Debated in Parliament on 10 Sep 2012.
Assoc Prof Fatimah Lateef asked the Minister for Health (a) how frequently does the Singapore Medical Council run the qualifying examination for foreign medical graduates from medical schools that are not listed on the list of recognised schools for practice locally; and (b) on average, how many candidates take these examinations annually and what is the passing or qualifying rate.
The Minister of State for Health (Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan) (for the Minister for Health) : The Qualifying Examination (QE) was made available in 1999 as an examination for graduates from foreign non-recognised medical schools who sought medical registration with the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) to practise in Singapore. This is necessary to ensure that registered medical practitioners are competent and fit to practise medicine.
The qualifying examination is held once a year. Currently, only Singapore citizens with non-recognised degrees returning to practise in Singapore are eligible to apply and sit for the qualifying examination. For the past three years, an average of 10 candidates per year take the qualifying examination and the pass rate is around 17%, or five out of 30 candidates.
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I thank the Minister of State for the response. Can I just find out what will happen to a Singaporean student who has completed a medical degree overseas in a non-recognised university or medical school, and then returns, and because of the timing of the qualifying examination, has to wait at least for a period of one or one-and-a-half years before he can get employment or to be qualified to be recognised to practise in Singapore? What can we offer these graduates for that one to one-and-a-half year period because they are looking for something productive to do. I have seen quite a few of these cases.
I want to thank the Member for her question. Just to put this in context. Let me first note that the QE is only for the few Singaporeans who choose to study in the schools not listed in Schedule 2 of the Medical Registration Act (MRA) and who then return and appeal to practise here.
Most foreign-trained doctors who are employed in Singapore can be provisionally or conditionally registered without going through the QE as they have graduated from recognised foreign medical schools. In 2010 and 2011, for instance, the number of such doctors trained abroad who were provisionally and conditionally registered without having to sit for the QE was 403 and 454 respectively. This is in contrast to the five and 14 in the same two years that applied to sit for the QE.
The QE is actually the final MBBS examination that is taken by our final-year MBSS students and is conducted by the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine in NUS. It is a very labour-intensive examination requiring concurrently the efforts of many clinician examiners and is actually a stress to our hospital services. We understand that NUS presently does not have the resources to accommodate a large number of QE candidates with the increasing number of its own final-year medical students. We will monitor the number of applicants and ask SMC to work with NUS' Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine to shorten the waiting time by allowing more candidates in one sitting, as much as possible.
As regards these candidates who may have to wait – and the waiting time depends on the number of candidates who apply to sit for the QE as well as the number of places available; it can be up to two years but not necessarily so – I would also like to highlight that these candidates are not without recourse. They can take an SMC-recognised post-graduate examination, like the Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom (MRCP (UK)) or fellowship of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore. In fact, a number of doctors with these non-recognised basic medical degrees have been recognised by SMC for conditional registration through a pass in such exams. Again, we will get SMC to let the candidates know that they can take these post-graduate exams, like the MRCP (UK), if they are eligible to do so, and that will also allow the candidates to look for and attempt other options.
Mr Speaker : Assoc Prof Fatimah Lateef, last question.
A clarification, Sir. Post-graduate exams are only open to graduates who have at least completed a stipulated period of training. For these Singaporean students who are from unrecognised medical universities and have graduated, they will not be able to qualify to sit for any post-graduate exams because it requires a period of at least 24 to 30 months of training before they qualify. Thus, they are still in a fix.
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I would also like to clarify with the Member that it is true that in order to sit for the post-graduate exams, they will have to undergo some prescribed training. First, we really do not encourage Singaporeans to take degrees from non-recognised medical schools, and then come back here and appeal repeatedly to sit for the local QE exams. But having said that, in fact, we do encourage them to get attachment training either in other jurisdictions where they come from and then take the post-graduate exams, if they are able to, or to get temporary registration in Singapore if they can get employment here, and then take the post-graduate exams within a stipulated time-frame so that they can get conditionally registered.
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