Should I apply for NUS Medicine?

Taken from a Brightsparks forum on NUS Medicine, copied and pasted here.

Just in case anyone is wondering, I will just mention briefly about disruption from national service. Guys who are offered admission into the School of Medicine are given official disruption from the Singapore Armed Forces. Most of the guys are disrupted officially on 1 July every year after the admission results come out.

In the past, the criteria for disruption used to be that you needed to be combat fit and passed BMT. But nowadays the rule is quite lax and in the past few years there were complete 100% disruptions. In case anyone is wondering, the reason why they disrupt you is cos they want you to serve in a professional capacity as a medical doctor in the Singapore Armed Forces. As you know they do lack doctors in the SAF. So after graduate from medical school, you serve a year of housemanship then you are drafted back to the SAF in 2 batches. The better your results, the earlier you are drafted. You will then go through a 4 months gruelling Medical Officer Cadet Course in Nee Soon Camp before you are commissioned as a Captain(DR). You will then serve the rest of your NS liabilities as an SAF doctor in any of its services.

You could however choose not to go ahead with disruption (yes the choice is yours), and complete your NS liabilities before entering medical school 2 years later than your peers. But very few, if any at all, actually do this. Your NS liabilities actually run concurrently with your Ministry of Health bond. In other words, while serving NS, you are actually serving your bond.

Undergraduate tuition fees for medical school is about $18100 for people enrolling in the 2009/2010 academic year, and is expected to rise to about $18900 the year after. There is much financial aid (administered by the Dean's Office) available for needy medical students, so you don't have to worry about not being to afford the hefty school fees.

Next, a short part about scholarships. To my knowledge there are a couple of scholarships that are avaliable for medical school, for those who are interested or eligible.

1) President's scholarship. Nothing to say really.

2) PSC Local Merit Scholarship (Open) Medicine. Competition is needless to say even more intense than medical school itself, only about 5 are awarded each year. After graduating, you may choose a professional medical career, or join the Management Associates Programme (MAP). (Note from Vanessa: Actually, if you look at the statistics in past years, it's more like 1 or 2 - the competition is extremely intense.)

3) ASTAR has a NSS (MBBS-PhD) scholarship. Basically you are given a scholarship to study an MBBS (in UK) followed by a PhD in a UK approved university. After you graduate finally with a PhD, you are expected to serve in an A*Star research institute. You have to apply and be accepted into NUS Medicine (and then reject it) to be eligible for this scholarship. Basically I think mainly females will be interested in this, as guys cannot be disrupted from NS for this scholarship. Keep in mind this scholarship is primarily for clinician scientists.

4) SAF Local Medicine Scholarship. Return to SAF as an SAF doctor, enough said. If you are seriously considering this, you could PM me and i can provide you with more information!

5) NUS Scholarships.