Non-specialist doctors who join medical groups as general practitioners earn a starting pay of $10k/mth, with a 13th-month bonus thrown in. In other words, these salaried medical professionals make $130k/yr fresh out of training.
This is according to an article in yesterday’s Straits Times, which highlighted the trend of young doctors joining medical groups instead of starting their own private clinics.
Starting a solo practice requires $150k or so, said a doctor who’s with a medical group. And the income may or may not be better.
“… a highly successful solo practitioner can earn ($20k/mth) or more, but a less successful one may make $8k to $9k or less, said (another doctor).”
See also our 2007 articles on Doctors’ pay and Income of GP Doctors.
76 Comments
Luckily we have a lot of dedicated doctors in Singapore who want to help the poor and needy instead of going private.
The money is good but u lose the chance to serve the poor and need in polyclinics and hospitals.
I agree with happydoc. I myself work in a polyclinic as a Locum. The satisfaction that comes with helping the less fortunate Singaporeans with the same level of care and concern , seeing the smile in their faces makes me want to continue.
doctors deserve every cent they make.
i’d pay top dollar for a doctor to keep me healthy. and also for pilots, to ensure that I get to my destination safely.
it’s finance professionals and investment bankers that utterly do not deserve their ridiculous pay packages, since the more they get paid, the worse the economy becomes.
what about ministers? 🙂
lawyers still make more.
Does it matter that lawyers make more?
Doctors are happy helping patients get better and this gratitude is something that money cant buy.
By the way, starting pay for law is 1/2 that of starting pay of medicine.
dentists defintely make more than doctors, sometimes even more than surgeons. the irony is that most dentists are medicine rejects and yet they earn more.
Cause we study medicine not for money
That’s why you are a medicine reject.
The interviewer must have sensed that you value money more anything else.
I have seen doctors waiving consultation fees but I have not seen any dentists do the same.
Similarly, surgeons stayrup all night to do surgery but I have not heard of any dentist doing the same.
You cant take your money to the grave and being a doctor is definitely more meaningful than being a dentist or a lawyer.
law students start at 5k, more so at foreign firms. i believe med HO start at 2.4k, MO1 around 3?
The article above applies to overseas medicine graduates.
Local grads need to serve a 5 year bond in public hospitals, where they draw $2k during houseman year and $4k+ when they complete it.
There’s little news value in the above story as these medical groups are just paying them to work there and do what they’d be doing as GPs if they set up their own clinic. Obviously they can’t offer less, and most of them MOs have not enough for the start-up capital after slogging as MOs in public hospital and being “freed” from their bond at 32, so it’s not a shabby deal.
Law grads do not start at $5k as a median. That is a lie. Please don’t state outliers to bolster your cause.
Medical graduates from Malaysia get $6k to work in Singapore.
http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/15mkb/Article/
They get 10k if they decide to go private.
Top law student get 8.5k but the average is 3k
http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/Office/Story/A1Story20090420-136251.html
Wow, you guys are right up there trading blows. Money is nice but not the colossus of needs. Make it meaningful gentlemen. That’s the bottonline. Whatever you do a lot more comes with necessary society responsibility. I don’t understand what the worlds become
to Hoho: it’s a fact.
Mwongky: yup, doctoring is definitely more meaningful. but we ARE on salary.sg and not meaningoflife.sg and hence we ARE gonna compare salaries.
cheers.
Your figures are not updated
Starting pay is $6000 for Malaysia medical graduates to work in Singapore.
This includes housing allowance since they have to relocate to Singapore.
The Malaysian Chinese are the best junior doctors since they can speak English, Malay and either Mandarin or Cantonese.
They have great work ethics since they managed to get into Malaysian Medical School despite the odds and unfriendly admission policy.
I have worked with a lot of them and they certainly deserve the higher starting pay 🙂
http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/15mkb/Article/
how much do dentists earn?
NUS Dental Surgery – 100.0% ($3,176)
http://www.transitioning.org/2010/04/07/graduate-employment-survey-2009-published-2010-salary-sg/
It is relatively high compared to the other graduates from NUS, NTU, SMU.
