So, here you are! As I have been saying over the last 1 year, with 33 medical schools in the country we will achieve a ratio of 1: 600 by 2016 and 1: 400 by 2020. We should also not forget about the foreign medical graduates from various countries in the world. Of course, those students who are going overseas for medical educations from 2012 onwards (if the amended medical act is tabled in Parliament by this July), will have to sit for an entrance exam upon returning home. This will be used as a filtering mechanism. After achieving the target (too fast, too soon) , what’s next?
So, for those who did not believe what I have been saying about jobless doctors, please pay attention. It will become a reality. The number of graduates will increase exponentially from now onwards. Almost half of these medical schools have not produced their graduates yet. Furthermore, most of these medical colleges have not achieved their maximum capacity. For example, Monash is targeting 150 students intake by 2012 compared to 100 now. Newcastle is targeting 180 students compared to 40 students in their first batch (currently in year 3). So, the existing medical schools will continue to increase their intake , if not they will not be able to make any profit.
The worst is yet to come when all these doctors are going to curse themselves for being a doctor. The postgraduate market is very much limited and the private sector is becoming very saturated. Most GPs are not doing well either. I was told that the latest survey showed that only about 30% of GPs are making net profit of more than 6K/month! So, if you are in for the money, please forget it and choose something else rather than wasting your hard-earned money in doing medicine. Put the money to good use. You will never get back what you had invested, trust me!
The government will not be able to provide job to all graduates by 2016/2017. They may introduce an exam to filter out some students. Or you will be asked to serve rural areas for years and you will never be able to say NO. Some graduates may end up in pharmaceutical companies or as paramedics like what we have seen in countries like Thailand, Vietnam and India.
This 5 years freeze is not going to make any difference. God Bless…………….
Five-year freeze on new medical courses effective immediately
By ALYCIA LIM
KUALA LUMPUR: A five-year freeze on new medical courses, to prevent the glut of trainee doctors in the country from worsening, has been approved by the Cabinet and is effective immediately.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, who announced this Thursday, said the moratorium would not affect the number of medical staff required by the country, and that the focus on quality would be ensured.
“We are looking at a doctor-patient ratio of 1:400 by the year 2020, which fulfils the requirement of an advanced nation.
“From the number of students currently enrolled at the 33 higher education institutions nationwide, we can achieve that target,” he said at a press conference, after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Open University Malaysia and Master Builders Association Malaysia.
Mohamed Khaled added that the current doctor-patient ratio was 1:1000.
“The ministry will focus on monitoring the quality of the medical courses currently offered, and for institutions that do not meet the criteria and skills accreditation, their current recognition may be recalled until they improve.”
In December, he had said the moratorium would prohibit the launch of new medical programmes in the country, with existing medical schools encouraged to focus more on quality.
On Nov 27, The Star had highlighted concerns over the glut on the number of housemen and the quality of fresh medical graduates.
As of Jan 31, Malaysia has 33 higher education institutions offering medical courses, including 11 public higher education institutions and 22 private ones.
Medical fraternity welcomes temporary freeze on new medical courses
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) welcomed the Higher Education Ministry’s decision in imposing a five year freeze on new medical courses on institutions of higher learning in the country.
Its president, Dr David Quek, said the move would give enough time for institutions of higher learning in the country to produce experienced and quality medical graduates.
“Medical graduates cannot be produced at the drop of a hat, without proper planning, like the teaching force, training facilities and clinical items. It is impossible,” he said when contacted by Bernama here Friday.
He said this in response to a Thursday announcement by Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin that a freeze of five years on new medical courses had been imposed on institutions of higher learning in the country.
The moratorium was decided based on several factors, including the marked increase in the number of medical graduates, competency of housemen, teaching staff and teaching hospitals.
Chairman of the Medical Dean’s Council, Prof Datuk Dr Nik Mohd Nasri Nik Ismail, said the council members unanimously agreed with the government’s decision as there were already enough medical courses in the country.
“There has to be some control. There are about 33 public and private institutions of higher learning which offer medical courses and this is enough to meet the country’s need for medical doctors in future,” he added.
Dr Nik Mohd Nasri, who is the Dean of Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia’s Medical Faculty, said that during the moratorium, there was a need for public institutions of higher learning to improve and enhance medical studies at their respective faculties.
“After three years, we will review the situation to see if the freeze is still necessary.
“The Dean’s Council will discuss the matter with the Higher Education Department and the Malaysian Medical Council,” he added. – Bernama
Dear sir, thank you for sharing this.
May I ask, sir, do you have the list of the 17 IPTs that are recognised (by the Government) for their medical courses? I would like to know (these IPTs). Should you have this fact in hand, could you post them on your blog? Thank you.
Please visit the Malaysian Medical Council website. The list will be there, http://www.mmc.gov.my
thank you sir for sharing.im one of the students in the mdical field.i just want clearer explaination.the higher education minister freeze the intake for new medical students in the future or the minister will freeze some of the IPT as the production of more medical students?
NO new medical schools. The current approved ones will continue to take students, probably increasing their numbers!
Sorry for asking since Im not very clear with the implications of this action. Does it mean that there will be no new intake of medicine or just that there will be no new IPTA/IPTS offering medicine?
NO new medical colleges!
Dr. Pagalavan ,
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/5/6/nation/20110506165700&sec=nation
Isnt this good news for doctors?? :S
NOPE! the tax exemption is for the hospitals and NOT for the doctors! Medical tourism do not benefit all doctors, only certain hospital and certain doctors. Hospitals in Penang and Malacca do get a lot of INdonesian patients but that’s it. Rarely any Thai patients come here, same goes to middle east and Vietnam. Middle east patients usually go to Singapore or US as their fees are usually paid by their country such as UAE, Arab Saudi, Kuwait etc.
Dr Pagalavan,
Pertaining to the tax exemption, more and more hospitals will be built, especially foreign health care centers will want to set up hospitals here, isnt it? this in turn provide more and more job opportunities for doctors in the private sector? Doctors will get a higher pay too isn’t it?
Nope, again you are wrong. Private hospitals DO NOT employ doctors. You are self employed! No patient No income. So, having more and more hospital will reduce each doctors income! And having more private hospital does not mean having more patients, you are fighting for the same pool of patients.
Prince court hospital which was set up for medical tourism, joint venture with Austrian uni is a big failure and they are planning to sell their hospital!!
I don’t think the embezzlement of funds by management in Prince Court helped either, heh heh.
I think the new hospital in ampang is the winner of the above tax examption.
so beside these 17 institutes which have approved to continue the intake of new medical student, does it mean to be including new intake of medical student in overseas institutes?
don’t understand what you are trying to ask!
i mean is it possible that parents send their kids to overseas institutes for medical courses?
Yes but from 2013, whoever go overseas need to sit for an exam upon returning. So no guaranteed registration and job
i see. thank u for that.. can u tell me more about the NOC? is it everyone who want to go for medical courses must have a NOC in hand?
Yes for overseas
“A five-year freeze on new medical courses”
maybe is their way to promote dentistry
does this mean some medical colleges which are in planning has to be scrapped off? such as in Besut, Terengganu; the one that signed agreement with RCSI
I don’t think so. Those which has been approved will continue unless they have not been approved yet.
Dear Dr. Paga,
I fully agreed with what you had been saying. I think the problem is the mindset of parents who want their children to become doctors at all cost. What they don’t understand is doctors nowadays are no longer that well-respected compared to the past. Thanks to a few bad apples who are not qualified to become doctors in the first place. The huge investment put in to study medicine will never be reaped back. I really pity those parents who sell their house, cars, and end up with huge debts. Anyway, I can foresee the existing private medical colleges will increase their intake to maximise their profit. This new rules will not change anything as parents will still eager to enroll their children in these colleges.
Though the glut of doctors will be a big problem but the concern is with the qualities of these doctors. So, having a common exam for all graduates regardless of foreign or local grads is the best option. I really hope the government will implement this
there are loads unqualified to become doctors produced and producing by local universities. look at the “quota system” and “priority” in education.you’ll understand.
There are many Filipino doctors working as nurses in US for better economic prospects. Let’s see whether this may happen to Malaysia medical graduates.
Js, i agree with you. the problem is the mindset of some parent. it is even more prevalent in a certain race (i m sorry if i sound racist) , who wants at least their sons to be a doctor. I was even told that one of the reasons to study medicine is because it is a good prospect for marriage, this was told to us by an ex-MMA president. seriously, he was not joking.
Esther, you’re right it does sound racist, apology accepted. Racial stereotype of Indian parents wanting their children to be professionals, be it doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. Similar racial stereotype about Chinese parents wanting their children to do business to make as much money as possible – hence the relatively recent interest (i.e. past 20 years) of Chinese parents wanting their kids to do medicine after hearing about the amount of money than can be made in private. Sorry – no more gold mine there.
Hi, Dr. Pagavalan!
Thanks for this information. Dr, I want to pursue my degree in medical field(medicine). I’ve just finished my foundation programme. The reason why I want to be a medical doctor is because that I want to help people in the rural area in Sarawak like the dayaks and sabahan people or to serve to the community. I know that I have to be mentally and physically prepared if I choose to be a medical doctor. I am not chasing after the title ‘Dr.’ and money. Is it true that not all medical doctor would like to work in rural area? Why not? I’ve seen one of my family member died because of the careless mistakes made by the doctors who work in my village. He told his family that he was fine. But his stomach, I think his liver is expanding so much(or in other words bloating!). I feel so bad when I know that he died 4 days after my visit there. I don’t mind to work in the rural area as long as I can help my people@dayaks to live longer and healthily. Money is nothing to me but I would like to serve to the community. It is my passion!!! By the way, love reading your blog. Keep on writing, doc! Thanks
I admire your intention to help people in rural area. Working in smaller hospitals and rural areas do have it’s satisfaction. However, you must understand that a doctor can do only so much. In most rural hospitals, the facilities are so much limited that you will not be able to diagnose or treat many condition, no matter how good the doctor is. You also must understand that being a MBBS doctor does not mean anything anymore. You still need to do speciality and that cannot be done in rural hospitals.
Calvin, if you intend to work in a rural area, specialise in Family Medicine. If the area you want to work in has some sort of small hospital which has Medical Officers, you can be a career medical officer. Just make sure that you have a good grounding in all the important subspecialties. Work as an MO in a larger hospital first, esp Medicine, Surgery, Paeds and O&G. Then you can move to your rural hospital but always try and go for courses or attachments at the bigger hospitals to keep up-to-date with current trends. Isolated practice is one of the most common reasons for losing your competence (e.g. many ‘champion’ GPs in Malaysia)
Dear Calvin,
If you are really passionate, you can even start now! (yes, even as a student, you dont have to wait till you’re a doc to serve your people). Why not organise a project (with your friends, colleagues etc) in any village and enlisting the help from the local hospitals there? ex; raising funds, bringing a mobile clinic into the village, giving health awareness talks (you can speak about the importance of hygiene, sanitation and a healthy diet – as a future medical student, it helps to have awareness of what constitutes these). because from my understanding of you’ve written, you come from a rural area. i believe that would make it much easier for you to undertake this project. sure there will be a lot of work involved but trust me, the experience is worthwhile and you’ll never exchange it for the world. also, by doing this sort of thing, you will be making a difference in the community. and this will definitely prepare you to become a good doctor if you really are interested in helping to improve the healthcare of your people.
