Background:In future, increase in the number of healthcare professionals is dependent on the career interest among present undergraduate medical students. Based on their interest to pursue their specialty, the availability of medical doctors in each specialty could be done.Aims:This study was to find out future career interest and factors that influence undergraduate medical students to choose their future specialization.Materials and Methods:The study was carried out among first-year medical students from five countries. The students were asked to complete an 8-item questionnaire. Two thousand one hundred fifty three participants were enrolled in the study. Data were analyzed in Microsoft-Excel and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.Results:Of the 2153 participants, only 1470 responded. Among the 1470 participants, 169 participants were excluded due to the ambiguity in responses, finally making it to 1301participants. Among them, Anatomy (49.3%) followed by Biochemistry (26.7%) and Physiology (24%) were the most preferred subjects.Conclusions:Anatomy was the most preferred basic science subject among the other subjects and the students were interested to pursuing surgery in future. Furthermore, the most preferred future specialties were surgery, internal medicine and pediatrics with gender variations; males preferring surgery and females in obstetrics and gynecology.

ObjectivesTo estimate the cost and patterns of expenditure of dry eye treatment.MethodologyWe retrieved data on the type and cost of dry eye treatment in Singapore National Eye Centre from pharmacy and clinic inventory databases over a 2 year period (2008–2009) retrospectively. According to the type of treatment, data were sorted into 7 groups; meibomien gland disease (MGD) treatment, preservative free lubricant eye drops, preserved lubricant eye drops, lubricant ointments and gels, cyclosporine eye drops, oral supplements and non-pharmacological treatments/procedures. Each recorded entry was considered as one patient episode (PE). Comparisons in each group between two years were carried out using Pearson Chi-Square test. Significance level was set at alpha  = 0.05.ResultsCost data from 54,052 patients were available for analysis. Total number of recorded PEs was 132,758. Total annual expenditure on dry eye treatment for year 2008 and 2009 were US$1,509,372.20 and US$1,520,797.80 respectively. Total expenditure per PE in year 2008 and 2009 were US$22.11 and US$23.59 respectively. From 2008 to 2009, there was a 0.8% increase in total annual expenditure and 6.69% increase in expenditure per PE. Pharmacological treatment attributes to 99.2% of the total expenditure with lubricants accounting for 79.3% of the total pharmacological treatment expenditure. Total number of units purchased in preservative free lubricants, cyclosporine eye drops and MGD therapy have increased significantly (p<0.001) whereas number of units purchased in preserved lubricants and ointments/gels have reduced significantly (p<0.001) from 2008 to 2009.ConclusionDry Eye imposes a significant direct burden to health care expenditure even without considering indirect costs. Health care planners should be aware that these direct costs appear to increase over the time and more so for particular types of medications. Given the limitations of socio-economic data, true societal costs of Dry eye syndrome are likely to be much higher than estimated.

Blood pressure has a significant effect on retinal arterioles. There are few data on whether this effect varies by race/ethnicity. We examined the relationship of blood pressure and retinal vascular caliber in a multi-ethnic Asian population. The study is population-based and cross sectional in design. A total of 3749 Chinese, Malay and Indian participants aged X24 years residing in Singapore were included in the study. Retinal vascular caliber was measured using a computer program from digital retinal photographs. The associations of retinal vascular caliber with blood pressure and hypertension in each racial/ethnic group were analyzed. The main outcome measures are retinal arteriolar caliber and venular caliber. The results show that retinal arterioles were narrower in persons with uncontrolled/untreated hypertension (140.0 lm) as compared with persons with controlled hypertension (142.1 lm, P¼0.0001) and those with no hypertension (146.0 lm, Po0.0001). On controlling for age, gender, body mass index, lipids and smoking, each 10 mm Hg increase in mean arterial blood pressure was associated with a 3.1 lm decrease in arteriolar caliber (Po0.0001), with a similar magnitude seen in all three racial/ethnic groups: 3.1 lm in Chinese, 2.8 lm in Malays and 3.2 lm in Indians (Po0.0001 for all). Each 10 mm Hg increase in mean arterial blood pressure was associated with a 1.8 lm increase in venular caliber (Po0.0001); furthermore, the magnitude of this effect was similar across the three racial/ethnic groups. The effect of blood pressure on the retinal vasculature was similar across three major racial/ethnic groups in Asia.