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Are Foreign Talent Really Talent?

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Ugly Singaporean
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Are Foreign Talent Really Talent?

Post by Ugly Singaporean » Tue, 17 Aug 2010 7:01 pm

First and foremost, I would like to stress that this is not meant to be a racist/anti-foreigners/anti foreign talent entry. These are just my personal observations and I do not hate foreigners .... just some social observations.

My grandfather has been quite sick the past year and we have been in and out of a public hospital almost every month, sometimes a few consecutive days in a row.

I have to say that we have received the most gracious help ever from doctors and nurses alike, who went the extra mile to make our days, for both my grandfather and my family, better and less depressing. Many of them, despite working many many hours a day, still greet us with the biggest smile and offer the best advice and help whenever we need it.

However, there were some unpleasant experience too and there's a clear distinction between foreign and local hospital staff.

The observations are:

(1) All Singaporean doctors and nurses I have met are kind and helpful (I stress on the part "I have met" cos this is based on my own personal experience - I do not want people to say that I am stating that ALL Singaporean doctors and nurses are kind and helpful)

(2) Foreign nurses I have met are very kind and helpful too

(3) Foreign doctors I have met are rude, unprofessional and unbelievably proud .....

Experience :

(1) I had to take my grandfather to the toilet and it was wet. He was on a drip and very very weak. As I was afraid that he would fall, I turned around and find the only male staff around and politely asked him if he would help my grandfather into the Male toilet. The person looked at me with the most disgusted face and said," I'm a doctor."
I gave him a confused face and he retorted,"Find someone else. I'm a doctor." At that point, there were no other males around. What pissed me off was the look on his face, as though he thinks I am the lowiest creature on earth. He was a foreign doctor.

(2) Experience with another foreign doctor. My grandfather had to be hospitalised immediately and I tried to explain the situation to the foreign doctor. He misunderstood what I meant and scolded me. I tried to re-explain but he just retorted," I'm the doctor. I know what's going on." But of course he didnt have a single clue what was going on as he did not want to listen to me and just wanted to give my grandfather the treatment he thought was correct. In the end, I had to make so much noise and got the specialists to come down before he administered the wrong treatment on my grandfather. Of course his diagnosis was wrong. It was not rocket science. Even the nurses knew it was not correct because they bothered to listen to me. Well, he scolded the nurses too.

This totally shocked me as I shuddered at the fact that a doctor would simply brush a patient and his kin and their comments aside and just insist on a single diagnosis without bothering to listen to them properly. He was so unprofessional (in my opinion) and impatient and rude. Maybe this is what they do in his country but I strongly believe that Singapore does not tolerate this.

I understand that doctors and nurses work long hours and I salute them for their effort and hard work. But when it comes to our health, shouldnt we be given the correct attitude too?

We are definitely in need of doctors but shouldnt we get good and responsible ones when a life is at stake?

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Post by Strong Eagle » Tue, 17 Aug 2010 8:30 pm

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Post by ancientmariner » Tue, 17 Aug 2010 8:49 pm

To qualify to work as a doctor Singapore for a foreigner is not easy I guess, as we go through the info in GMC website. GMC only accept degrees from very few institutes in the world! So, guess, foreign doctors feel that they are some sort of upper class in the doctor community!! Like Australia, UK or some other countries, if Singapore has a system of qualifying exams for a foreigner to work as a doctor in Singapore, the system might improve as there will be lots of competition for the jobs! Competition for job ( or Chances of loosing job to another qualified one) will definitely improve their behaviour.
Nobody knows about future!

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Re: Are Foreign Talent Really Talent?

Post by nakatago » Tue, 17 Aug 2010 9:19 pm

apparently, two is a large enough sample...