Thank you for the reply, I really appreciate it. How I wish I could go down to my village and help the community. I am from Kuching, Sarawak and I have village in Bau. Dear doc, may I ask some question again? Forgive me. Because I really want to know your point of view. I want to take MBBS in private university or maybe oversea universities in Indonesia(Most of it MD). Is it good to study locally or abroad? What is your point of view? I really need your answer. I have a friend with low SPM grade with score of only 2A’s and the rest with Bs and Cs but he can pursue his medical degree in MBBCh in Egypt! I was quite shocked because how can he with his SPM results can further his studies abroad. Student like me with score 9As and 1B+ cannot even get the chance to further degree oversea what more to say to study in public universities. Try to imagine how easy people nowadays can get into medical faculty in any oversea universities WITH A LOT OF MONEY! I think quality is better than quantity. Please respond to this question. Thanks.
it is good to study medicine in an internationally recognised university overseas but these universities are very expensive unless you are going on a scholarship. The entrance qualifications are also very strict. If you are planning to only stay here in Malaysia with no plans to go overseas for training or migration, then local degree is good enough. Most Indonesian universities are not internationally recognised.
Yes, you are right and I had said it again and again that medicine has gone so cheap. If you look at the Star every weekend, there will be adverts for medical degree where they guarantee a seat even if your result is so poor that you don’t even qualify for Form 6!! I had posted it in my blog before.
You can still try STPM and get into public university if you are willing to take the risk.
Doctor, I’m a JPA scholar, and will most probably be studying in Monash University next year for MBBS… Just wanna get a clarification, so all these things won’t affect me going into Monash, right?
nope
I am totally speechless when i read this comment. Do u all see this? They just don’t understand what is the real situation of our health care system. Students are ONLY concern on whether they can get into the MBBS or MD or not. That sounds most important for them. They never think of what they are going to experience and what kinds of problems they going to have in the future……
Blame our education system! Never prepares our student with future career propects!
please la… I’m just asking a simple question here… Please dun judge me based on ur biased perception… Do u think I’m not concerned just because I didn’t asked abt it in the comment above? Just reading ur reply to my comment makes me even more speechless!
Dear Dr,
What should I do after I’ve finished my HO and MO? Is it wise to do speciality? Can I do speciality and still earn a living?Any other ways to earn more money?
There is no money in medicine anymore, period. BUt you can still earn a living just like any other profession but not a luxury life!. Do you know that a good lorry driver with a good transport company can earn more than a doctor? After completing 4 years of compulsory service , you have 3 options: either specialise , remain a chronic medical officer or become a GP by opening a clinic. To specialise, it will take another 4-8 years. You can remain as chronic MO but with almost stagnant salary, after 12 years, you will get U54 salary of about RM 7000+. Becming a GP is not easy anymore as I had mentioned above. Many are struggling unless you move to rural or semirural areas. However, you may not be able to charge high rates in these areas and thus will need to depend on patient load. A net income of about 10K/month can be considered good enough!
Specialising will involve a lot of sacrifice and money as well. After that, no guarantee you will make money. Private hospitals are too many and competing each other. Income of each doctor in these hospitals have already started to decline slowly over the last few years and will continue to do so. Remember, private hospitals DO NOT pay you a salary, you are considered self employed and what you earn is what you get!
Dear Dr,
As what I know, some private college (MAHSA, PMC, they just want money!) do provide allocate the MBBS courses for those who are not eligible (as in All B’s or C’s in their A level or foundation). Just wish that the government will keep an eye on this case. Most of my friends even score less than 4 A’s in SPM and they are enrolled in MBBS course. Maybe the government can just take JPA students and also some local Universities’ graduates but not others.
yes, I have said this many times in my previous postings. There must be a standardised entrance exam for medicine and not some dubious foundation programme which is just an eye wash.
I do agree with you that the enrollment filtering system is shockingly loose when it comes to MEDICAL profession. The government and the medical institution should understand that they are actually the deciding party in shaping our medical health standard.
However i do not agree on the suggestion of just taking JPA student or some local universities graduates only when in comes to practicing in Malaysia. On what grounds do you think that JPA student and Local U is the best? I believe there are a lot of bright student who was not fortunate enough to get selected. And those who were selected were not all bright as well. I would prefer the method where ALL medical grads (Local + International) take the same selection exam after graduation, though i cant say that it is the best method because i believe double standard will somehow be implemented eventually. Technically speaking, it is still the fairest.
Life is never fair. It is from now onwards that you will face reality of life. Yes, I do agree that a common entrance exam is the best way but being in Malaysia, nothing is transparent and fair. Since JPA scholars are government sponsored students, they are bonded with the government. Same goes for the local uni students who are all sponsored by JPA. Thus, the government has no choice but to provide them a job! I am still waiting for the time when foreign graduates need to sit for the entrance exam after the medical act is amended. I wonder what will happen to the JPA scholars if they fail!
Hello Dr,
Do this newly implement system will affect those who wants to further their studies for dentistry?
NO
Malaysia freezes new medical courses for 5 years…
That is called racism. They don’t want Chinese and Indians to get medical degrees because they know that both these races would resort to get their medical degrees from private universities. That is why they freezed the intakes of medical students in private universities of Malaysia. The Malays would normally enroll in government universities for their medical course. This is called UMNO’s social engineering to make sure that Malays remain on the top and to opress the other minorities! Get it!
I think you are wrong!! The gov is only freezing new medical colleges and NOT intakes. The current private and public medical colleges will continue to enroll students. NO one can prevent anyone from doing medicine!
What a bunch of nonsense. While I agree that Malaysia has many racist policies, there’s no need to look for it in areas where it doesn’t exist! There are already more than enough medical schools to satisfy the demands of parents of any race. In fact, they should amalgamate the smaller and not-so-good med schools to decrease the numbers even further.
Dr, i think there was some truth in jason’s comment. the other reason is because there are now too many medical school, so it is tough for the private medical school to recruit student and if they dont recruit any Tom, dick or Harry who can afford to pay the school fees, they may just have to close shop.
Yes and it will happen whether there is going to be a freeze or not. There are just too many medical schools already and the goverment should encourage these medical schools to merge. Again, the gov is not preventing any person from doing medicine and thus jason’s comment is not valid.
Somehow, “someone’ must have made a lot of money approving all those medical schools.
I am a 3rd year medical student in IMU, and I must say, I am glad Im to be in IMU. Even though, life is all about lectures, skills,PBL, MMS, postings, but, I must say IMU’s syllabus does show me the way to life long learning. Students in IMU are more competent, to their studies and dedicated to their work. For example, our holidays are used to revise&postings, our lectures are full house, our lecturers are fantastic and our management is understanding.
Yes, you may call us nerds, but we will be saving lives and being the top doctors you can see. let aside a few “bad apples”. Besides, we do have a good social life with all those interaction with medical personnels during our posting.
IMU selects the best and then, moulds students to be life long learners.
I believe, even though the government has approved so many “medical schools” the true doctor lies in the heart.So dont just become a doctor for the glamour, but be in it for the life long learning experience. Only medicine will let you learn all through your life.
If you are hard working enough, and prepared to learn all through your life, then you’d make it to the top. If not, why bother doing medicine?
Dr, have you seen IMU students in Batu Pahat? How are they?
Generally IMU graduates are good and IMU do maintain good standards. They would not hesitate to kick out any students who are not performing.
IMU students also tend to have an over-inflated view of themselves when they start working – similar to how the UM/UKM grads used to look down upon the Indian grads 10-15 years ago.
I would still rank IMU as the best private medical school in Malaysia but, like all the other private institutions, money is their number one objective.
Even IMU’s standard has dropped. Year after year they have lost partner medical schools. I know for certain that one of the partner schools have sent a retired surgeon to IMU to teach IMU lecturers how to teach clinical skills. So, don’t think so highly of yourself, you are no longer anywhere near the standard of past grads.
hello doctor. i will be pursuing my MD in one of the university in Indonesia (University of Padjadjaran) this august. Thus, do i need to sit for an entrance exam as soon as i come back here as a graduate? and is the job guaranteed for me here in msia?
Entrance exam probably not but job may not be guranteed!
http://www.nst.com.my/articles/Medicalcoursefreeze/Article/
Only 17 out of 33 medical schools being accredited..
That’s because most of the rest just started recruiting. The accreditation usually takes place when their first batch reaches Year 4/5. Rather odd but that is how it is done! Furthermore, some do twinning programme only and may not need proper accreditation especially when the student is graduating from elsewhere.
Dear Dr
Pordon me for addressing another issue in your page.. I’m a senior house officer. I just want to share with you 1 latest issue that u might want to know and comment.
For your information, currently the new director general has come out with 1 big new idea for HO. He want to introduce “working in shift’ for the HO. The plan is that all HO must work in 3 shift (AM, PM, NIGHT). That mean no more on call and no more claim. And he claimed that, if the HO works 2 night shift bck 2 back, then he/she entitled a day off (which i think very unlikely to get). Is this working hours same with paramedic staff?? I think so.. Will it work like the paramedic staff??? I doubt that..
Why this idea came out? Because of the oversupply of the junior doctor. I’m not sure whether this is a good idea or not. But for me, being a HO in the hospital that need to be a ‘pilot project’ for this idea is very stressful.
I hope u can comment regarding this issue.. thanx..
I knew this is coming sooner or later. Which are the hospitals involved? Do you have the circular? I will write my comment in my latest blog entry
This thing will start in my hospital 1st. I’m working in 1 of hosp in Pahang (sure u can guess which hosp). Sorry can’t give the name of the hosp coz this thing is not official yet from KKM. It is juz ‘an experiment’ from both of the DG and Hosp Director.
I don’t know how they gonna proceed with it, but currently all HOD is really in dilemma. Apparently, the order from director that we need to start this not later than end of this month.
I still can’t imagine how this gonna work with the duty to cover the wards, clinic and OT (surg based posting). In other hand, HO’s also are gonna lost some of their income from on call claim( for those who need the money like me).
Our current DG was Pahang State pengarah before! I am sure he would asked few other hospitals as well. Income of doctors will definately drop sooner or later. I will write something in my blog about this soon.
Good afternoon Doctor.
I am a student from IMU. I am doing the IMU-PMS option. I am just wondering, upon completion of my degree at australia, must i sit for the entrance exam?
Not yet. It will only affect the students who enters medical school after the Medical Act is amended. However, the government can decide on ad hoc basis if the glut goes out of control!
Hello dr!
I am a post spm student who is keen in pursuing medicine. I feel that this five year freeze is a good move as it will prevent a surplus of jobless doctors and even doctors with poor quality skills and knowledge.
