A joke and an insult

No offence to chinny hor, use as generic example only.

I refer to this article: http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20100416-210789.html

In summary, the government is going to tempt people like Jameson and I (overseas Singapore med students) to return to Singapore to work in the public healthcare system. The health minister announced a month or two ago that MOH is mulling some kind of pre-employment grant (note they do not use the term scholarship) to entice us back. Hastily, they came up with something that seems great to the layman but fails to impress anyone in the profession, just like they did with the new residency program.

The article starts with:

To woo them back, the Government is looking to offer them up to $50,000 a year while they are still in university, to cover about 60 per cent of their fees in the last two years of their course.

I interpret that to mean: $50k or 60%, whichever is lower, and only for the last two years. Take my case for example at today's school fees and exchange rate, that equates to $31k a year or $62k total. For that, they want me to serve a minimum of 4 years, it is unclear if the intern year (or postgraduate year 1) is included.

Now lets consider what the government is doing with the local med students, namely YLLSOM and Duke-NUS.

YLLSOM:
According to NUS, tuition fee this year is $107k, of which $88k is paid by the government so Chinny pays $19k and change. Discounting annual inflation, the government pays each YLLSOM student $440k over the course of his/her studies. For that, Chinny has to serve 5 years in addition to a year of housemanship (i.e. internship). Source: https://share.nus.edu.sg/registrar/info/ug/UGTuitionCurrent.pdf

I could not find the full tuition fee for Duke-NUS so I shall use Duke University Medical School's fees for argument's sake, hopefully it is comparable. Duke's fees this year is USD46k or SGD64k (which begs the question, why is NUS so darn expensive?! Harvard is SGD57k, Hopkins is SGD42k, Edingburgh is SGD57k). Duke-NUS charges $35k so the government is topping up $29k per student per year or $116k for the whole program, again discounting inflation. For that, the student serves 4 years in addition to a year of internship. Sources: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/items/04081 http://www.duke-nus.edu.sg/web/admission_fees.htm

To quantify our government's love for medical students/noob doctors with pink ICs, I shall use the Money Invested to Length of Service Demanded ratio. A higher ratio implies that the candidate is able fulfill his/her worth (to the government) in a shorter period of time, hence he/she is more competent and efficient.

University of New South Wales (me): $15.5k/yr
YLLSOM: $73.3k/yr
Duke-NUS: $23.2k/yr

Wow, so I am 20% as competent as Chinny and 65% as efficient as a Duke-NUS guy. Granted I did not get into the former (DOH!) and do not qualify for the latter but UNSW can't be that bad; after all, MOE has all the primary school kids doing our math/sci/english tests.

It gets better:

Writing in his blog, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said that the 'pre-employment grant' (PEG) would be based on merit and offered to students of top schools overseas.

bla bla bla

the grant target Singaporeans in top medical schools recognised by the Singapore Medical Council, such as Harvard Medical School, Imperial College and the University of Melbourne

Firstly, I seriously doubt any Singaporean went to Harvard. For the few that went to Imperial, I doubt they'll want to return to Singapore for $92k (which is how much this PEG will pay them) unless they are fanatics who want to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality, so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation. After Melbourne changed its medicine program from undergrad MBBS to postgrad MD, Singaporeans stopped going. The earning potential in UK or AU or anywhere else in the developed world totally owns Singapore. A Singapore Houseman (intern) makes ~SGD2.7k while an Australian intern makes ~AUD5.5k, specialist wages vary too much even within the same country so it would not be a fair indication of median pay. Anyway I doubt the foreign talents MOH dug from India and Philippine graduated from Harvard, Imperial or Melbourne.

As an interesting contrast, the 3 year officer contract with the Army (essentially 2yr on top of NS) pays $10k sign-on bonus, $6k combatant bonus, $6k end-of-contract bonus and ~$10k total difference between NSF 2LT and REG 2LT during the second year of service (discounting pay difference as a REG OCT). Their worth turns out to be ~$16k/yr, and they only need to pass A level/diploma as opposed to graduate from a 'top medical school(s) recognized by the Singapore Medical Council'. Source: http://www.mindef.gov.sg/arc/officers.asp

I'm not done yet.

As we ramp up local training and reduce the shortage, the scheme may hopefully become redundant

This is why they call it a pre-employment grant instead of scholarship, it is just a stopgap measure to get all the people they rejected to go back, there is no bright future ahead like there is for any typical scholar. Call me a sour grape but the government did not help me get my licence to practice so I have no legal or moral obligations to return and serve. If you say MOE provided me a good primary/secondary/jc education to study medicine in uni, I refer you to this blog post: http://angrydr.blogspot.com/2010/04/elite-bashing.html Hopefully, as they ramp up local training, less Singaporeans will need to go overseas. The statement goes to show that the government couldn't care less about our welfare, the whole point of the scheme is to plug the doctor shortage. When NTU medical school starts churning out doctors to fulfill Singapore's needs, there will still be Singaporeans who can't make it to local medical schools and head abroad, by then they will be considered 'redundant'.

Statement of the century:

We are still working out details to develop a package that will be both cost-effective and attractive to top talent.

Wow, what I want pales in comparison:
I need a double cheeseburger and hold the lettuce
Don't be frontin' son no seeds on the bun
We be up in this drive thru
Order for two
I gots a craving for a number nine like my shoe
We need some chicken up in here
In this hizzle
For rizzle my mizzle
Extra salt on the frizzle
Dr. Pepper my brother
Another for your mother
Double double super size
And don't forget the fries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhlUVyDBusg
All that and a figure like Keira Knightley's.

And for the cherry on top:

Singaporean medical students who qualify for the PEG also have the new residency programme to look forward to, as it presents an additional opportunity for specialty training

Yea, I don't really look forward to the unaccredited and overcrowded residency program, Chinny do you?