Psychologist vs Psychiatrist in Singapore

Is a psychologist different from a psychiatrist in Singapore?

Here’s my internet research.

Psychiatrists are actually medical doctors who have undergone the Bachelors of medicine and Bachelors of surgery (MBBS) and then went on to complete advanced postgraduate training in the Masters of Medicine in Psychiatry.

On the other hand, psychologists usually complete a bachelors of psychology and move on to a masters of applied psychology in a specialized area such as clinical, education or counselling psychology.

The key difference here is that you can’t simply call yourself a medical doctor and start practicing medicine. Whereas anyone can call themselves a psychologist as the practice of psychology is not regulated in Singapore.

So how does one become a psychiatrist and how long would it take?

If you look at the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine website and Nanyang Technological University’s Lee Kong Chian school of Medicine website, you see that the MBBS is a 5 year programme, and the Master of Medicine in Psychiatry takes another 5 years.

So minimally it takes about 10 years. I’m not exactly sure if this includes all the residency placement and training, so it might be even more. 😨

But the important thing is not to enrol into a psychology degree thinking you can become a psychiatrist upon graduation.

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