I have tried to obtain a psd scholarship but was denied one despite having 6A+ and 4As and obtaining A+ for all the subjects relevant to a medical course as well as being a school captain and active student. However, friends of mine with only 3 and 4As have been given scholarships to study medicine in egypt, uk and local institutions. So, even after imposing a five year freeze, how can the government ensure the quality of future doctors. It saddens me that social justice and fairness are not practiced in the education field and noble careers are compromised for money and other political reasons. But this will not be my reason for giving up and i will carve my own future.
Dr, what is your opinion on flying doctors or in other words doctors who are flown into third world countries, countries facing natural disasters and war torn countries to provide medical aid? Do you have any information on a flying doctor’s career path or related organisations?
I intend on being a flying doctor as i am not in this profession for the money nor the title but for the simple act of giving back to the people with the knowledge and skills that i have acquired.
As far as I know, the most prestigious and arguably successful flying doctor service is the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia.
You might want to have a read for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Flying_Doctor_Service_of_Australia
http://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/About-Us/Our-History/
However, if you’re referring to a global humanitarian organisation, then medecins sans frontieres or Doctors Without Borders is probably the most famous one. Now the thing with MSF is you’d actually have to be a full-fledged physician or surgeon before you can join the organisation as a field member. They do NOT provide training for junior doctors!!! Considering the number of years one has to put in after graduation to become a specialist, I’d dare say most if not all doctors would at least expect some form of financial return from their profession.
You might feel enthusiastic and hopeful right now, but do you realise as a volunteer, you are not only forgoing a fortune that you’re entitled to, you’re pretty much giving up whatever social life you have left after residency training. You can forget about having a family of your own, not to mention your own life will be in danger should you be dispatched to war-torn regions.
It’s pretty obvious why so few doctors ever choose to devote their lives to humanitarian movements – let’s see how your motivation keeps up when everyone around you is earning fat paychecks and has his or her budding family, while you slog your body away in some of the most brutal conditions known to man.
And if I haven’t convinced you enough, check out this documentary about MSF:
http://www.livinginemergency.com/
The 5 year freeze is NOT going to change anything. We have 33 medical schools where half of them have not produced their graduates yet! These colleges will continue to increase their student intake to make profit. Already we are seeing more than 4000 new doctors reporting to duty last year and with all these colleges begining to produce their graduates by 2015/2016, the situation will only get worst. Remember, the government is NOT freezing the intake or increasing number of students in these colleges!
I am sure your friends who got 3 and 4As are of certain racial background. Welcome to reality! This is Malaysia and there is no such thing as transparency and fairness. It is from now onwards that you wil realise the reality of life in Malaysia.
As Huskies has said, flying doctors for humanitarian services is a voluntary work. No payment involved. There is no such thing as career path is this social service. We even have MERCY in Malaysia who does social services in countries affected by disaster. However, this is NOT a paid job!! You may be enthusiastic now in talking about doing social service without money etc etc , because you are still leaving with comfort from money given by your parents. Please take away your parents and what would you do. You need money for everything , even to do social services. That’s the fact. Unless your parents leave a fortune for you where you don’t need to work for another 100 years !
A doctor cannot do much with just knowledge and skills!! trust me. Without medicine/drugs and equipments, a doctor is as good as nothing ! This is the reason why I write about the reality in the ground as many people like you feel that by being a doctor you can save lifes etc etc. Remember, only less than 20% of the time, you can actually save a life. Most of the time you don’t!! I had seen many medical students who fell into depression when they entered clinical years of medical school after seeing all the sick patients in the ward but doctors can’t do much to save them!
Life is not just about doing medicine. You also have social life, family life and earning a living! No matter what voluntary work that you want to do, medicine is still a way of earning money for a living.
However, I disagree with Huskies about doctors earning a fat paycheque!! That era has gone. I am now seeing specialist who are even earning less than 10K permonth in Malaysia. I know of an O&G specialist who just joined a private hospital 6 months ago only earning less than RM 5K permonth!! Overall, all the specialist income in private is dropping gradually.
Dear Dr. P and Huskies,
Thank you for your feedback! I understand that you are providing me a real picture of a doctor’s lifestyle today.
I am not joining this profession because of the money or title but i am well aware that i am going to need money to live and being a flying doctor is something that i am interested in doing after being a more senior and experienced doctor. I intend to work as a doctor and become a fully fledged specialist before joining volunteer organisations. Volunteering is one of my goals in life but then again i do agree with both of u that things will definitely change when reality checks in. Regardless of any profession that we are part of, earning money is a must if we intend to last even for a day in this world. As you said doctor, aside from a career, i do want a social life and a family life someday like most people. These things matter to me as well. But if time and events in the future permit me to volunteer then its something that i’ll like to experience. Even if it means volunteering for a short period of time or whenever possible. Again, its something that is undecided and that i will have to choose depending on how the future unfolds. That’s all.
Thank you again for the links and information! As for the psd scholarships, you are absolutely right dr! Reality hit me right in the face! Shocking at first, then came the frustration and bitterness and now the acceptance of the inevitable and moving on with life. I am doing my A levels now and just living every moment to the fullest (a typical teenage/ young adult symptom) until the next phase in life. Will be reading your posts from time to time so keep writing doc! Cheers!
Dear Dr. Pagalavan,
Thank you for your posts.
I had received an offer to study medicine in Poland after completing my A-levels locally. At first, I was not so sure about pursuing medicine, but the interest is there and I am eager to learn.
Therefore, I would like to ask your opinion about this scholarship whether I should take it, study locally or venture into something else?
Thank you for your time.
It is all up to you. I can’t decide for you. If you are willing to put up with all the frustration that I had mentioned in my blog and have passion in medicine, then go ahead. If not , find another field.
Poland came into the picture only the last few years and thus I can’t comment on their product quality.
I really have no idea where all the SPM students get their interest from – seriously do they even know what studying medicine is all about? I suspect it has something to do with all the stupid medical dramas on TV nowadays (read House and Grey’s Anatomy) along with their parents’ deluded expectations concerning the profession.
To clueless, if you think medicine is cool, I suggest you go to a library and browse through a couple of medical textbooks, specifically on biochemistry, pharmacology and pathology. If all that stuff appeals to you and you can bear with sitting down all day memorizing terminology, then by all means go for it.
Yup, I agree. Too much TV programmes.
thanks for thinking that way about spm leavers.
hello sir,
i am mr.mohsin shaikh from India ,age 17,i am a junior college student science.i want to take medical field to make my future .i am intrested in doing MBBS in vietnam .what is allowence for foreign students and what are expenses and percentage required for international student. plz help me i will be so thankful to u.
yours friendly,
mohammed mohsin shaikh
hello sir,
can i do mbbs in vietnam,ho chi mihn city .are there any private medical colleges there plz help.
i would be thankful to you,awating for your reply.
yours obediently,
mohammed mohsin shaikh
I don’t think so. Even if there is, it is not done in English!
Good day dr, i would like to hear you opinion about the faculty of medicine in aimst university…what do you think about their quality of graduates.? as they claim to have the best ‘clinical skill centre’ in the country n producing quality graduates…
I don’t have very good impression of AIMST. Yes, they may have a grand campus but having a grand campus itself does not mean anything if you do not have any human resource!! AIMST is among the worst university in terms of lecturer’s salary and thus they usually get all the rejected lecturers from other universities!!
But, Dr if they are like what you said, how come bodies like WHO and Avicenna could approved AIMST as an international institution? I still think they stand at their best in terms of quality. Or else the government would not be sending JPA students every year to AIMST.
The list of WHO medical schools is based on medical schools that are recognised by that country’s own medical school, meaning EVERY SINGLE MEDICAL SCHOOL recognised by the country in which it’s in will be on the WHO list.
Where JPA sends its students is no indication of the quality of the medical school. JPA also sends students to Indonesia, Russia, etc. Many private medical schools in Malaysia offer seats to JPA at a discounted price in order to make sure they don’t get derecognised by the Malaysian Medical Council – because they know the govt/JPA will put pressure on them to make sure the school stays recognised.
A good example is how Melaka-Manipal was threatened with derecognition just before its first graduates were coming out a few years ago. After the issue was resolved (something about not having an exit exam, I recall), 40% of subsequent intakes there were comprised of JPA-sponsored students – though I have no idea what percentage of students there now are sponsored.
dear nav..i do agree with ur comments but not entirely. i was from the first badge that graduated from MMMC. yes we were threatened with that exit exam issue and it was amicably resolved with MMC (with much help of MMA especially dato athimulam and gang and also after some interference from certain parents with high level connections) . however u seem to say that it was a kinda deal with JPA which i don’t agree. when the first badge of graduates were doing their housemanship throughout the country a survey form was sent to all HODs and Hospital Directors to give a feedback on us. Though this was confidential some of us were informed by concerned HODs. however i can recall if it was from MMC or JPA. but after that feedback is when JPA started its venture with melaka manipal. BUT manipal melaka did benefit form this deal as it was the first time it got a straight five year recognition from MMC. win win situation i guess.the first few batches of manipal melaka underwent interbnship at hospital melaka,which i think made them better than the rest. however ,sadly, this internship was subsequently scrapped (i think by MMC) and i am sad to say that some of my junior batches aren’t making my alma matter proud.
WHO list of medical school is just the number of medical schools in each country.
This statement “Listing of an institution in the Avicenna Directories does not mean that the Avicenna Secretariat or the organisations responsible for the Direcories have granted recognition or accreditation. The Avicenna Secretariat has no authority to grant any form of recognition or accreditation to educational institutions or their programmes. Such procedures and decisions remain the exclusive prerogative of the national government concerned”
This statement is also found on their website ” The Government of Malaysia has asked WHO to list the following medical school, recognized by the
Malaysian Medical Council: Melaka-Manipal Medical College”
So you see, having your medical school in WHO list does not mean anyhting. It is just a marketing tool for the medical school.
As for JPA students, again it does not mean anything. JPA also send medical students to almost all the other medical schools, even to the so called” Perdana University” when they have not even started !! Since AIMST belongs to MIC, i am sure enough cables have been used!
http://mma-medicalstudents.blogspot.com/2011/04/aimst-1st-preclinical-medical-quiz-2011.html………this is an article i found about aimst regarding the recent pre-clinical quiz….AIMST university even won against IMU….n they were just 4 points behind The National University Of Singapore….in your opininion Dr, doesn’t this reflect their quality.?
When I was in secondary school, I was part of my school team that entered a national-level physics quiz organised by The Star newspaper. The winners were from different schools every year. It was an indication of the quality of the students sitting the quiz at that particular point in time, not necessarily the school they came from.
Being a doctor is so much more than getting first or second in a quiz or exam for that matter. I’d go as far as saying that some A+ students should never be let near a patient – they belong in a lab somewhere.
The description of the whole event sounds like some PR exercise (many private medical school websites are full of PR nonsense). Nonetheless, kudos to AIMST for performing well in the quiz. Interested to see how they would do in a quiz not set by their own lecturers.
Nope! First of all it is a preclinical quiz conducted by AIMST itself!! I am sure their own students have been coached well enough before the quiz to make sure they do well. Thus, it cannot be considered as a measure of quality. Only if it was done by an independant body, the quality can be assured. No doubt that AIMST do have a very good facility but having a grandiose facility alone does not guarantee a good product. The academics play an important role and this is where most medical schools lack!
