This was a question Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan lobbed at a disease-management conference on Friday.

He said: 'The answer must come from the society at large. What value, medicine? How much are you paying your GP for a consultation on managing your diabetes which may save your toes?'

'How much are you paying for another session to whiten your skin?'

The doctor will go the way the money flows but, here in Singapore, they are largely dedicated to the service of the sick, he said.

Doctors are not to blame, he added, if society misaligns its priorities and they go the way of American doctors, who increasingly prefer glamorous, well-paying surgical specialties to primary health care.

The question is whether doctors will want to continue focusing on primary health care, he said. This is why the state will intervene to funnel patients their way and keep them involved in mainstream medicine.

This is so they will not need to branch into the lucrative practice of aesthetic medicine.

Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.