Every weekend when I flip through the newspaper (The Star), I just can’t ignore the small adverts that appears at some corners of the newspaper, for those who wants to do medicine! I am so embarrassed and disgusted to see how low medicine has gone. From a well-respected and noble profession to something that goes along with a motto “ Now, everyone can become a doctor………………….” Medicine which use to be done by the creams of the country, has now gone down so low that anyone with a low qualification and money, can become one.
These adverts sometimes make me wonder whether parents have become so stupid in order to make their child a doctor at whatever expense? If you look at the adverts below, some even guarantees a seat despite not being able to get a seat for A-Levels, STPM and Matriculation!! What does this mean? That the students are so stupid not being able to get a place in these pre-U courses but can still do medicine with a guaranteed seat ,100K total and no selection test? Sounds ridiculous to me!
In most countries, there are only few selected Pre-U courses that are recognised to enter universities. Unfortunately in this Bolehland, anyone can come up with a Pre-U programme to make money. The famous Pre-U programme now is ” Foundation in Science“!. Almost every private college in Malaysia seem to be offering this course with guaranteed seat in their medical course. Please go to some of the private medical schools websites and you will see this. It is really disheartening to know that the Ministry of Higher Education does not monitor these courses and allows so many such courses to appear. So, why struggle to do A-Levels or STPM? Just do a Foundation programme in a private college where you know your medical seat is guaranteed! BTW, who monitors these foundation programme curriculum and exam standards?
Whenever someone ask me about this, I always tell them that it is the safest to do STPM, A-Levels or IB. These are the safest Pre-U courses and internationally recognised. The other options will be SAM(South Australian Matriculation) or AUSMAT, which is a 1 year programme and also recognised in many universities especially Australian Universities. If you do the so-called “ Foundation Programme” in some of the local private universities, please be aware that it is not recognised by any other universities either locally or internationally. Thus, if you want to change course etc, you will not be able to get a place elsewhere.
Another Malaysia Boleh mah……………….., now you know why we are going down the drains………………… I just can’t wait to see jobless doctors soon and make some parents to realise what mass they have created for their child!!
Pagalavan's Avatar 
Sad indeed. Medicine has gone low … fat. It’s no for the cream of the country. And now the whey and other similar, lowly by-products can join and call themselves doctors.
really getting worried of the future.
sigh.. since when does studying medicine has become so easy? no need to be qualified by matriculation, stpm or A-level?
U pay for what u get…. Pay peanuts & u get a ‘trained’ monkey with a stethoscope!
Situation has gone from bad to worse. I wonder how and why the SPA still accept this type of foundation programme when those graduatees apply for jobs as it is clearly stated in the application form that one has to produce SPM results and STPM/A-level results together with their degree?
Malaysia Boleh mah………………
Now we start to see more and more court cases involving specialists for wrong diagnosis, wrong drug given causing death, wrong surgery done & others.
More will surface later? Some still killing in silence? This is worrying. Such incident is very very rare previously or never heard in old time.
Yesterday an interesting news regarding doctors in Singapore. The news said nowadays doctors depends 75% on investigation/test & machine compare to old doctors who depends 75% on history taking and the rest with investigation for confirmation. Means doctors now are more lazy and not using brain.
This is like doing private medical check up package in the medical center……scan you from top to toe and tell you what is abnormal later.
The thing with doctors ordering more investigation is:
– They are really not interested in the patient, otherwise they would definitely spend more time talking to the patient.
– Lacking skill and knowledge.
When they get queried for ordering such and such investigation, they get all worked up and emotional.
nice to read ur post mR..=)
but it is not about “WHY PARENTS WANT TO MAKE THEIR CHILDREN-DOCTORS??”
it is about everyone should STUDY!!!it is about knowledge!!
u think u good…but think again!!
Yes, everyone need to study but you need to choose a course that is equivalent to your qualifications!! If you have the qualifications ,then by all means please go ahead. If not why don’t you ask a lorry driver to become a doctor? I am not talking about studying but the quality of doctors that we are producing with this type of education system! Just 1 question, what if after you become a doctor, there is no job in the country? what are you going to do? and your degree is not recognised elsewhere?
How pathetic…who should I trust in future?
i recently got to know there is a college named nirvana,6 months of foundation and they are all in medical school. Exams are done by their own lecturers….
Goverment should do the controlling if they want to have a future of good doctors in the country..people are gonna find any way even if its the lamest ,to give the best to their children without thinking for a sec if it is really good for theyre children ..
Then again the ones who are gonna get it back are this parents who goes to the hospital and gets treated by their childrens classmates who has no quality like them…. everything that goes aorund comes back !!!
totally agree. Unfortunately it is a money making industry and many politicians are involved as well.
Pity the poor patients!
They’ll be treated like white mice by under-qualified docs!!
Hi,
I am sorry but I have to disagree when u say that medicine was done by the cream of the country before. There were grade 2 and grade 3 even SAP or SPM failures who went overseas to third world countries and came home as doctors even before. They may have taken longer to finish but they did. Paga, I have a Bachelors in Computer Sc. and worked as an engineer before reading medicine. Trust me i found it harder doing my comp sc then medicine. Medicine is not rocket sc…I personally know of a classmate who failed bio at form five, didnt get a place to do stpm in public school and did it in private school.then went on to India to do medicine via the premedical programme and today he is a Neuro Ophthalmologist in a leading Eye Hospital!!!!!u go figure! But u know what most of the time God and the body does the healing. Our role must be relatively small otherwise they wud be loads of patients KILLED by doctors!!!!!