It has been said that “A Cynic is one who knows the Cost of everything but the
Value of nothing.” Your blog is full of cynicism, rather than constructive criticism.
I personally know AIMST University quite well. It runs one of the most cost-effective MBBS courses in Malaysia. Even senior officials in KPT concede that.
Because of cynical comments from Malaysian Indians like yourself, the Indian community keeps away and the course now caters predominantly to Chinese community, who see ‘value-for-money’ when they see one.
No doubt that AIMST has one of the best facilities but can’t afford to pay locals to become lecturers. I know the total fee is about RM 250K for medicine( yes, it is cost effective like TAR college compared to other private colleges). FYI, this is way beyond any average Indian family can afford! It has nothing to do with cynical comments!That’s the reason there are a lot of Indians who go to Russia to do medicine where they can complete with less than 100K. Even if they can take RM 150 000 PTPTN loan, it will take life time to pay back this loan. I always tell everyone not take any huge loan to do medicine! Also consider that you need money to do postgrad as well. You will be in debt forever. AIMST is surviving due to lecturers and academics from India. I am not sure whether it is even recognised elsewhere.
Interesting that A+ students should be kept away from patients and be confined to a lab.Medical schools provide opportunity for students to evolve and acquire cognitive, psychomotor and attitude based skills.A+ serves currently as the best documentary evidence to standardise eligibility criteria.Maybe when we are more open to aptitude and recognise it as a factor-aptitude based exercises can judge eliginility.Well I for a fact know AIMST students should first in an IMU hosted/conducted anatomy quiz.I was fortunate to be at AIMST for the preclinical quiz which tested psychomotor skills live on stage-like issuing a microscopy report.It was definitely of a high standard, with the team seatings were decided according who was leading the rounds and 1 member from each team observing the other teams. Maybe participants of the quiz are the best to comment on the quiz dynamics.
(Performance in) one quiz does not a doctor make
well,i persoonally made an effort to to attend this pre-clinical quiz as an audience….the way the quiz was conducted was in a very professional way…i was even having some chit-chat session with the lecturer after the quiz….well to call them ‘rejected from other universities’ is something to be reconsidered…they were of a 1st class standard..just because they won the second place, it does not mean the lecturer have ‘coach’ them for the quiz..to make such a conclusion is something not appropriate…another example that potray their lecturer’s quality :a month back i attented a HPV talk organized by glaxosmithkline in AIMST .fellow lecturer in AIMST gave some brilliant talks on HPV..to add on they even answered every single question from the members of floor…..so unless we made an effort to go personally down to the field to widen the horizon of knowledge,we are not on the pathway to make a conclusion…
I got no issue with the lecturers. I mean, how many Malaysian lecturers are there in AIMST? I think almost none. Most of them left due to poor pay structure offered by the university. Thus they got no choice but to bring all the lecturers from India, mainly from MGR university etc. These lecturers are usually good in their theory but I have seen many who are not that great when it comes to clinical medicine. I notice some of them are senior citizens, retired lecturers from India etc. Obviously they got a lot of experience to answer questions. Almost all colleges have some good students to start with. These students will be good no matter where they do their medical course.
1 good thing about AIMST is that they got good facilities with old style curicullum which I think is this the best way to learn medicine. Do preclinical followed by clinical rotation unlike some medical schools which has so called intergrated curicullum, total mess!
hello,i am a student from aimst university.i cant help but commenting since i am here experiencing what studying medicine is all about in aimst.
dear dr.pagalavan,i realize all that u have been claiming is basically what u think about aimst university and not what u solidly know about the university,the faculty of medicine,the course,the lecturers or even the curriculum.
let me give u a brief insight since u seem to sound like an ordinary third class mentality person who speaks with neither knowledge nor solid information of what u r actually critizing.
firstly, the university was created by MIED,the education division of MIC.
the faculty of medicine is handled by Dr.KR Sethuraman,(the dean) for further details of him,please visit the following site
http://www.mvupgo.com/faculties/fclThree/webcv-krs.htm
so,if u are done reading the link above,u will realize that the faculty of medicine (FOM) is not taken care off by any tom,dick or harry. we are talking about a qualified,experienced,highly reputable person.
thirdly,the medical course has been given accreditation from LAN.that is not easy.i hope u do know that there are some other universities who got their accreditation withdrawn due to their messy course.
please view this site to see comments of past students about aimst university
http://www.studymalaysia.com/student/views.php?code=AIMST
well,i hope u dont claim these comments from the site above are baseless whatsoever,because if that is the case,then u too write comments like this.they cant be baseless as well,can they?
next,the lecturers.well dr. just for ur information,there are many universities who are hunting for our aimst lecturers particularly of FOM.
not only that,u claimed that there arent many good lecturers in Malaysia,fair enough.
then where is the university suppose to get their lecturers from?well,india is one of the best country when it comes to the medical field.so,recruiting lecturers from there isnt too much of a bad idea,is it?
well dr,dont mind me saying,u studied in a reputable place like UK,yet ur not willing to help the indians in malaysia by offering to share u knowledge,then why would anyone else do?
so can i assume this as the typical indian attitude?talk,no act?
lastly,i am upset that u dont even know the beauty of our integrated curriculum here,yet u gave your baseless thought.well,i hope u put an effort of getting to know us more.
maybe take a drive up north and actually see for yourself what is it actually instead of wasting your time infront the computer.
please do us all a favor by giving us strong points if u want to degrade a place or a person. i hope your not doing this because you are another ‘anti-samy vellu’ or an ‘anti-MIC’ sort off person.thank u.it was my pleasure enlighting u and everyone else who might have been misguided by your irrelevant points.
best regards,
AIMSTmate .
AIMST,Kedah
AIMSTmate,
You sound like one big PR machine for AIMST. Seriously, they are not much better than the other private med schools in Malaysia. Don’t kid yourself.
“let me give u a brief insight since u seem to sound like an ordinary third class mentality person who speaks with neither knowledge nor solid information of what u r actually critizing.”
That’s not very nice. You don’t know enough about someone to call them ‘third class’.
“firstly, the university was created by MIED,the education division of MIC.”
We all know this. MIC’s record in helping Indians or Malaysians of any race has been abysmal. They are worse off than they were 30 years ago. We all also know that Samy Vellu is a crook. And Vell Paari (his son) is a gangster.
“thirdly,the medical course has been given accreditation from LAN.that is not easy.i hope u do know that there are some other universities who got their accreditation withdrawn due to their messy course.”
Getting LAN accreditation is a piece of cake. If some of the other joke private med schools in LAN can get accreditation, why can’t a med school run by a BN component party get one?
“next,the lecturers.well dr. just for ur information,there are many universities who are hunting for our aimst lecturers particularly of FOM.”
Really? Would like to know how you know this. And which unis are ‘hunting’ AIMST lecturers. Probably one of the 10 new private medical schools in Malaysia who CAN’T FIND LECTURERS – which is why quality of med students is not as good these days. If you have a fixed pool of lecturers and spread them too thin, this is what happens.
“then where is the university suppose to get their lecturers from?well,india is one of the best country when it comes to the medical field.so,recruiting lecturers from there isnt too much of a bad idea,is it?”
Actually, Indian medical school graduates are extremely variable. They have really good ones and really really crap ones. Graduates from really good med schools (like All-India Institute of Medical Sciences) most go overseas to western countries. Only those who are retired or can’t get into US/UK/Aus/NZ come to places like Malaysia. They’d even choose the Mid-East over Malaysia cos the former has more money. You may have good lecturers, but it’s not just because they are from India.
Well, I am shocked to see such a high ego and NOT well informed medical students in AIMST. I think by writing a comment such as this will just bring down your university even further! You basically don’t know what you are talking about and it shows your total immaturity when it comes to quality and standard setting. First of all, let me tell you that I got no issues with the lecturers. Most of the medical schools in Malaysia has some top , well reputable guy as their dean. If not how can they start the medical school in the first place? That does not mean the quality must be great!
LAN accreditation is no big deal! FYI, I worked as a Senior Lecturer in a private medical school for 4 years and I know exactly how LAN accreditation is done. Furthermore. whether you have LAN acrreditation or not, it does not make a differnce. As long as MMC recognises your degree, you should be able to work in Malaysia. (I do not want to go into detail of how LAN accreditation process is done!)
Hmmmm, and about the student testimony, it looks like another publicity stunt. The medical student that I noticed were from Singapore, UK and Sri Lanka. Firstly, please ask yourself? Is your degree recognised in these countries? If no, why are these students doing medicine in AIMST? Sounds very fishy to me!
FYI, I studied in UM when there were only 3 medical schools in the country with only STPM and Matriculation as the entry exams. Only my postgraduate is from UK.
AIMST lecturers are heavily sort after ? I don’t know where you got the facts from. Most local AIMST lecturers left the university for better perks and prospect. That is the reality. Not because they were hunted for their quality. There are just too many medical schools in Malaysia with too few academics and thus many just jump from one place to another. I know of one lecturer who was kicked out from one private university and was accepted by AIMST.
You should also view this blog andf read all the comments: http://aimstsucks.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-hell.html
Finally, I think you should go back and read my comments. No where did I insult AIMST. I only said that the quality is questionable and the lecturers are not well paid. And I got no issue with the facilities. The info that I get from Sg Petani Hospital clearly says that they hardly see AIMST students in the wards and comments I get about the students is also not pleasant to hear. Your comment above just proves that some of these are true indeed!
Dr.Pagalavan Letchumanan, dont just talk about the university… Basically u know nothing about AIMST University!! By just reading blogspots, news article n stuff doesn’t mean u know everything bout the university… You want to know bout the university, come ask the student studying here.. and you yourself go through the quality of education they providing. And u know what, India lecturer’s are 100 times better than the Malaysia arrogant lecturer’s… And aimst wont take the useless lecturer… For your information one of their lecturer Dr.PKR, is one of the most influential Microbiologists in the world.. I dont know what personal problem you having with Aimst, and i dont care, whatever you say, AIMST UNIVERSITY IS PROVIDING THE BEST QUALITY OF EDUCATION AND THEIR LECTURER ARE ALL THE BEST>>>About the pre clinical quiz, there is no any bias…all the question is based on luck…
I don’t have any personal problem with AIMST!! Is there anywhere in my comment did I say anything to insult AIMST. The only issue is the quality of graduates they and any other private medical schools in Malaysia is producing! AND again, Did I say that Indian Lecturers are hopeless! I am sure you are a student and every student will say that their university is the best without knowing what a good medical school should be like. The most important years of medical education is the clinical years. Now, how many full time lecturers do you have for each clinical department ? How many students do you have for Year 3-5? Now, look at the ratio and ask yourself what is the international standards when it comes to student:lecturer ratio? This is beyond your comprehansion. I know exactly what I am talking about which includes ALL private medical schools in Malaysia, not just AIMST!! Please think carefully before you talk! As a student you are not aware of many things that a medical school should have!
