Debated in Parliament on 10 Jul 2018.
Assoc Prof Fatimah Lateef asked ask the Minister for Health (a) whether there will be a review of the current specialist training under the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME); (b) whether the Ministry is ready to customise and evolve the specialist training programme to suit our specific needs; and (c) how will the specialist training programme be aligned with the call to have more generic specialists to meet our population's needs.
The current Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) International (ACGME-I) accredited medical postgraduate training system was introduced in Singapore in 2010 to bring about a more systematic and consistent training for medical specialists. Compared to the former apprenticeship training method, the system provides trainee doctors, who are called "residents", better defined training objectives and competencies, more structured curriculum and regular formative assessments.
In 2014, the Ministry of Health (MOH) reviewed the training model and concluded that it was meeting our overall objectives. The review also identified areas for improvement, one of which was to contextualise the model to better suit our specific needs.
MOH has been working on the recommended improvements and contextualisation. For example, to better prepare our medical specialists for our ageing population, we are providing our specialists with broader competencies for more holistic care delivery. From next year, doctors will start their specialist training after completing a generic postgraduate year one (PGY1) training. A mandatory geriatric medicine modular training programme has also been instituted as part of residency training for all non-Internal Medicine residents.
We will continue to engage and take in the inputs of our stakeholders, including our healthcare institutions, medical community and ACGME-I, and make refinements to our training framework to better meet local needs.
PAPERCUTS