Originally posted by oxford mushroom:
That is not true. There have always been plenty of applications for medicine and law, although the former was more popular. Both these faculties had to turn away high calibre students so that oher disciplines like engineering will not lack talent if all the top students end up lawyers and doctors.
The shortage of doctors in the public sector today is primarily due to the move of doctors (especially senior doctors) into the private sector. The pay differential is far too big between private and public hospitals. The government has foreseen the need for medical care in an aging population but a new situation has arisen. Healthcare is becoming a valuable commodity that can generate good revenue. After 9/11, the wealthy patients from the middle east now find it difficult to seek treatment in the west due to visa difficulties and the terrrorist concerns. They are looking to Singapore and other nations with well-developed medical systems for treatment. We must tap into this new stream of revenue.
With our senior local doctors treating these wealthy patients, we will need more doctors to cater to the local patients. Since the public do not want to pay more for doctors, we have to bring in cheaper doctors from India, bangladesh and China.
Open more places for local medical students is being done but that will not solve the problem of these local doctors leaving for the private sector the moment they have been trained. The private sector will be fine but there will always be a shortage in the public sector.
The government is right to bring in foreign doctors for the public sector. Since the expectations of Singaporeans cannot be moderated (they still want shorter waiting times despite paying $4 or $8 consultation at polyclinics), that's one solution.
Since there is a distribution problem, another solution is to force local doctors into the private sector by means testing. If you can afford it, you should go to private doctors. If you insist on seeing a doctor in the public hospital or polyclinic, you must be made to pay as much as what the private doctor is charging. If patients leave for the private sector, we will resolve this unequal distribution of doctors and the mismatch of demand.
My point is that our ministers have made big mistakes many times in the past resulting in distortions of supply of lawyers and doctors who are good to have to support the service industries but we need more strategic manpower plans to fuel further growths of our economy.
We need to encouragea new technology and practical knowledge applications in every field for new technology start-ups to take advantage of our strengths in petro-chemicals and bio-medical researches etc if we want to restructure or upgrade our economy to value-adding technology-driven model.
We are generally weak in manufacturing being over-dependent on external conditions without being up new value-adding technology applications.
It is precisely because our ministers are generally qualified in laws and general commerce and business administration and not savvy or informed of technology applications in many fields that we might have lost out to Korea and Finland in this regard.
We need technolgists of the calibre of Stanley Shih among our ministers in order to encourage and motivate people and industries to grow such value-adding products and services needed by the world.
So do not become too complacent as it is too early to say that our manpower plans are good or our ministers are world class as they lack the intricate knowledge in these wider areas and do not understand enough about technologies and technology applications.
Ultimately service industries are easier for many countries to go into and there will be too little meat in them. It is ultimately knowledge and technology applications which will produce value-adding services to enable us to compete in the globalized world.
So do not just keep harping on how successful is our planning for doctors or lawyers but think more strategically to produce larger number of engineers in different disciplines to drive the engines of growth.
Do we have ministers who are exposed to such wider disciplines or have the sharpness or shrewdness to understand our manpower needs in such diverse fields.