Having most influential microbiologist does not make the medical school internationally recognised! All private medical schools in Malaysia have world renowed people in it such as MOnash, Newcastle, Cyberjaya, IMU etc. How come they are not recognised internationally except Monash which is recognised by Australian Medical council. BTW, Monash may loose their AMC accreditation next year if the current pathetic condition persist.
try sorting out ur facts ‘doctor’,sources from dubious sites n blogs mean squat,the ability to attract malaysian lecturers?pfft right,6 of the eight malaysian lecturers ive known as as dumb as plank.being an indian national shouldnt be somethng looked down upon.Many counterparts of mine from IMU and even sunway whine about the quality of lecturers they have so SORT IT OUT for crying out loud.Lecturers shouldnt be judged from their country of origin,but on the students quality of students produced.
So LAN accreditation means nothng?then what should we be bothered about then?Dr.Pagalavan’s ACCREDITATION?so basically and ultimately means nothng unless it has yr stamp of approval?dont you think that you should just leave the people in charge to decide based on their set evaluation standards?yr biased views and set of evaluation like ‘the incompetent indian national lecturers’ are as perverted as a paedo,so please stop with the AIMST bashing.yr sources ‘from the SP hospital’ are clearly biased and feel free to keep on being biased but for gods sake stop trying to influence people.be well,keep well,stay biased.
I think you should go back and read my comments! NO where did I insult Indian Lecturers! In fact I said that I have seen good Indian lecturer but some are good in theory but not clinical. This is well known fact. I NEVER said “incompetent indian national lecturers” anywhere in my blog. Yes, LAN acrreditation is nothing, If your university is of international quality, why don’t you ask medical councils from other countries to come and accreditate your course? Why don’t you try Singapore medical council for instance? You say that I am biased then can I say that you are also bias towards your university?
There is no AIMST bashing here. I never bashed AIMST but looking at the students input on this topic , it clearly shows the type of arrogant students that AIMST has. I wonder how are they going to behave when they become a houseofficer?
dear dr.pagalavan,i seriously believe you should not be blinded with your own opinion.open up your mind.as said,do come over to AIMST and judge yourself.we welcome you very much.atleast then you wouldnt make assumptions of the quality of lecturers and students we have.stop listening to external rumours like SP hospital whatsoever.everyone says everything the want,but its hard to get the truth from anyone unless you yourself get on your feet to find out.
Best regards,
AIMStmate.
Thanks for the invitation but visiting the campus is not going to tell me anything about the quality of product. The best is still to get feedback from the hospitals where graduates are working. So far, AIMST have produced 3 batches of students only. The feedback I get: average. BTW I never said anything about quality of lecturers in AIMST. I have said this many times that I GOT NO issues with the lecturers. Many lecturers left AIMST due to poor salary scale and that is what I have been saying all the while and that is the fact. So far no one have denied the fact as well.
waaaw am so flattered seeing AIMST attracted that much of an attention, but again it just shows how some may have something against it when it thrives so fast among best med schools in malaysia ..doc PAGA ..you just cant let it go, cant u ?…stop being a hater , I am not from aimst but i couldnt figure out your motives ..the least i could think of is that you may have issues with MIC ..so be careful what u getting into doc .
I am not a hater. Did I say anywhere that I hate AIMST? I don’t think so. I got no issues with MIC either because for me MIC is non existant. In fact I just said that I have doubts about quality of AIMST products and then everyone started jumping and accusing all sort of things without knowing their own facts. When I bring up certain issues they keep brushing it aside and keep digging their own grave.
I don’t understand what all the fuss about AIMST is all about. It all started with one guy (Raj – see above) asking Dr P what he thought of AIMST. This is exactly what was asked: “Good day dr, i would like to hear you opinion about the faculty of medicine in aimst university…what do you think about their quality of graduates.? as they claim to have the best ‘clinical skill centre’ in the country n producing quality graduates…”
Dr P gave his opinion, as he’s entitled to, and then so many people get all defensive. If you have your own opinion, that’s fine, it’s your right, but you should not then personally attack and insult people who may have different opinions from you.
If you think that AIMST is the best medical school in Malaysia, then good for you. I hope you’re right. Chances are, you’re not. And you will find this out for yourself when you hit the workforce.
As a PARENT i pray that none of my kids ever turn out half as arrogant as the puppet you are.To conclude from your POV with absolutely no credible source?sad.Just curious whats ur agenda really?critisizing all this universities.?firstly, what about the whole ‘senior citizen lecturers’?so yr criteria for good lecturers are young blood who earn blots of cash?That adds up for good lecturer?CANT THEY BE JUDGED BASED ON THE STUDENT OUTPUT RATHER THEN ETHNICITY,AGE AND PAY PACKET?if you knew aimst like some of us ACTUALLY do you’d know that the lecturers there are among the best.I challange you to name me a uni with better lecturers as a matter of fact.and whats with ‘aimst has good facilities but that doesnt make them any better’.So they do hAVE great fascilities,and if compared to the substandard MAHSA,allianz,ucsiand many others) AIMST is a clear winner alrite when compared..And about the LAN acc,yeah sure Singapore.Didnt they get ass whooped in the recent pre-clinical quiz?But sure it was fixed wasnt it?thats y it made it all the way to the papers i guess.You must have some source i guess.DORAEMON im guessing?The way you just use the credibility of the LAN acc to wipe the floor is sad,unpatriotic,and therefore in many ways putting all the accredited universities down.
When we discuss about something it should not be emotional. Your arguments are mostly emotional arguments. That is sad. From your comments, I can say that you are a lecturer in AIMST, right?
Let me tell you the defination of senior citizen : Senior citizen is a common polite designation for an elderly person in both UK and US English, and it implies or means that the person is retired. You see the word polite ? So, if you have a retired senior lecturer in your university, the word senior citizen lecturer is not offensive at all. Many private universities do have retired lecturers including Monash etc etc. So, what is the big issue about it?
Did I say anything about age and ethnicity in my comments other than saying that most of the lecturers are of Indian citizen( which is the truth).? Infact I even gave compliments that this senior lecturer are experienced and able to answer all question. For you, this compliment seem to be offensive. I got no idea how you make up all this assumptions.
Yes, having good facilities does not guarantee a good product, that is the reality. And again, I did compliment this!
And about LAN or MQA. I have been through their accreditation process which is a general accreditation. They don’t concentrate much on medical school quality because MMC suppose to look into each medical faculties. Thus, LAN accreditation is for the whole university. Most of the time, the accreditation is based on what is on paper. Non of the SETARA committee members are medical academic.
I thought NUH got the first prize for the preclinical quiz? What has that got to do with SMC accreditations? If any university feels that they ought to be accreditated by another medical council than they should go all out. No point arguing otherwise.
BTW, you said UCSI and many others have substabdard facilities but aren’t they also been accreditated by LAN? UCSI, Cyberjaya is in the same Tier with AIMST.
pistolero: its the quality of student… they never screen any student… when i say “them” im talking about many of our private u… u’ll be surprise how so called med students act nowadays…
This is a place for us to have discussion, not for quarreling……hope u remember that….if you want to be a GP or even a family doctor, i think AIMST will do and perhaps other private medical schools should be okay for you. BUT if you aim to be a high-level physician (such as cardiologist, cardiothoracic surgeon….), i’m afraid that you have to look for another medical school. Needless to talk so much. Look at the recognition list of SMC (Singapore Medical Council) and you will know which colleges are good and which are not! Don’t trust the MMC recognition list coz they recognised almost all medical schools all around the world (including Russia and Ukraine) and thus it is not reliable!
Wow! I’m really baffled how people cannot even entertain the possibility that their university may not be that good. If you think you are smart, there are 1 million people smarter than you out there.
Really the heated defence of AIMST university by some commentators shows their arrogance, poor insight and lack of maturity and exposure. A bit of humility would go a long way to make better doctors. I hope they would not be so arrogant to say that their know everything once they graduate since they are from “the best” university. Sad to see such is the attitude of medical students.
Greetings to Dr. Pagalavan and all the fellow commentors who are involved in discussion regarding AIMST University,
First and foremost, I would like to start by expressing a situation. I believe everything will experience the following feeling which I will be describing: There is a man standing beside the street, suddenly pointing his fingers up to the air and started to wear a “surprise” look on his face. Later on, amusingly, many pedestrian who passes by, will stop and try to look up the air, towards the direction where the first man is pointing at. Some people will start to comment about what they saw, even a tiny little dot in the sky will become their answer to the mystery on what was the first man pointing towards. The fact is, the first man was just creating a chaos, there were nothing special in the sky, he was just simply pointing it to test the reaction of the people. We are human being with normal curiosity which we are constantly cater to. Sometime, with no solid evidence, and by merely listening to a discussion, we can actually jump into the conclusion on certain issues by just summarising all the comments we heard during the process. So this is the problem happening when the discussion about AIMST University arise.
There are no single medical institution in our country which are 100% perfect. AIMST University might be the one of the center of attention to be “spat” with negative comments just like other universities like TAR College, Wawasan University, which were as what people describe as “political-associated” university. If you bear this in your mind from the beggining, I believe you will be unable to comment without any bias.
No doubt our country will be producing tonnes of doctors every year. But no one will guarantee that from the all these graduates, everyone will fit to be a good doctor whom are fully equip with knowledge and good ethics. For AIMST University, so far the graduated seniors who are currently working as HO, they are receiving many positive feedbacks from the authority.
One might mentioned that, if a medical student, himself/herself is good from within as a good student, possess every of the quality to be a doctor, whichever university they went, they will be good. This is certainly a illogical assumption. Even a person who possess a good quality or talent, without any guidance or proper facillitator, they might not even shine and outstanding in future.
For AIMST University, from the organization pre-clinical quiz, various health talks, recent acceptance from Asian Medical Student Association as observer member, formation medical students online forum, participation in national conferences, it showed that they are making an effort to upgrade and and raise their quality on educationg tomorrow leaders! The point where the students felt proud to be a AIMST graduate is sufficient to show that AIMST University is quite successful in providing quality eduation to the students.
A swallow does not make a summer. One negatie comments does not entirely implies that AIMST University is a worst university.
Put a blindfold on your eyes, and start to judge by hearts.
Thank You Very Much!
As a vice president of Aimst Medical Student Association, I sincerely hope that AIMST University is given a fair chance to be view and judge equally as to others university.
Thanks for your comment. At least you are being fair and reasonable in your comment, of course more gentle. Just because I said that I don’t have good impression about AIMST, everyone starting jumping , god knows for what? I have my reasons for saying so ( that is my opinion)and a good argument will be to give proper evidence to say otherwise, instead of giving all sort of excuses etc. In fact, many of my questions are still unanswered. Every private university have their own way of doing things, be it marketing, forums, education activities etc etc. It is a marketing tool for the universit as well. The only people who knows the quality of the product is MOH and consultants who have supervised these graduates. So far the feedback I get is average. A good student will always excell wherever they are. They just need a simple guidance and not necessarily an excellent guidance. And I don’t care who the university belongs to.
