SINGAPORE: Starting 2020, the list of overseas medical schools whose graduates can practise in Singapore will shrink from 160 to 103.
This comes after the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) reviewed the overseas medical schools with registrable basic medical qualifications, it said in a joint press release with the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday (Apr 18).
Advertisement The changes come as the need to recruit overseas-trained doctors abates, with total annual intakes from local medical schools rising from 300 in 2010 to about 500 in 2018.
"The impact of the increase in local medical school intake will be fully realised from 2023, when these students graduate," said MOH and SMC.
Factors like international and national rankings of overseas universities and performance of conditionally registered doctors from these universities were taken into consideration.
Universities that will be excluded come from 20 countries, including Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, China and India.
Advertisement Advertisement Some of the schools that have been cut include The Flinders University of South Australia's School of Medicine, the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Medicine.
Singaporean and Permanent Resident students who have secured places in medical programmes from schools that are no longer on the list or who are studying in the dropped schools before Jan 1, 2020 will not be affected by the change.
They will still be considered for medical registration with the SMC, provided they fulfil the prevailing requirements, which are subject to an offer of employment with a healthcare institution approved by the council upon graduation.
The council said that the list will continue to be reviewed regularly, to meet the evolving needs of Singapore's healthcare system and ensure the quality of overseas-trained doctors in Singapore.
The revised list can be found in full on the council's website.
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