I READ Miss Samantha Yeo's letter last Friday, 'Unfair to subsidise overseas medical students', with dismay. The generalisation that foreign medical graduates are potentially inferior to locally trained doctors is presumptive and unsubstantiated.

I am a third-year medical student at the University of Oxford, and I assure Miss Yeo that the course, as in Singapore, is most rigorous, and the highest standards are expected at all times. Furthermore, the following should be highlighted:

- Ensuring which schools are competent in educating their students is the prerogative of the Singapore Medical Council. The council publishes a list of recognised basic medical qualifications, easily accessed via its website. If Miss Yeo is suggesting that there are foreign-trained doctors practising in Singapore whose clinical aptitude is wanting, then this is worrying, and the council should be alerted.

- There has been a recognised need for more doctors in Singapore and it would be good if suitably qualified citizens returned to live, work and contribute. Consequently, it would not be unreasonable for the Government to subsidise overseas medical education, provided those who receive such subsidies have similar obligations to serve bonds, as their counterparts at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

For 'quality control' purposes, such subsidies should be limited to medical schools recognised by the Singapore Medical Council. I have often seen an unverified figure of $450,000 for an unsubsidised five-year medical course at NUS. This figure is similar to the cost of the full six years at my university.

No education, including medical, can be defined just by the qualification obtained. A foreign education affords me refreshing and diverse perspectives on Singapore, as well as other countries. It would be insular to focus on potential inadequacies of an education abroad. Rather, to be open to different opportunities and viewpoints would enrich the clinical landscape. Not to do so would only mire us in the status quo.

Jen Wei Ying (Miss)

This article was first published in The Straits Times.