First of all, I have nothing against AIMST as an institution. In fact, 2 years ago, I actually encouraged a retired geriatrician in the UK to take up the offer of an associate professor in medicine there. At that time, the offer was a very good offer with lots of benefits, but eventually he did not take up the post.
I do, however, have a problem with the mentality of the AIMST students, at least a big majority of them. The problem lies in a lot of students at AIMST adopt a mentality that they are boss and patients have an obligation to follow. It used to work like that, but not anymore. I remembered reading an article in MMA a few years back written by an AIMST student who won the essay competition about his insight to medicine and his approach to patient care, and it clearly struck me that he has the mentality that ‘doctors are always right and all powerful’. I don’t doubt his competency as a doctor, but I doubt that with such mentality, he will be able to progress far in this age where a lot of the focus on patient care lies in patient’s decision.
Similarly, from the bulk of the entries above by AIMST students, it is very clear that these people don’t accept criticism at all, and to a certain extent, is being rude by replying in such fashion to somebody senior. It really doesn’t matter even if AIMST is the top medical school in the world and you are the gold medalist in AIMST, ultimately you are judged by your skills, competency and attitudes as a doctor. Frankly speaking, any doctor, regardless of how good or how senior they are, who are unwilling to admit their mistake when they make one and take steps to limit the damage is a dangerous doctor.
If these people are unable to accept criticism, tell me what are they going to do when a nurse raises her concern that a patient has MI when you have already seen the patient and discharged the patient on tramadol ? Are you going to swallow your pride and admit that you made a mistake and put the patient on ACS protocol or are you going to turn around and shout to the nurse ‘are you the doctor or am I the doctor’ ? Worse still, are you going to conciously admit that you made a mistake, but decided that you will not make a fool of yourself, therefore you proceed with the discharge ?
Having world famous lecturers doesn’t mean much if you aren’t world class yourself. I have trained under Prof John Camm, a world famous cardiologist who wrote the cardiology section in Kumar and Clark, but that doesn’t mean I’m superior to my peers in cardiology. There are a lot of doctors who are better at diagnosing and managing cardiac conditions than myself despite my training under a world class cardiologist. There needs to be a certain amount of humility and respect for others to be a good doctor, which is what is lacking in AIMST students. If you are already adopting this way of thinking as med students, does that mean you are going to challenge your consultants when you are HOs without even giving a thought that it could be your own mistakes in the first place ? From what I see, there is a very real chance indeed.
Dr.. Whatever you say… Aimst University is still one of the Best Medical University in Malaysia!!!
I know of a few students who went to study medicine in Russia (MMA, RSMU), Most of them cannot cope after 3rd year and some 4th year, so they stopped studying in russia and came back to msia and some join MastersKill and also MAHSA., they start to study from the beginning that is pre-med at local uni..
the reasons why they came back are only known to them. I was told some of them cannot cope and also they were kick-out by the Russian Uni bcos of repeated failure in exams. And yet our local medical schools take them in.. These students are probably forced by their parents to study medicine . It is not surprising that all these students are Indians and some of their parent are even Doctors operating their own private clinic. Dr pagal, are you aware of his happenings? Can we get more statistics of those who dropped out of foreign uni n came back to msia to do medicine start from scratch? Their parents are all out to make their children a DOCTOR! and probably have a lot of money to burn.
This is nothing new. Even MARA scholars who fail overseas are absorbed into our medical schools. What more private medical schools. However I don’t have the exact statistics.
YAWN~~~ Reading all those comments up there really is boring… For all the trolls of AIMST up there, for God’s sake, can u just stop defending ur lecturers?? Oh deary deary me, NO ONE EVER INSULTED YOUR LECTURERS, alright?? =.=
From,
A neutral observer
Dear Dr,
I am currently a final year medical student studying in a local public university. I strongly agreed that clinical years study is the most important part of undergrad study. I had finished 1 out of 4 major posting in my final year. Even I passed the exam, I do feel that I am not competent enough to practice in 8 months time.
However, my university does not have its own teaching hospital and I find having difficulty to have teaching session in the ward.
Firstly, most of our clinical lecturers are expatriates and they usually do not participate in the clinical work for the hospital due to language barrier. Therefore, the relationship among MOH staff and the university is not close and most of the time, the students learn from the patients in the ward only. As for clinic, since our lecturers are not posted there, we hardly have any chance to see variety of cases in the outpatient department, which is very important since majority of patients are actually not acute case and therefore not admitted to the ward. And as usual, these patients usually turned up for exam, especially for short cases examination. I am quite worried since I am not confident enough / not able to pick up the signs and symptoms.
How about the local lecturers? Yes, we did have local lecturers here, but they won’t stay for long period. Most of the local lecturers actually joined the university initially because the university would sponsor them and ensure that they have a place for master programme (I think MOH did reserve some places for master programme to each local university’s lecturers/MO), in exchange of few years of compulsory service to the university after they got their master degree. Sadly, after they finish with their compulsory service, they left the university for better job with better income. There makes number of lecturers not sufficient. My bed side teaching session is carried out by 1 lecturer to 15 students, all surrounding 1 bed at a time. Sometimes, I barely can hear the discussion if I was standing far behind.
Some might says that MOH staff can be “adjunct lecturer” to teach the students in OPD. However, nowadays there are a lot of specialists in OPD, and the university does not have enough budget to pay for all adjunct lecturer. Therefore some MOH specialists are not willing to teach, although there are some kind MOH specialists are willing to do “charity” work to teach the students without claiming any money from the university.
The situation in the OPD is also not suitable for teaching and learning. In one particular room, there are 3 doctors seeing patients simultaneously. With staff nurses, patient’s family around, one can barely move around in the room. I feel myself as a space occupying lesion whenever I join the clinic session.
Just few weeks back, the Malaysia accreditation team came to my university for quality assessment. They interviewed me and some of my friends. As usual, we were requested not to tell negative parts of the university, else the same thing as CyberJaya university might happen to us as well.
Thats the problem I would like to share here: not only private university, even local university also has problem in terms of clinical years teaching. How I wish the university could have its own teaching hospital and more lecturers!
Yes, this is exactly what I have been saying all this while. I still feel UM/UKM and USM are still the better medical schools in the country because of the reasons that you have just mentioned. The problems above is the same in all private and public medical schools in this country. Not enough lecturers and no proper training. Unfortunately you are wise enough to know the importance of clinical teaching compared to a lot of other students who think that just because they have some lecturer coming for their tutorial , the university is excellent!
seriously quite disappointed with the edu system..
UKM sells their cert in Alliance…
Now RCSI & even John Hopkins…(can see RCSI everywhere)
i joined Melaka-Manipal because of the 2 teaching hospitals….
however,.. i only realize after i reached here that…
they do not actually filter their students!,..
student undergone only 6 months of pre-U also accepted
or with a level less than CCC
many mara student who rejected by Aus school also taken
(60% in my batch is mara+jpa)
in this era, its useless to get 3A* in Alevel as public uni will not entertain u,
and u can get into private uni with CCC only(as long as u have money)
then y study hard?
At least you are wise enough to understand what I am trying to say all this while. Private colleges are just here to make money on our ignorance. However, some still don’t seem to get it and make all kind of accusations.
Good insight CC. The demand for private education by non-Bumi Malaysians is what has fueled the boom in private med schools. These jokers have set up these med schools because they knew they could make money.
When I started med school in the late 90′s, I had friends who got in to melaka-manipal with DDD and EEE, so consider the CCC an improvement. Many students with EEE now go to eastern europe.
The fact that the rich students with poor results have better educational opportunities than poor (non-bumi) students with good results is a sad reflection of Malaysian society.
eastern Europe also? even CHARLES UNIVERSITY in prague? they are the top 200 in world?!!
anyway is there anyway to continue my studies after i graduate? Because i realize Melaka Manipal is giving their own cert, not from Manipal University which is world recognized. can anyone give me a brief guide regarding the pathway to specialize with a non-world recognized degree?
Especially eastern Europe. E.g. Russia, Ukraine, etc. They have set up English-language medical schools which are basically cash cows, alongside their native language ones. All the rankings you may see are for their native-language med schools, not these parallel English ones.
And if you think Manipal University offers a ‘world-recognized’ medical degree, you are seriously misinformed. Its world-recognized as a producer of medical students. Students from all over the world go there to do their medical degree because it’s easy to get into and they market themselves well overseas (because they are a private institution). American students of Indian background go there even, then sit the USMLE to practice back in the states. I’m not saying that they don’t produce good graduates, I’m just saying that calling it world-recognized is a bit of an overstatement. Real world-recognized Indian medical schools are AIIMS in New Dehli, CMC in Vellore, Lady Harding in New Dehli, Grant Medical College in Bombay, St John’s in Bangalore, etc.
yeah that y, now i feels that every med school is “cheating”… by using words like recognize by WHO, MQA and JPA~ i myself is a victim to those advertisement~
if u say those american can go for USMLE so is it possible for me(from Melaka Manipal) to take the test and further my studies there?
Yes, anyone can sit for any licensing exam but remember that each cost a lot of money and preparation. There is no guarantee that you will get a job anyway!
YES, I have been saying this all the while in my blog that all private medical schools are just cheating everyone but many Malaysian are falling into the trap especially those whose parents are not from medical background.
To CC:
Of course you can. The name USMLE says it all – United States Medical Licensing Exam. LICENSING!!!
But then again you might also want to know that only around 50% of IMGs (International Medical Graduates – this includes you and probably a couple of thousand more Indian and Pakistani doctors) will be able to match into a residency each year. You see, passing the USMLE doesn’t guarantee you a job as you’ll need to apply for a residency yourself (through the ECFMG). It’s a time-consuming process and costs roughly 10-15000 USD. Plus, you can pretty much forget about all the competitive specialties, namely dermatology, radiology, plastic surgery etc; you won’t stand a chance unless you score something like 270+ on the Steps.
That’s just of the tip of the iceberg. There are basically two types of working visas for foreigners in the US: J-1 and H1-B. Most employers will only sponsor the J-1 visa which is a temporary visa and you’ll be required to leave once the visa expires. The other better one is the H1-B, which qualifies you for the “Green” card, but is subject to a federal government quota, thus making it harder to obtain.
There are tons of information on the net regarding the US residency application process. You are NOT the first to consider this and certainly won’t be the last; doctors from third world countries (mostly) have been migrating to America for the past few decades, depriving the home country of much needed health care professionals, but hey in life there has to be winners and losers, right? It just so happens that the losers will keep on losing…
Just a side note, but are you aware that America owes China 1.1 trillion US dollars?
Do you know that Melaka-Manipal degree is not even recognised in India!! I think I have writen about pathway to specialisation in my blog before. Please visit my ” for future doctors” page. With your non recognised degree, you can only work and do Master’s locally. If you want to go overseaes, pls do their respective entrance exams/licensing exams with no guarantee that you will get a place.