Top 100 jobs puts the doctors pay at $10K; doesnt seem to reconcile.
http://www.salary.sg/2010/top-100-jobs-in-singapore-2010/
if both are true (i’m not saying they are), a possible explanation is that the 10k young doctors are earning now are above the average that solo doctors are pulling in.
but whether it’s a medical group or solo practice, your customers stay the same, revenue stays the same, so upside potential of salary is always limited.
very simple lah
young doctors work longer hours (nights and weekends)
older doctors got family and work shorter hours
Unlike most professions, we are fair in paying doctors for the number of hours they work instead of seniority based. At least this is how the GP market works.
The more you work, the more you get paid 🙂
Specialists are also paid by number of patients they see and the number of procedures they do.
Their incomes usually drop when they become older as they see less patients and do less procedures.
http://shih.blogspot.com/2010/03/singapore-law-firms-hike-salaries.html
see above link re: starting salaries for lawyers
hoho and FT’s information and figures are also correct.
please read the article properly. the annual package is just frontloaded. have you heard of frontloading? year-end bonuses are just disbursed as part of the monthly salaries, giving the illusion of a higher salary (monthly). this is the same reason many confused and clueless people think certain sectors or kinds of companies pay better than others, but actually annually, the pay is the same or worse than the annual packages offered by companies that give out many months of bonuses (eg Keppel).
this is why when people talk about, compare or list their expected and current salaries, only ANNUAL figures are used unless you’re a N level clerk who has no idea what I’m talking about.
so i don’t understand why you think you make more..
in any case, all of you still make less than the person “satisfied” who makes $180k a year in his 20s.
Well I’m drawing usd 180000 excluding bonuses and allowances.. But I do realise I’m an outlier. In an international law firm, pays well but you gotta work your ass off
Are you based here and how old are you? My boss is drawing >S$1 million.
Am 27.. Yea based here
wow thats good pay. you are outlier so whats the average for the peasants?
I have many lawyer friends in the local firms who say that lawyers in the foreign firms are paid a lot because they’ll never make partner there and hence their salaries are frontloaded because their career ends more or less there. So they stay in the local firms in the hope of making partner.
Can you tell us more about that?
that may be an overgeneralisation. its generally true that its harder to make partner in an int’l firm cos you’re competing for the partnership pool on a global level. and u can make partner earlier in local firms – 6 years vs 8 years ++ in int’l firms. and local partners of big firms i believe draw very generous salaries – comparable to their int’l partner counterparts if not better. on that note there are plenty of singaporean partners in int’l firms here, so def. not true that you will never make partner. just have a look at the directories of the top int’l firms here and u will see that it’s not true.
“peasants”? most sg lawyers here work for the big 4 or the large firms, and it’s an easy stepping stone to int’l work as big 4 are quite well regarded. so many singaporean lawyers in int’l firms here, hong kong, london and dubai drawing good salaries who r there cos of their experience in local firms.
salaries aren’t terrible either. starts at abt 5.5k pm, and then increases by abt 1k pm per year. now you are right in saying that the revised payscale may be frontloading, but consider that the annual bonus used to be about 6-9 mths, so it wasn’t bad even pre-frontloading.
but yes, it’s not all about the $$$, you have to understand that joining big 4 or int’l firms means you work like a dawg!
$5.5k frontloaded, pre-frontloaded $3plus K with 6 months..lawyers make the same as farmer military officers freshly graduated from local universities.
The whole frontloading thing reinforces the belief that people should only discuss annual packages when discussing offers and benchmarks. Monthly salaries are however good for fooling the public in news stories.
Your salary seems to be higher than the person quoted in the papers. why weren’t you interviewed instead? btw we’re the same age and I’m Singaporean too. 🙂
How come u posting all this on
“Fresh Gps make $10K”?
Anyway 5.5k is still less than $10K for new doctors:)
That’s why thousands apply to NUS medical school to become doctors who have the highest starting salary in Singapore.
sgdoc, I thought I already addressed and ‘exposed’ this. This ST story is no different from the other article about the lawyer’s starting salary which is frontloaded.
