QUALITY OF TRAINING AT OVERSEAS MEDICAL SCHOOLS DROPPED FROM APPROVED LIST

Non-Constituency Member of Parliament 
Assoc Prof Daniel Goh Pei Siong

To ask the Minister for Health (a) what are the concerns with the quality of training at the 57 overseas medical schools that are to be dropped from the current list of 160 approved schools; (b) how are these concerns measured and determined; and (c) whether Singaporean students currently studying at these schools or doctors who have graduated from these schools should be concerned with the quality of their training.

Answer

With the addition of Duke-NUS Medical School1 in 2005 and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in 2013, the annual intake of medical students across the three medical schools in Singapore grew from about 300 in 2010 to 502 in 2018. With more doctors being trained locally, we can moderate the number of approved overseas medical schools. The Singapore Medical Council's (SMC) Schools Review Committee took into consideration various factors including the academic standing and reputation of the schools, reflected by international and national rankings, as well as the performance of our doctors from these universities and how well they adapt to our system when they return to work in our healthcare institutions. 

Overall, the SMC chose to retain schools with higher international and national rankings and where SMC's data indicates that doctors who graduated from the schools had performed satisfactorily and had fewer challenges adapting to the local practising environment. Singaporean students currently studying at, or who will be commencing their medical study before 1 January 2020, and doctors who have graduated from the affected schools will not be affected by this change. 

All doctors who graduate from overseas schools will be orientated to the local working environment, and they will be assigned a supervisor to ensure that they are able to adapt well. MOH and SMC reviews the list regularly based on the evolving needs of Singapore's healthcare system. 

For example, SMC had reduced the number of approved medical schools in 1993 and had increased the number of approved medical schools between 2003 and 2007, to cater to the changing needs of our healthcare system.