I realized it after i enrolled. Before this, i was fooled by their advertise experts… by saying the certificate is given by Manipal University (which refer to KMC according to them) and i did check it online, KMC really get recognized by Singapore… Anyhow when i on my way through 1 year i realize that Melaka Manipal can go no where except Malaysia and Sri Lanka… what a sad case for me…
KMC was recognised for only a very short time, like 2-3 years. Singapore Medical Council withdrew their recognition in 2007.
CC, if the representation by Melaka-Manipal was promissory in nature and made within a short time frame before you signed up for the program, it could be grounds for you to seek damages (ie. sue them for cash). Not sure about the situation in Malaysia, but most commonwealth countries have consumer protection acts that enable you to take action after you had purchased a product that was falsely represented. It may take some time though.
woah thk man, ur really informative!
yeah i know that, regret that i rejected the china’s mbbs offer… even Singapore recognize it but not Malaysia. My parents asked me to serve our country and our peoples but the situations just making me more and more disappointed…
i dont want the US green card… as long as i can study there and come back afterwards. is there any other country i can further study? I heard that GMC(UK) do not accept schools like us anymore…zzz
can u brief me the path to specialize?(psychiatry)
after finish my HO years what should i do?
The only way to do Psychiatry in Malaysia is by doing local Master’s programme. After HO and 1 year of MO, you can apply for the Master’s programme. NO guarantee that you will get it in first try especially when there are 6000-8000 new doctors coming into the market annually from this year onwards.
to NAV i found the tread for specialize already, thk anyway~
I’m pretty sure you’ll have second thoughts about returning once you complete your residency in the States. Anyway, have a look at the 2011 Match Result. I suggest you spend some time analysing it:
Interesting categories:
For non-U.S. citizen students and graduates of international medical schools (“Non-U.S. IMG”), the largest numbers were
matched to:
Internal Medicine (Categorical) (1,215)
Family Medicine (363)
Pediatrics (Categorical) (256)
Psychiatry (Categorical) (147)
Surgery-Preliminary (PGY-1 Only) (129)
Neurology PGY-1 and PGY-2 (126)
Medicine-Preliminary (PGY-1 Only) (115)
Pathology (106)
Top five specialties with at least 10 positions in the Match and filled with significant numbers of independent
applicants (calculated from table):
Pediatrics-Primary (PGY-1): 57.6 percent
Emergency Medicine (PGY-2): 52.6 percent
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PGY-2): 48.8 percent
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PGY-1): 46.5 percent
Family Medicine (PGY-1): 46.4 percent
A few more pointers regarding the USMLE. Technically, you can only take it once, as you are NOT allowed to retake it after you have passed. So, some candidates choose to deliberate fail the paper if they realise midway through the exam that they are not performing up to standard (you get to retake if you fail). This system alone probably weeds out a good deal of candidates. You don’t necessarily get to choose which specialty you want, your score dictates which residency you get, unless again you score extremely well in the Steps.
If I were you, I would definitely finish up my HO (register with MOH as a back-up) and then study for the USMLE while you work. With the shift system soon-to-be implemented, you’ll have plenty of time to work your way through the pre-clinical stuff. Alternatively, you can study for the USMLE in medical school and take the exam/do clerkships in the US during your holidays. This way you can take off in the US right after graduation.
PS: For some reason I seem to be having trouble posting comments on this thread. Maybe the administrators can address this problem?
I got no problem posting any comments. Probably your network problem?
I’ve had this problem before too. It’s weird. I think wordpress identifies posts that have been approved before and uses the email / username as sort of a password to auto approve posts by users who have been approved before.
Huskies: thank you very much with ur precious info
to Dr: I’ve read ur post about MRCP, i have a question here, do MRCP exam applicable to anyone who finish 1 year of HO or only for those who held UK recognized degree?
Anyone as long as you are listed in WHO, if I am not mistaken, unless they have changed recently.
Dr
I have been trying for job at AIMST,i read your phrase” AIMST is among the worst university in terms of lecturer’s salary” how true is this?
Not nice for me to say the salary amount but e.g: the salary difference between Monash and AIMST for same category will be around RM3K.
Dr
thanks!
Dr
Another query regarding academic vacancy which institute is better AIMST or newcastle?
Newcastl better but they are still new.
dear sir, r u against amist university?kindly give me a true advise on it.should i join it as a lecturer.
I am not against AIMST. You can go ahead and work there but their salary is much smaller than the other universities. Most lecturers leave the uni because of that. And it is also quite isolated.
I just heard that KPJ might be starting medical school. With the number of hospital and specialist they have (many of whom were former lecturers) do you think they will fare better than the many existing medical school ( in term of quality of training)?
I doubt so. I have heard about this almost 3 years ago. Firstly, KPJ hospitals are scattered all over Malaysia. Consultants are busy with their workload in these hospitals. Patients in private hospitals may not want to be disturbed. So, they will still need full time lecturers and which hospital are they going to use : private or public?
hey
Dont these private college negotiate also! do they have so many lecturers coming that they find no need to do so!
When these private colleges are low on lecturers, they just make do with what they have. They sometimes buff the numbers by counting honorary lecturers that don’t really work there. MMC rarely ever takes action. You can’t negotiate because these colleges will go hire lecturers from Burma, India, Pakistan, Indonesia etc – being paid RM 10k a month is a lot more than they would be earning in their home countries. With endless supply of lecturers from 3rd world countries, why should they pay Malaysians more? To treat patients, they must have a MMC-recognised degree or postgrad but to lecture medical students, they can be from anywhere.
Nav has given the answer
Ya but ultimately they are only teaching students,they can come from whichever world they want to come, isn’t imparting knowledge a good thing does coming from country defines anything??if someone agrees to work in less its his choice.Its the govt which draws such line not the doc who merely are looking for better opportunities.
“only teaching students” … obviously not very improtant then
Imparting knowledge is a good thing, as long as the knowledge is there to impart. Also there is a proper way to impart knowledge. I have no problem with foreign lecturers in Malaysian universities, as long as they are qualified.
However, we will not progress if we cannot attract the best Malaysians to teach in our universities.
Of course they must be qualified else why would they be appointed in first place by malaysian universities? see the same problem goes everywhere doc’s of every country feel the same way,but its the policy that needs to be changed rather than cursing doc coming from abroad,they are merely being human to get attracted by green paper which they deserve surely. And everybody after slogging for 10 yrs know the proper way of teaching just few exceptions can’t be generalized.
Actually, there are many who are not qualified to teach in the Malaysian system. Our medical standards are actually pretty good at the specialist level, although the rot may be starting to creep in.
Just talking about my own specialty (anaesthesiology), I can give you 2 examples of foreign specialists hired to teach in our universities that should not have been allowed to work here. One Burmese specialist in a public hospital did not know how to administer sevoflurane, one of the most common anaesthetic agents in use in Malaysia and other developed countries. Another working in a private uni, from the subcontinent, “did not believe in using LMAs”. So you see, paper qualification from certain countries doesn’t count for much.
I don’t think anyone was ‘cursing doc from coming abroad’ as you so inelequently put it.
Finally, just because you have been ‘sloggin for 10 years’, does not mean you know how to teach. There is a art and a science to teaching. Some of our med schools (many of the public ones and some better private ones) have set up medical education units. These are run by those who have postgrad qualifications in medical education, and there to teach their staff how to teach. Almost all med schools in developed countries already have these (except maybe the very new ones). A good clinician is not necessarily a good teacher.
well surely you are hell bend in your beliefs.lets not generalize it,it was mere discussion and keep it that way.i was looking forward for an healthy reply not this esp.
To Hope,
All discussions have healthy and unhealthy replies. So if you are into a discussion, prepare to accept others opinions. You cant expect one sided discussion.
To Dr. Pagavalan,
I heard from friends that the shift system is inevitable though the DG and HODs are having pointless discussions. It will be implemented this coming September.
Yes, it will be implemented from September onwards nationwide! As I said, our DG is hopeless!
Despite all sorts of comment about Aimst U, I couldn’t get a place to study MBBS at Aimst 2 yrs ago. Now I’m in the 2nd year at MAHSA and the fees here is much higher than that of AIMST. I’ve 3 As and a B for A-Level. I’ve personally called AIMST why they don’t select student based on results and merit. They answered me that the 200 places for MBBS was full. They have 60 JPA government sponsored scholars who scored full 9A+ and above in their SPM from their foundation in science stream every year. The balance 140 places goes to top scorer with at least 3.50 marks and above, which is selected from their own yearly 700 over foundation science student plus other A-level and STPM student who have better results. I’ve no regret to study at MAHSA now, but my preference is still AIMST Uni as they are a ful fledge medical university and others like MAHSA, Cyberjaya, Masterskill, Segi etc. are still remained college status untill now.
That’s the reason I always believe that there should be a common pre-U exam for entry to medical school. We should remove all these foundation programmes which the Unis are using as an eyewash to get students. I have seen many top SPM students going down when they sit for STPM or A levels.
Dr., thanks for your comment. I actually don’t have any big plan on my future course of study, after my first degree MBBS. Similarly my younger brother, just after SPM intend to study MBBS as well, probably after pursuing a foundation in science course, locally. However, I find there’s not much choices of places to study in Malaysia for fees that is not so expensive, say between 250K-300K which is still affordable for my parent. If overseas U, definitely, it’s more than 300K except maybe Russia / Ukraine/ Bangladesh which I got feedback as not advisable. We just want to be a general practitioner to serve the community. On behalf of my brother, I shall really appreciate an advice from you Dr. for a place of study which is reasonably affordable. We’ve surveyed IMU, Monash Malaysia and Newcastle Msia, all at least 400K + to complete the course. It’s not worth for my parent to spend so much especially if we have not had any plan to pursue specialist field yet. Highly appreciate an opinion from you Sir!
I think Royal College of medicine Perak, Melaka Manipal should be OK. BUT i must warn you that there is no future for general practitioners. When the government introduces 1Care system by 2015, a lot more restriction is going to be put in place. Zoning wil be implemented and only limited number of GPs will be allowed to open clinic in each zone. Even to open a GP clinic you may need to be a spceialist ( family medicine specialist) by then. Many GPs are already struggling even now , so what more in 5 years time.
Dr., thks so much for your advice. Your blog here is very informative and I hope u’ll continue to write and comment in this column. I think we Malaysian will find your comment very useful, not only for potential medical student, but also for parents who wish to send their children to pursue medicine, enabling us to make more wise decision b4 we commit anything. As I’ve read certain comments which are not so respectful against u, I hope u’ll not disheartened by any irresponsible person’s comment and opinion. Your comment is very straight forward and down to earth which is derived from your personal assessment and experience. Furthermore, your comment and opinion are free of charge, what more do they want you to do, saying good thing about their college or universities? What we need are general public’s conception and opinion on current issue in our country which we could hardly findly as there are a lot of thing being swept under the carpet. Therefore, your opinion and info has help us a lot. Again thk you Sir.
Thanks. I always feel that ” you should not bark at a barking dog”. Every argument should be based on facts and not emotion. I never get disheartened as I know who is making a fool out of themselves.
We should not bark at a barking dog.The truth is we should stop a barking dog barking unnecessarily because it disturbs others.Thats the point.
