How to become a public health physician
Official title: Public health physician
Public health physician improves the health of communities and reduces the incidence of illness and injury. He/she may set up inoculation clinics or create programmes to control the spread of infectious disease. He/she may also help communities to respond to health threats related to bioterrorism or natural disasters.
Main tasks
- Conducting physical examinations of patients and interviewing them and their families to determine their health status
- Considering medical information provided by a referring doctor or other healthcare provider
- Ordering specialised diagnostic tests to determine the nature of disorders or illnesses
- Prescribing, administering and monitoring patients’ responses to treatments, medications, anaesthetics, psychotherapies, physical rehabilitation programmes and other preventive and curative measures
- Recording patients’ medical information and exchanging information with other health professionals to ensure the provision of comprehensive care
- Reporting births, deaths and notifiable diseases to government authorities to meet legal and professional requirements
How to become one
Occupations included in this unit group require completion of a university-level degree in basic medical education plus postgraduate clinical training in a medical specialisation (excluding general practice) or equivalent. Medical practitioners are required to be registered with the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) or its equivalent and possess a Practising Certificate (PC) in order to practise medicine in Singapore. Medical practitioners who wish to practise as a specialist are required to be accredited by the Specialists Accreditation Board (SAB) or its equivalent and registered under the relevant specialty by the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) or its equivalent.
Ways in
- University: Medicine & Dentistry degrees, Offered by 2 universities in Singapore
- University: Health & Public Health degrees, Offered by 1 universities in Singapore
- Licence or registration: To practise medicine you must be registered with the Singapore Medical Council and hold a current practising certificate. Local graduates start with provisional registration during their first year of postgraduate training. To practise as a specialist you also need specialist registration, which follows accreditation by the Specialists Accreditation Board. Law: Medical Registration Act 1997. Regulator: Singapore Medical Council (SMC) (https://www.smc.gov.sg).
Pay · Outlook · AI and this job
- Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
Related jobs
- Anaesthesiologist
- Diagnostic radiologist
- Emergency physician
- Obstetrician/Gynaecologist
- Ophthalmologist
- Pathologist
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Questions people ask
How do I become a public health physician?
Occupations included in this unit group require completion of a university-level degree in basic medical education plus postgraduate clinical training in a medical specialisation (excluding general practice) or equivalent. Medical practitioners are required to be registered with the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) or its equivalent and possess a Practising Certificate (PC) in order to practise medicine in Singapore. Medical practitioners who wish to practise as a specialist are required to be accredited by the Specialists Accreditation Board (SAB) or its equivalent and registered under the relevant specialty by the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) or its equivalent.
Will AI change the work of a public health physician?
Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
Sources
- Singapore Department of Statistics (SingStat): Singapore Standard Occupational Classification (SSOC) 2024 (SSOC 2024 (definitions and index updated 2026-06-24)), Singapore Open Data Licence, retrieved 4 October 2026
- International Labour Organization, Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140, Gmyrek et al.) (ILO Working Paper 140, May 2025, Annex Table A1), CC BY 4.0, retrieved 4 October 2026
Updated 4 October 2026