Doctors selling snake oil

Are our doctors selling snake oil? What is happening to this honourable profession when every doctor is the creme ala creme of each cohort of students? It is so difficult to be admitted into the Medicine Faculty even with a string of straigtht As. Why are they resorting to selling snake oil? Maybe money not enough. Ok, raise their fees and make sure they make millions. Or they can join politics too. That will ensure a decent living instead of peddling snake oil. Our straight As students must be allowed to earn millions. That is the expectation. After all the course fee for a medical degree is not cheap. What is sad and embarrassing is that our top brains are looking at money more than ethics and patients' safety. Reading medicine is to save lives and treat illnesses. Not the other way round, practising trades that may cause harm instead.

Back peddling - Never in our history

I am not sure whether to place this issue in the sign of decline or progess column. What we have been seeing recently are back peddling of decisions, and getting more frequent. The latest is the NTU change of mind about putting 3 students into one bunk. Never in our history has back peddling been an issue. All decisions made are carefully thought out before implementing. Some were tough but necessary decisions. It was always go and no U turn. The recent phenomenon can be seen in three ways. One, decisions are not well thought through and implemented hastily. Two, decision makers do not have the gumptions to stay the course. Three, decision makers are flexible, have their ears on the ground and willing to listen to the people and make changes to accommodate the people. Given the quality of our super talents, it is too presumptuous to think think that they cannot think out solutions and came up with half baked decisions that need to go back to the drawing board. And knowing how thorough was the selection process, these must be men and women of steel and would not falter just because their solutions or decisions met with resistance or objections. It is likely the third reason. The decision makers are now more responsive to the people's unhappiness and are willing to listen and act accordingly.

My biggest mistake

That was what Abdullah said about underestimating the internet. 'We thought the newspapers and television were suppoosed to be important, but young people were looking st SMSes and blogs.' Abdullah forgot to add that he thought with all the control and skewed reporting in the official media people will lap them up and believe them. He underestimated the intelligence of the people. The people are like sesame seed, given up reading the official mouth pieces. If sesame seed is an indication of what the younger readers are like, the msm is losing ground and a grip on them. While Abdullah has turned on the charm offensive to win the bloggers in cyberspace instead of clamping down on them, what would happen to paradise when the next GE comes? Perhaps they will be stomping away confidently and happily.

High business cost is good

There was a time when there were calls for reducing business cost to stay competitive and relevant I think that was an old broken record and had been thrown away. Today, high cost means high quality, value for money. So high cost is good. High rental, high wages, high communication and transportation cost, high food and services costs, high education and medical cost etc. This is what a great first world city is all about. The higher we charge, the more people will flock here. Why are the hotels worrying that their rates are getting too high and tourists may not be able to afford them? Would medical tourists also go somewhere? Would the high spending shopping tourists go as well? Foreign students, foreign workers, businesses, would they stay and keep coming? What happens when one day we work up and all the factories are gone, hotels empty, hospital beds under utilised, shops without tourists, hawkers unable to pay for food court rentals? Never. It will not happen to us.

Low income section or store by NTUC

NTUC is exploring the idea of setting up another store or section to cater to low income folks. All the while I thought NTUC Fairprice is meant for low income folks. Or there is now a lower low income group to service? Would someone be suggesting that mean testing be put in place so that the low income and middle income groups cannot visit this new section/store? Would those who can afford to pay more should continue to pay more and only those who pass the mean testing test can buy from the new store? It must be this way. If not everyone will be patronising the new store and deprive the lower low income group from the benefits.