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Post by Mad Scientist » Wed, 18 Aug 2010 4:46 am

Dude, although you said you are NOT racist blah blah.... The underlying fact is you are stereotyping a group of people

There is a Chinese saying ,it goes likes this, "If you like a person for one reason or another, even if there is shit in front of your eyes, you will say that guy has done no wrong. Vice versa if you hate the person, just a small fault on that person will cause an uproar.
Sounds familiar ???
The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.Yahoo !!!

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Post by JayCee » Wed, 18 Aug 2010 2:46 pm

You say foreign doctors are bad and give 2 examples.

You say Singaporean doctors are good yet give no examples.

Yeah, you don't sound biased at all :roll:

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Maybe it is just luck

Post by thismyvoice » Sat, 21 Aug 2010 12:46 am

I think this has nothing to do with Foreign Talent or Local Talent. From my experience - both are likely to give you SHIT. Nurses on the other hand, tends to be much nicer and more professional.

Experience 1 with FT doctor> My dad has Parkinson and is on medication. He once asked his doctor in TTSH whether he can take a certain supplement. The doctor did not even look at the supplement before answering no problem. It was only much later, after my father looked at the fine prints, before he realize that people with Parkinson should never take this supplement. It makes his condition worse.

Experience 2 with LT doctor> Grandmother has cancer and was not feeling well. A lot of bleeding. We sent her to A&E at SGH on a weekend. The doctor after examining her insist that the condition is normal for cancer patient and she should be discharged without any medication. He was dismissive and plain rude. After long argument and after we start calling up the ward where she was usually warded, they finally did a test and realize that she really needs to be warded. On Monday, we heard the specialist ask why he wasn't alerted of her condition immediately. Operation scheduled the very next day.

So you see, both are equally likely to give you shit. Unless you are elite, there are many doctors who will just treat you like an unwanted job. Doctors in public hospital are not paid according to how many patients they treat. They get paid a fixed salary and for whats its worth, they will rather you don't turn up. Those in private practice on the other hand will treat you like cows to be milked.

My neighbour's maid had a slight fever recently and she sent her to the neighborhood clinic with $80. This small clinic with 1 doctor and 1 nurse has a notice at the counter saying they need to pay GST. The doctor gave her a whole series of test and charge her $150. She has to call back to ask for more money. Local talent, this doctor.

I generalized. I am sure there are some good doctors who give free consultations to poor, orphans, etc. However, there are also many rotten apples and well, sometimes it is just luck.

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Post by revhappy » Sun, 22 Aug 2010 9:36 pm

Answering the question "Are foreign talent really talent?" ; Well, its relative right. Basic economics. Demand and supply.For a particular job if you dont have locals who can do it then you get a foreigner who can do it. Whether they are talent or not, they are filling a gap and doing the job and hence they are talent. If they were not doing their job they wouldnt last here long.It depends on how you define talent.

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Post by ksl » Mon, 23 Aug 2010 3:42 am

Even monkeys have the capacity for achievement and probably better than some academics, when it comes to practical skills :lol:

Only the odd few specialist doctors, with worldly experience, maybe talented even then I would want to know what they are doing and for what reason.

If one is able to research you can often prove you have the same talent, a process of elimination is nearly always used in many trades, experience and lots of it counts, No one is perfect and to have trust in western doctors or Asian doctors is a little naive, they push medications not cures along with pharmacies and recently in UK the NHS doctors have been ordered not to issue prescriptions for natural medicines on the NHS.

I have just suffered drug induced lupus at the hands of a specialist, and if my medical file had been monitored correctly it would never have happened.

It was only my own research online of the drugs i was taking, and the monitoring of my liver enzymes that triggered my suspicion, that the specialist wasn't doing his job.

I stopped all medication as this problem had been going on for 18 months and each attack was getting worse, i thought it may have been alcohol, but it wasn't, I new it was the medication after i ruled out alcohol but which one, it was difficult to find as 4 of the medications could cause it. Having consulted another allergy specialist, he was adamant that i didn't have lupus until the blood test came back positive, only then he was surprised yet made no comment on the over dosing of blood pressure medicine. Lupus can actual kill especially heart patients due to the inflammation of the heart, so its ironic that a heart specialist isn't monitoring for these side effects.