Its true that we should talk based on facts truth but dont miss to consider other aspects before making a definite conclusion
A barking dog who barks at a thief who is trying to rob your house is not disturbing anyone but letting you know the consequences! No one is making a conclusion, we are trying to make the public to be aware of what is happening around them. It is up to you at the end of the day to make a conclusion!
Do not take or believe any comment or post here without thinking the pros and and the cons.It might not totally correct or vice versa.A wise people would always analyze,criticised,and consider every facts or opinion before making conclusion without getting influenced by bias or untruth judgement generally.
No one is making a conclusion here. You should read more. It is about telling the public what is happening around them and it is up to them to find out the truth. Don’t think the public is stupid and cannot decide on their own.
I think Manipal Melaka is not recomendable. Not only the MMMC Melaka not recognise by Medical Council India (MCI), the Manipal University itself in India at both Manipal and Mangalore are no longer recognised by MCI. The Health Ministry of Malaysia is in the midst of rearranging our sponsored student in India by studying the possibility of arranging transfer credits to other recognised universities for them to complete their MBBS. Please refer this website by skorcareer :-
http://skorcareer.com.my/blog/manipal-university-status-leaves-medical-students-bummed/2008/08/09/
That MCI issue happened few years back and it’s all about bribery and corruption, after which the previous committee of MCI was dismissed by the central government and another panel was formed to run the current MCI. Singapore Medical Council reacted so fast to this issue and subsequently withdrew the recognition of KMC.
If you talk about recognition by Malaysian government I dont think there is a problem. JPA is still sending students to KMC, the latest batch has just joined in August this year.
Regarding MMMC, their entry requirement is just too low, a lot of private students got in with the result of BBC. That’s why most of their toppers or gold medalists are JPA scholars.
@soulmate, thks for your explanation. I was confused by that article earlier.
hi. my name is Jane and I’m doing my a-levels and graduating in June. I have read the comments above all of which I find very informative and further my insight into the universities, the issue about the freeze years, and general thinking of the students from the universities. I met some doctors who work for both the government and private hospitals(due to my hospital attachmen. most of them recommended IMU. so I applied and obtained an offer to do IMU-PMS and the entry requirement is AAB .I applied IMU-PMS because a 5-year local mbbs is merely recognised in msia and another country which I could not recall. it would be difficult for me to further my studies and do my specialized degree. but here comes the problem. IMU-PMS could easily cost RM 800k(including living costs) if I’m to twin to UK. twinning to AUS and NZ would cost maybe RM100k more. do u think it is worth it?
the ultimate reason why I applied IMU-PMS is because of the overflooding number of MBBS graduates in Malaysia. my mother has a friend whose son did not get posted to ant hospital until 1 year later. this issue is getting more and more heated as the years go by and by the time I graduate in 2017, life would be hard for me. thus my mum hopes that I could graduate overseas, so I still have a job whenthingsvdeteriorate.however, according to my peers, friends and seniors eho are studying medicine, the chances to do HO and MO overseas are.pretty low especially in UK because of the European policy. and even if I get to practice there, things would be so smooth because after all, I’m a foreigner and patients maybe be fussy about doctors. besides, not only the working environment, but also the symptoms of sicknesses would be quite different there. what is ur opinion?
I heard that UCSI is planning to construct a training hospital but I doubt its reliability. do u know much about this issue?
I’m planning to apply to USM with my A level resul soon. according to ons of the comments above,without 3 A*, one doesn’t stand a chance to enter the public universities. but my forecast was merely 1A* and 3As and my advanced subsidiary level ( a-level half-exam) carries not super high percentiles. what should I rdo?
IMU-PMS is still the better option if you want to keep your option open in the future. Forget about USCI, they don’t even have enough lecturers.
Don’t be misled by obsolete information. Other option like Penang Medical College, Newcastle University and Perdana University (RCSI, Dublin) are far much better than IMU internationally in recognition and status.
Haha, I think it is you who is being misled. None of the universities that you mentioned are internationally recognised!! Most of them are even struggling to get enough lecturers.
By the way of introduction,my name is Jonathan. Thk u to Dr Pag for ur effort in this forum, very much appreciated, ur information is both sincere and truthful. Being a doctor graduated from IMU – Auckland, who is currently persuing mental health as my specialty, sad to say there are so many narcissistic future doctor arguing with you. Please continue your boldness in your comment. For Jane who is thinking about going overseas, pls do so, it is really an eye opener to see the standard of medical studies and care in the western world. I wish you well in ur future, being a doctor of humility, not of narcissism as shown by many above.
Dr P said IMU-PMS, not IMU. IMU-PMS means you do your first 2.5 yrs at IMU and then you transfer overseas to a partner medical school and get your degree from the university you transfered to, not IMU. That, in my opinion, is much better that Newcastle Malaysia (note recognised in UK) or Perdana University (not recognised anywhere).
Going to PMC gives you an RCSI degree which is only recognised in Ireland .The UK does not recognise foreign students with Irish degrees because it knows that Ireland has made an industry of foreign medical students. Even Singapore does not recognise the PMC-RCSI degree. If you can’t get an internship post in Ireland, then your degree is equal to one of the many unrecognised private unis in Malaysia, in that you can’t really work anywhere else without sitting exams.
Sorry, meant to type “not recognised in UK” for Newcastle Malaysia
I think not much choice or no choice at all for recommendation of a good medical schools if your intention is to work overseas. Even as I’m studying in one of the public universities locally now, I know that none of the foreign countries recognise our public universities’ medical degree except probably Indonesia alone.
UM and UKM is recognised by Singapore and many graduates from these 2 universities are making a bee-line to singapore last few years. With the glut that is coming and limited postgraduate oppurtunities, having a unrecognised degree wil make your life very difficult.
U meant UCSI lacks lecturers? Does that mean that UCSI just simply get some on-and-offs to lecture the students? Dear nav above, u mentioned that PU isn’t recognised anywhere. I got an offer but a doctor told me that PU-RCSI is crap because it’s too new, less-than -100 students and that RCSI comes here probably just to get the fund to do their researches. If PU isn’t recognised anywhere, does that include Msia? And NuMed isn’t recognised in UK? oh gosh I’m never aware of that. Does anyone know in-depth about studying medicine in USM?
With regards to NUMed, my comments may have been slightly outdated. Previously, for your degree to be recognised by the GMC, you had to have completed your clinical years in the UK. This is one of the reasons ASEAN-Sheffield failed, because they did their clinicals in Ipoh. The other reason was of course the collapse of the ringgit in 1997-98.
However, this is from the NUMed website:
“To gain full GMC registration as a holder of a UK primary medical qualification NUMed graduates would need to complete a programme for provisionally registered doctors and be awarded a Certificate of Experience. At present, the only recognised programme for provisionally registered doctors is the first year of the foundation programme (F1) provided by the postgraduate deaneries of the UK. Applicants from outside the UK and EU should note, that as NUMed graduates, you will potentially not be able to complete the first year of foundation training in the UK leading to full registration, as under prevailing UK immigration rules you may not be able to get a work permit.”
Essentially, it says that while you are allowed to apply to the UK for houseman jobs, immigration laws make that highly unlikely. In the UK, the number of Foundation Year (houseman) jobs is tied to the local medical school. NUMed is not linked to any British hospital so the jobs don’t really exist for them.
RCSI and the other Irish medical schools have been whoring themselves to foreign medical students for years. RCSI have had the foresight to have multiple branch campuses in order to rake in the $$$ – 3 in Malaysia alone! I am not saying that their teaching is substandard (it’s probably the opposite), but it is not recognised outside Ireland without full registration with the Irish Medical Council. If the degree from PU-RCSI is an RCSI degree (like PMC is), then you have a small chance of getting a houseman job in Ireland (same problem with immigration laws). If it is a PU-RCSI degree, then no chance.
um, i have tonnes of typos in the previous comments. is NO instead of SO in the comment posted on the 6th. =P anyway thanks dr Pagal. Please do continue writing the blog entries because, there just aren’t many who are able and/or willing to, u know, let people be aware of the new policies and issues and let people see the hideous things that lie in this profession.
From report released in S’pore recently, there is a glut of doctors in this small Island in the next few years, worst than Malaysia. They prefer other countries’ degree than the Malaysian degree, even though twinning degree IMU-PMS. Apparently S’pore recognised our MU and UKM degree out of goodwill b’cos we recognised their country’s university degrees. Your info could be a bit outdated, like the above reader said, as UKM and MU entry qualification are not like those old days where they took in only HSC or STPM student. Now over 90% of the medical degree student come from the one year Asasi Matrikulasi qualification which is very, very much lower standard than the normal world wide acceptance standard such as A-Level. Sorry for typo error again.
jane, you can easily find out the list of medical schools recognized by the singapore medical council. If you have never seen it before, here is the link:
http://www.healthprofessionals.gov.sg/content/dam/hprof/smc/docs/becoming_registered_doctor/Second%20Schedule%20-%20Registrable%20Basic%20Medical%20Qualifications.pdf
Who knows why SMC recognize UKM and UM, the important part is, both these universities have not been removed from that list.
Even though SMC recognizes many medical schools from various countries, they don’t just take in anybody who graduated from these medical schools, more so when there are more doctors applying to work in singapore. They can just pick the best candidate and obviously various factors such as medical school/academic achievements and etc are being considered. This is a reality in everything..e.g, comparing a graduate from Oxford and UKM applying for an accountant job. Who do you think the company director will pick? I know who i will pick!
Jane, can you show us the link about the report on the glut of doctors in Singapore?
Yup, you may be right. Singapore may also face a glut of doctors soon. Even during my time,the only way to enter medical school in Malaysia was via STPM. Only 3 unis were available, Almost 40% of the students are from STPM. I must agree that this percentage has reduced but still, only the top STPM and Matriculation students enter these universities. I must admit the standard of these once top public universities are dropping day by day due to various factors.
Jane, your comment, to a certain extend, is correct. Dr. P, most likely was from the STPM era,not even the HSC era. He did not have a complete grasp of the student’s standard in our country’s universities, especially, the public universities. A high percentage of doctors produced nowaday from local public universities like UTM, UKM and MU are mostly from the ‘easy passage’ Asasi Matrikulasi 1-yr programme. More likely than not, future doctors from private universities are more competent than the public university one. Furthermore, these public university’s student are mostly sponsored by governement and they study almost free of charge. Private universities or medical colleges’ student mostly have to borrow PTPTN loan to finance their medical degree course because it’s so expensive nowadays. The student normally work harder in their studies because they really valued the degree that they achieve out of their own sweat, tear and their own money.
For the time being, those who do not have any plan to work overseas, it is quite safe picking any of the following Malaysian medical schools recognised by MMC and also registered with US Board of International Medical Educational Directory; https://imed.faimer.org/results.asp?country=624&school=&currpage=1&cname=MALAYSIA&city=®ion=AS&rname=Asia&psize=25
You can proceed to specialisation through many ways after your first degree at those medical schools listed. The only worry arise if your degree from overseas is not recognised by MMC, but that can be resolved too by sitting for the MQE exam at one of the 16 public or private universities listed by the government.