Yes, I do agree with you but the numbers are small. If you go through the background of almost all the leading consultants in the country, you will realise that the number of people who fall into this category is rather small. That’s the reason why in most countries you need certain qualifications to do medicine!!
relative to the population yes it may have been smaller but not very much different though. The indians and chinese who graduated and graduate locally are of course quite intelligent cause there get into med school with high grades but on the other hand just because a student scored high grades in STPM or A levels does not necessarily translate to being a good doctor. So u can actually could have had crap results preuni but still can be a great doctor! But I cant say that for engineering cause if u are crap from the start you will be crap till the end cause its more about concepts and understanding things. U can memorise and pass medicine but I seriously doubt it if u can in an engin exam. So to do medicine u dont need to be the cream.
I do not agree that in medicine you can memorise and pass. It is more than that. Of course you need to read a lot but patients do not present like text books. Thus, it does involve alot of analysis and interpretation. To me, it is the same as engineering where you need to look at all aspects of a person’s body and physiology before deciding what to do to the patient. FYI, I was the top Physics student in N.Sembilan for STPM and I feel medicine is as challenging as physics, trying to figure out what is happening in a person’s body.
Yes, a top student may not be able to become a good doctor but this applies to all field. If you do a simple analysis, a lot of the average grade/art’s stream students who went to do medicine 15-20 years ago are now GPs/chronic MOs in health centres. Very few of them went on to specialise and become a specialist. I am not downgrading GPs but the reality is that when you become a GP, you don’t keep up your knowledge etc.
Furthermore, many students who went to India/other countries to do medicine then was because we had only 3 universities offering medical course and they could not get a place despite doing well, thus the quality of students who did this was also not that bad compared to now(where even our SPM standards has gone to the dogs)
I have seen enough students and colleagues who had different grades and I will still say that you need certain level of intelligency to do medicine and to become a good doctor. Most of them who do not become a good doctor are those who are not actually interested in medicine in the first place.
what i am saying is there are alot of students even like u say from the arts stream who had bad results would gladly go to do a medical degree but would not have dared to do other courses. Maybe thats because they knew what doctors did but dont know what a chemical engineer did for instance. And most of them eventually graduated even if they had to pay to pass eventually. I dont think it is fair to say that those average ones 20y ago are chronic Mos and GPs cause I am sure you could find them as HODs is various Government facilities as well. Trust me the smarter ones wud have left service cause they wud have been confident to practise outside. And those oldies who are now GPs and chronic MOs may have had family commitments to attend to as the government service was not really very attractive then was it. And to some family would have come first.
By the way yes we know u were the top stpm student in negri but how can one know if u had the highest marks in physics…were the marks given. And also the top student in 1986 St. Pauls is now a GP in sandakan!
i guess it looks like regardless of it all, as long as u have the money u can become anything you want…….its between u and yourself isnt it……good chat mayte
Yes, exactly. That’s the reason why I said that education should never be commercialised. There should still be strict regulatory bodies monitoring the education system like AMC in Australia etc etc.
BTW, usually the list of top students are given when the STPM results are out. The top results in each subject is also given. This is given to each school by the education system. So, if you have a copy you will know who are the top student in each subject. I still have the list somewhere in my cupboard!
The government service is still in a mess with a lot of underqualified people running the system. As you said, the good ones leave to private sector or overseas. BTW when are you coming back to “motherland” !! or decided to stay put “down under”. Who knows one day I may land up there as well!
the intention is to stay here. Cant stand the racism, the discrimination and the corruption. I mean when the vast population cannot see a sham when two policemen are guilty of murder without a motive…..it means the majority are idiots and u cant beat the majority! as they will vote day in day out for the same people blindly. As for the Indians and chinese who go out to vote for the government well i wonder why they go out to vote the BN when their lives cannot actually get worse then it already is ie the poor i mean. Well no gurantee with Pakatan i agree but why bother go out in the hot sun or the rain to vote then……if it aint gonna make a diff and it hasnt for 50 years.Kesian thats all i can say. My wife is Malay my daughter is a Bumi, imagine when we registered her birth they said religion have to be islam but race can choose……..imagine that. So they want me to put indian and lose all the goodies for her!!!! Even with this i dont want to come back. I refuse to invest in ASB as well now that i can cause I am against race based investments which benefit one race…its wrong. I may be stupid but its not the right thing.
Well, I feel we should still try to change the government. Not to say that the opposition is any better but it will make the government to respect the people better. WE should still vote as even a single vote counts! Yes I totally agree that any race based system should go!
The election itself is not fair — pengundi hantu, RM100 bribery, ‘You help me, I help you’ speech. So how can we change the government.
As I said, atleast we should try before giving up. If all afford fails, then we leave for a better land…………..hopefully. Many of us still have family and friends here that makes us difficult to leave them behind. Even though my father keep asking me to leave but I still have some faith in this country eventhough it is fading day by day……………
i agree wif moe..dun think the cream ony can do medicine..cream will get infected and cause diarrhea ny..
Ya, the country will also get diarrhoea when any tom, dick and harry can do medicine. The good ones will leave the country leaving the shit behind!!
now, the biomedicl student want to further their study in medicine …is that possible..or just a waste of time… a lot of biomedical student are those that are fail from the hunt to read medicine ..
so now the seem to stay in this course but their heart is still in medicine…
any help Dr?
Please think carefully before choosing medicine as I have written under my ” For Future Doctos” series. Biomedical science has a lot of prospect especially in research field. But you need to hunt for a good oppurtunities and be good in what you do. Unfortunately, in Malaysia, there is not much emphasis in research and development.