Taipei, April 19 (CNA) A plan by Singapore's government to reduce the number of overseas medical schools it recognizes starting in January 2020 will leave National Taiwan University's (NTU) College of Medicine as Taiwan's only medical institution on the list.
Currently, holders with a degree from NTU's College of Medicine and Chang Gung University's College of Medicine in Taiwan are qualified to practice medicine in Singapore, along with degrees from 158 other medical schools around the world.
In a statement issued Thursday, Singapore's Ministry of Health announced that the "number of overseas medical schools with registrable basic medical qualifications will be reduced from 160 to 103," effective Jan. 1, 2020.
"To meet the changing health care needs of Singaporeans, and to ensure that the quality of overseas-trained doctors practicing in Singapore remains high, the list of registrable basic medical qualifications under the Medical Registration Act is reviewed from time to time," the statement read.
The revised list will include several schools from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the ministry said.
On Friday, Chang Gung University Vice President Chen Jan-kan told CNA that he felt his school may have been removed from the list partly because few of the physicians who have graduated from the school went to Singapore to practice medicine.
In the statement, Singapore's Ministry of Health said that due to the increase in locally trained medical graduates in recent years, it expected the "need to recruit overseas-trained doctors to moderate and stabilize in the coming years."