The lupus was so bad I phoned the heart specialist and told him i was quitting all his prescribed medicine, until i found which one was causing the problems....Today it looks like I was right and the specialist was totally indifferent. I certainly question the amount of medication that i have been prescribed and wonder if there is any financial incentive to push so much medication here in Singapore.

I never trust doctors, bankers, pilots or drivers, has i know that my life will always be in jeopardy, so my sense of awareness of the realities of life turn to amber when confronted with these talents. they can all destroy me and i would rather be in control of my own destiny.

Many medication have got to be the most harmful substances on any human body, as there are very few cures, and lots of side effects.

What is talent at the end of the day? Many would say them with the biggest pay packet, I would say not true at all, many talented people never use their talents, they just take the money for something they should be giving, but that means work :wink: .

Food for thought not to be taken so seriously, but i see ignorance all to often, even on the forum, when some people will say ask your doctor, as if the doctor has a crystal ball or should know more about a subject, that they have never studied.

When one should be doing far much more research into one's own health so you know if you have a good doctor or not! Colour and race doesn't come into it!
Last edited by ksl on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by BigSis » Mon, 23 Aug 2010 9:42 am

You post this, your only post on this site and then you just leave it and don't seem to return. What's the point of doing that, are you just trying to stir up trouble? I know it's only been a few days but most people, if they really did want an answer to their question would come back the following day and see what had been said about it.

You also call yourself Ugly Singaporean - why? What's the point in branding yourself?

But OK I'll bite - did you also ask a Singaporean doctor to help take your grandad to the toilet? If not, then how do you know how he or she would have reacted? I used to work in a hospital and I know that doctors are notoriously bad for not wanting to get their hands dirty - they'll operate, they'll chop bits off and sew bits up, but they don't want to be wiping bums, which they consider a nurses job.

Perhaps what you should be asking is why there were no nurses available to help you with your grandfather at the time. I think I'd be more concerned about that really.

But if it helps, I've met snooty and nice Singaporean doctors and foreign ones - there's no difference, they're either snooty or they're not and they would probably be the same if they were lawyers, architects or cleaners - it's in the genes not the job.


BTW I hope he gets better soon.

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Post by poodlek » Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:30 pm

It's funny that everything boils down to race or foreign/local here. Where I come from an a**hole is an a**hole, no matter the colour of his skin. Also, whether he is an a**hole or not has no bearing whatsoever on his talent in his profession. There are some really nice people out there who are completely incompetent.

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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:45 pm

=D>
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Post by SGBoyxxx » Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:56 pm

giving a fair reply here ,

yes "some" of them are not talents

BUT "some" of them are real talents and can teach fellow singaporean new things while we also can exchange ideas with one another

learn from one another which is good.

just like the locals , are all locals real talents? Nah.
Some of them just good with their mouth but don;t know how to work and solve problems .Some of them even holding Nus/Ntu degree, masters or PHD yet somemore they seem can;t do problem solving.

whereas some are indeed local talents.

well I am a pure singaporean here just giving a fair view of this.

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Post by morenangpinay » Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:20 pm

this FT issue keeps coming up everywhere even in unrelated events like the Miss Universe! where Miss Philippines won 4th runner up :) anyway WTF i look in yahoo news and i see Singaporeans complaining bout FT...In YOG and the food poisoning issues they manage to correlate everything with foreign talents. :roll: we need more new scripts

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Post by nakatago » Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:24 pm

morenangpinay wrote:this FT issue keeps coming up everywhere even in unrelated events like the Miss Universe! where Miss Philippines won 4th runner up :) anyway WTF i look in yahoo news and i see Singaporeans complaining bout FT...In YOG and the food poisoning issues they manage to correlate everything with foreign talents. :roll: we need more new scripts
flogging a dead horse...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLni3wbndls
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