Singhealth Seduction

Perhaps its just me, or did anyone else feel seduced to join SingHealth?

Here's the story:

Friday evening 6pm. The Singapore Monash Mob trudges wearily into Lecture Theatre 3 of Unimelb, wet, cold and hungry. Then suddenly, a video of spanking new hospitals (INCENTIVE 1), handsome young doctors(INCENTIVE 2a)and pretty nurses (INCENTIVE 2b), flashes on and we're treated to eye candy for the next 20 mins.

Learnt some interesting stuff, like doctors who train in a popular speciality get S$1000 ripped off their already miserly paycheck, and doctors who train in an unpopular speciality get an extra S$1000 (which brings their paycheck 1mm closer to being 'decent').

Starting pay of HOs wasn't new to me, only God knows why I kept staring at the S$3000 figure, instead of looking at the Consultant's pay! Apparently its 10+k for a consultant, which VERY LUCIDLY explains why doctors flock to private practice! Yes, yes. Medicine isn't all about $$$. But after going through 5 years of medical school, and another 6-10 years of speciality training where you work 30-50 hr shifts and get paid pittance, $10k is just not sufficient compensation. Its like buying our youth at flea-market prices. And all this discussion if for people who actually GET TO SPECIALISE.

What about the HAVE NOTS? Well, they probably get to enjoy the sweetness of paying back their study loans over a far longer period:

NUS med school fees: S$17.5k/annum.
X5 = S$87.5k

1 year salary as a HO: S$36k
1 year salary as a MO: approx S$54k.

How long will a doc take to repay his/her loans? You do the math. Oh, and by the way, a foreign trained doctor has loans of up to S$500k.

In view of all this, what with the rush to go back? My Chem teacher was wrong when she said that metallic bonding was the strongest of all. I've come to realise that family ties were far stronger.

Nobel Prize, anyone?