Please read my post #10.
“The article above applies to ONLY OVERSEAS medicine graduates.
Local grads need to serve a 5 year bond in public hospitals, where they draw $2k during houseman year and $4k+ when they complete it.
There’s little news value in the above story as these medical groups are just paying them to work there and do what they’d be doing as GPs if they set up their own clinic. Obviously they can’t offer less, and most of them MOs have not enough for the start-up capital after slogging as MOs in public hospital and being “freed” from their bond at 32, so it’s not a shabby deal.”
Since you hint that you’re from NUS and could not in fact, study overseas, it means what I said above applies to you.
Only $130k per annum..so little..Doctors can only earn at 32 what most people I know earn at 25/26. So sad..
to law 345 :thanks for sharing, your experience will be very helpful to alot of people who are thinking of becoming lawyers.
law 345,
In other words, what was said previously by hoho and FT are correct.
1) You are an outlier among lawyers.
2) Local firms’ monthly pay is frontloaded with the bonuses disbursed and distributed as monthly so the monthly “salary” appears higher
3) Foreign firms lawyers have a slimmer chance of making partner, which explains why many lawyers choose option 2 despite the lower salary.
4) Let’s talk annual. Lawyers, not outliers make $5.5k no bonus and $3k with 6 months, as mentioned, yes the same as local grad officers in the uniformed services. actually i think the latter get about $4.5k before about 3 month bonus.
I am very sure that ‘satisfied’ is an outlier in his job as well like law345. ‘satisfied’ care to tell us more?
I think S$160k – $200k at 25-28 is very good pay for such young age. You guys who are drawing this, don’t take it for granted even though it’s common. I do have many friends who make $100k to $120k right out of graduation and by 27/28 $180k to $200k. More $$$ would be down the road for these outliers.
You are so ignorant
https://share.nus.edu.sg/registrar/info/ug/UGTuitionCurrent.pdf
local students are given 88k a year to study medicine for 5 years.
Total they get is 440k which means every month they get 7k+ since their bond is 5 years.
Starting pay for mo(local) = 10.5k
It will be more if u consider interest and time value of money.
Docs are still the cream of the cream!
I’m an outlier when benchmarked against the work I do because well,..there are people doing the same thing that are drawing about 80-100% less. However, it’s the norm when benchmarked against people with the same qualifications from the elite universities in my line of work.
I won’t talk about my sector I am in or what I do as it’s slightly sensitive work.
sgdoc, I can name at least a handful of people who earn more than doctors – traders, admin service officers, management consultants and middle office risk management analysts. I have plenty of friends and acquaintances in high-paying jobs who graduated from top universities from my secondary school/JC days so trust me, I know.
The website you posted is meaningless, because none of the proclaimed $$$ went into your bank account. Any university can claim an attached worth to their tuition which is supposedly “subsidized”. You received neither the cash allowances/salaries or a fully funded education that bonded Singapore scholars receive.
Basically, you paid your fees, were told it was “subsidized” by $X based on a proclaimed $Y, and were paid to serve a bond. 🙂
sgdoc was saying that with his tongue in his cheek. it’s a pity that “satisfied” couldn’t pick that out especially when he/she is an “outlier” with many similarly outlier friends.
http://www.physician.mohh.com.sg/PEG/index.html
This $80,000 is real for students who studied overseas.
If Singapore doctors are not valued, I dont know which profession is.
so to summarise starting salaries for all you JC students out there:
1. Lawyers: “$5.5k frontloaded, pre-frontloaded $3plus K with 6 months bonus”
2. Doctors: “$2k during houseman year and $4k+ when they complete it” +”5 year BOND” usually 2-3months bonus
3. Dentists: “$3176″ +”4 year BOND”
Hi Summary
I think it is 9k for houseman and 11k for mo
Pls dont mislead jc students.
