Medicine and law school debate on salaries

Hannah Yan | h_y@nus.edu.sg
the ridge news
A NUSSU Publication

Jan. 27, 2008

Is it dangerous for the society to pay its lawyers higher than its doctors?

Not really, according to the winning team from the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law.

At the Med-Law Challenge Shield debate held at the Clinical Research Centre Auditorium in the School of Medicine on Jan. 22, the law students were against the medical students in the above motion.

And one of the points they made was “take as much as the clients wish to pay”.

“Fifty to 70 percent of top law firm client are corporations who are willing to fork out hundreds of millions of dollars”, thus “the arms of supply and demand seem to meet at a higher point [for legal professionals],” said Choo Zheng Xi, first debater from the Law team.

On the other hand, the medical school debaters held a different point of view. To them, what matters is altruism.

According to Samantha Yeo, first debater from the Medicine team, lawyers’ income has surged by 30 percent since 1993 while that of physicians’ has been declining.

“So what’s the message to medicine students today?” she asked, “Don’t think of money. Let’s start trying to save lives.”

She said both lawyers and doctors share the same desire to do good, “be it treating the sick or fighting for the innocent”.

Yeo argued that doctors should not be the only ones lowering their fees to make their services accessible, lawyers should also lower the salaries because “justice is not just for the rich, justice is for everybody”.

The law team rejected this proposition. They attributed doctors’ relatively low salary to their subsidized medical education and the subsequent five-year bond to SingHealth.

In addition, they refuted the argument that poor people cannot gain representation in the court of law.

Choo referred to pro bono legal services such as Criminal Legal Aid Scheme as an evidence that some of the most prominent local lawyers are volunteering their time in the least profitable sector—criminal law.

The scheme, an initiative of the Law Society of Singapore, provides free legal representation to people facing criminal charges.

David Pflug from the Medicine team rejects a point of information from Vishal Harnal, third speaker from the Law team.
Photo credit: Jonathan Kwong

However, David Pflug, second debater from the Medicine team, argued that the scheme is insufficient as only 20 percent of the criminal cases submitted are dealt with.

He then enumerated the various expenses: “Now imagine I’m your average general physician…I have to pay my nurses, my drugs, my rent. And malpractice insurance which is now $22,000 per year for cosmetic physicians, and for other physicians it’s $150,000.”

He said despite the raising financial pressure, the doctors still keep their charges low.

“Doctors and lawyers have similar duty of care to society. We want to place greater emphasis on altruism, on duty of care as the driving force behind entries in law schools instead of financial incentives,” Pflug said.

The Law team insisted that the nature of their work decided their salary and the relatively high pay from corporate clients allow them to channel the pay back to the expense incurred by free pro bono work, when one of the audience said that lawyers can charge less but they do not want to.

Third debater from the Law team, Vishal Harnal, added that a litigious society brought forward by easily accessible legal services is undesirable. Instead, alternative conflict resolution methods should be sought.

In the audience round, lawyers and doctors joined the students in the debate to support the team of their own profession.

Tan Li Feng, third speaker from the Medicine team and best speaker of the debate
Photo credit: Jonathan Kwong

Tan Li Feng, third debater from the Medicine team was named the best speaker.

In the award ceremony, Guest-of-Honour Professor Arthur Lim recounted a debate 50 years ago between medical students and non-medical students, when the Faculty of Law was not yet established. The debaters then are now national leaders.

The judges commended both teams for their “composure” and “grace under pressure”.

The debate is a finale to the inaugural Med-Law Challenge Shield with also includes four sporting events, of which the School of Medicine is the overall winner.

Guest-of-Honour Arthur Lim with debaters and captains of sports teams
Photo credit: Neo Wen Yang