Singapore is just a stepping stone on their eventual quest to get to UK and US.

At the end of the day, it is the free market in operation. You want to best, you have to be willing to pay for the best. If the Ministers can recognise that about their own pay, they should be willing to recognise that for other jobs.

Otherwise it will be an endless cycle of the best leaving for overseas, and constant dumbing down of standards in order to attract ever-less qualified and inexperienced graduates who merely treats Singapore as a stepping stone and Singaporeans as people to practice on.

Othello_Red SG

I do believe that some 'foreign talent' will stay, for a variety of reasons. However, it is an unfortunate truth or open secret that most of them do leave for 'greener pastures'.

When I was working in NUS, I saw first-hand the frustration of the staff there. My coolleagues and superiors told me that the govt actually does scouting trips to the neighbouring countries looking for talent. These students have everything paid for, as in literally everything. Tuition fees, accomodation, living expenses, even handphone bills. They have paid for tickets to return home after graduation and even paid for tickets when they return back to Singapore to work. They have preference in applying for jobs and can even go on to fully-paid for Masters and even PhD.

These people are very smart, and while they hold Singapore citizenship for the duration of their studies here, when they get accepted to places like Harvard, Yale and Oxbridge for their PhDs, they immediately give up Singapore citizenship for US or UK's. My colleague even asked once in frustration if it's possible to disallow the renunciation of the Singaporean citizenship.

It doesn't help that the govt seems to be ignoring this and at the same time driving it's own citizens away. My gf and mum were naturally saddened by my decision of wanting to settle down outside Singapore. They told me that I'll be treated as a 2nd-class citizen at best. My reply? I'd rather be a 2nd-class citizen elsewhere than a 2nd-class citizen in my own country. It's sad what's happening to the population now, but until the govt dares to openly admit that they've messed up, things are not going to change.

charlize SG

Haiz.

Life in Singapore is getting tougher and tougher for the local citizens. Laughing

gerald_tan SG

It's a simple fact.

The first time they give up their born-and-bred citizenship to take up Singapore citizenship is the hardest hurdle to overcome.

If they can do that, it is a simple matter for them to renounce Singaporean citizenship for the next better one that comes along.