Bond is worth 7k a month
For Malaysian houseman,
It is 6K with 3 months bonus
For Singaporeans from overseas medical schools,
it is $2K for houseman and $4k for MOs with 40k sign on bonus for 3 yrs bond and 80k sign on bonus for 4 years bond
hi sgdoc, your joke’s getting a bit stale. just stop it already. yes you are disgrunted with the medical bond, everyone knows it, it’s boring.
if smart students can’t tell the truth from falsehoods in online discussions, they deserve to be poor paid doctors in singapore.
i meant “poorly paid doctors” doctors, though “poor paid doctors” makes sense too.
“Only $130k per annum..so little..Doctors can only earn at 32 what most people I know earn at 25/26. So sad..”
so sad indeed.
summary/hoho, your numbers are wrong for local firms. Unless you work for small firms, 3k is not market at all.
1st yr law – frontload 5.5, prefrontload 4.5
2nd yr law – frontload 6.3, prefrontload 5.2
3rd yr law – frontload 7, prefrontload 5.8
4th yr law – frontload 8, prefrontload 6.5
5th yr law – frontload 9.5, prefrontload 7.5
6th yr law – frontload 11, prefrontload 8.5
And u shd be a junior partner after 6th yr drawing about 300k pa. Making equity is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, should be about 5 years or so if u do the right stuff, then you can make millions.
Also a large number of lawyers will jump to int’l firms 3rd year and after or to inhouse positions paying abt 10-12k?
Also, for those naysayers saying that this is only frontloading, note that this is a response to the local legal market opening up to foreign firms. Local firms have been bleeding lawyers to foreign firms, so the salary hike is a way to dissuade their talent from leaving the flock. but they know that people aren’t dumb. if this is really only frontloading, then people will still leave for greener pastures. I suggest we wait till bonus announcements this year (this is the first year of the hike). Yes I know the managing partners came out to say this is frontloading but really I suspect they’re just trying to moderate expectations and then spring on a bigger number if financials allow. Also psychologically people will be pleasantly surprised (if bonuses are more than expected) and they can milk it for goodwill and morale
hoho – note that a lot of lawyers go to well paid associate jobs in int’l firms and then after about the 6th year switch back to become partners at local firms. so what have they lost in terms of opportunity costs really? they make partner the same time in the local firm as the ones who stayed on.
satisfied – why would I want to advertise my salary in the papers? salaries are like penises – if you have an above market size enjoy it privately please. No one else benefits from knowing.
also, if you really want the big bucks go manage a hedge fund, private equity fund, or private… tuition. ahaha
if i were a singaporean dr who had been educated in the UK/Australia, i will not waste my time working in singapore where the conditions are so aw tak!!
at least in australia/nz i will be better appreciated by my patients and administators and my working conditions are much better than those of my colleagues in singapore.
coming back to work in the health care system here is just a total waste of your time – so don’t ever fantasize about it
Not sure abt gp.
A Sr consultant earns 330k per annum. Ortho surgeon.
@jyep:
is that inclusive of surgical fees and other allowances? or just base salary?
Question: How much do psychiatrists (hospital or private consultants) typcically make in Singapore? S$500k annually possible?
And what about child psychiatrists? What do they charge in private practice? Their annual income in singapore? Is there a demandshortage of them?
Thanks.
Doctors basic pay sucks compared individuals with the same A level grades doing something else, period.
When it is time for pay freeze, doctors are counted as public servants. When it is time for bonus, we are conveniently grouped under MOHH ( private) and told bonuses are for ” eligible ” individuals. WHat does that mean?
My non-medical peers can afford a car, house and investments comfortably. That to me is just a dream to be achieved.
I don’t blame doctors for going private in this climate. For the non-believers, let your children become doctors. I’m sure they’ll tell you more. Training is shit and pay is low. And when you do get training completed, it is not recognised because it is shit.
I for sure am not letting my kid become a doctor here. In 20 years’ time, it would only make him become an aesthetic physician or a drug-peddling doctor. The exodus will be greater when more young doctors cannot make sense of why they are doing what they do without recognition. A select few would get to do what they aimed for, the rest would just make a living.