This was something that was published in NST yesterday. Again, the same issue that was raised in The Star few weeks ago. Again I would like to suggest that there must be a strict entrance qualification into medical schools with only certain Pre-U courses being recognised. This must be monitored by the medical council. The government must scrap all these foundation courses that are being conducted by various colleges as an easier route to do medicine with no standardization. Soon, even students who fail SPM may be able to do medicine! God save this country!
Mediocre students becoming doctors
By P. Selvarani
EVERYONE knew she was a mediocre student, yet Lina (not her real name) was bent on pursuing a career in medicine.
Armed with her not so spectacular Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia results of weak credits in Biology, Chemistry, and a pass in Physics and Additional Maths, she applied to do medicine in several of the local public and private universities.
Her applications were rejected. But Lina was determined to be a doctor.
On her insistence, her family enrolled her at a local medical college which offered preparatory courses to do medicine in several South Asian and East Asian countries.
Despite acknowledging that her results were not up to the mark, the college took her in as a student and made her re-sit her SPM science subjects.
Within seven months, she completed her pre-medical course and Lina is now pursuing her first year of medical studies in a relatively unknown university in Bangladesh.
Stories like Lina’s are not isolated. The pathway to that “elusive” medical degree seems to be getting easier, even for those who don’t meet the standards.
Over the last 10 years, Malaysia has seen a mushrooming of private medical colleges to meet the increasing number of high-achieving school leavers who fail to secure the limited medical seats available in our public universities.
At last count, there were 26 public and private universities and colleges offering medical degrees.
While the majority of these universities and colleges impose strict entry requirements, including having distinctions or strong credits in Science subjects at A-Levels, some are a little more accommodating in their pre-entry qualifications.
Many of the smaller colleges offer foundation courses in medicine for those who do not have the minimum entry requirement of strong credits in Science subjects and Mathematics. Students from these colleges go on to pursue a medical degree in lesser known foreign universities, usually in Asia and eastern Europe.
What worries the medical fraternity, and Malaysians in general, is the quality of doctors the less established medical colleges are churning out.
As Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president Dr David Quek pointed out in the December issue of the MMA Bulletin “it’s not just the medical degree from ‘any’ university, but the prestige and the quality of the medical university or college that truly matters”.
The MMA has reason to be concerned as recent reports have indicated that many housemen, including those from local universities and colleges, are so inept that they cannot perform even simple procedures that medical aides, such as nurses, can do.
Dr Quek stresses that the government’s goal of trying to achieve a doctor-patient ratio of 1:400 by 2020 is “way too fast and too soon”, cautioning that it won’t be long before the country faces not just a glut of doctors “but also a possible erosion of standards”, due to the insufficient infrastructure and training and supervising personnel to cater to the influx of medical graduates.
A doctor who has been practising for more than 20 years concurs that standards have dropped quite drastically.
“Now, some of these housemen do not even know how to insert an intravenous drip or take a patient’s blood pressure or take a proper case history… and these are basics every medical student needs to know.”
He adds that when pre-entry requirement standards are lowered, then the industry would eventually churn out sub-standard doctors.
He says even when he was studying in India in the 80’s, he knew of students who did not make the grade but were offered seats in some lesser known medical colleges after paying huge capitation fees.
“Some of these students who entered the university a few years before me, had still not completed their studies when I graduated. Some took up to 10 years to complete their medical degree which most of us did within seven years. One wonders how competent a doctor they would be.”
He says because of the large number of medical graduates and limited number of teaching hospitals, many were not gaining enough experience during their housemanship.
“As housemen, we used to work 15 to 20 hours daily and if we were on call, it could even be 36 hours. But I am all the better for it as I was able to serve in various hospitals in Kuala Lumpur, Sabah and Terengganu and gained wide clinical experience as we were expected to do everything,” he adds.
Read more: Mediocre students becoming doctors http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/20spmd/Article/#ixzz1EafA1CBh
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I even came across of arts stream student became doctor by getting a medical degree of a unknown university in Sulawesi. God bless this country.
Actually, there is no problem for arts student to do medicine. In States and at least several australian med school ( a good & with reputation) will accept them. In States, Medicine can be considered a “post graduate” course. Anecdotal is one issue, evidene based is another. Any real statistics from MOH or relevant authority on how bad these doctors actually? Housemanship is one of period when new doctors face the real world. If you want to compare, ask MOH or relevant authority to track the doctors 4-5 year post graduation. Is there any difference between graduates of different medical s medical school. i have work with local H.O, private colleges, Indonesian & Russian. They are trainable. The problems with Malaysian specialist / senior M.O, they are not passionate and patience enough to teach. Please work in UK or do attachment for few weeks to see how they handle these group of mjunor medical doctors.
You are right but it also depends on what type of arts stream students who are doing medicine. A good grade 1 Arts stream students may be as good as Science stream students in doing medicine but same can’t be said about the Grade 2& 3 arts/science stream students. The situation in US and Australia is totally different. To start with, their education system is totally different and filters out all the unqualified students before they even enter medical schools. They have a very strict entrance qualifications. US and many of the medical schools in Australia are moving towards Graduate medical school where you need to have a basic undergraduate degree before being accepted into medical school. Many of these students are a matured lot and some have even undergone a working life before deciding to do medicine.
As I have always said, many of the comments about graduates from various countries and medical schools are a generalisation. I have also seen good doctors from Russia, Indonesia and bad ones from local universities. It all depends on whether the person actually had interest/passion in medicine in the first place. But one thing that i have consistently seen is that, bad entry qualifications do reflect on their quality. As you said, most of them are trainable but attitude do count. What I have seen lately is the attitude of these doctors who refuse to ask or learn. I also do agree about the attitude of senior MOs and specialist. Many are too busy or not interested in teaching. The good ones leave to private sector due to frustration with the system. You can’t compare the doctors in UK/US or australia with Malaysia as the working conditions are totally different. Furthermore, in these countries, the respective medical councils are strict and will not hesitate to suspend any incompetent doctors. This does not happen in this country!
tumb up to Azizi Ali 🙂
Some choose medicine because they have excellent grade in Science in SPM/O-level and end up regret of becoming a doctor.why? because they lack of passion.
i was graduate in diploma in medical lab technology and also first class degree with honour in biomedical science before i decide to study medicine at poland,all of this take at least 5 year to enter medical school,and all of this give me some experience than other student who just left their spm or a-level
Most countries are moving towards graduate medical schools where you need to have a basic degree before entering medical school.
i would like to know the step to take for a arts stream student who has completed her Foundation in Science but could not enrol Degree in Medicine because she doesn’t have science stream subjects in her SPM results.. is there any other way for her to continue her degree in medicine? does our Malaysia government allow arts stream students to retake SPM together with Biology, Physics, chemistry and Add maths??
Based on the minimum entry qualification by MMC, arts stream student are not eligible to do medicine. I am even surprised how she can do Foundation in science, coming from arts stream. Of course, some colleges in Russia, India and even Indonesia may accept arts stream students but you will not get NOC from MOHE. You will get into trouble when you come back to malaysia and apply for a job.
Frankly, i would not suggest medicine for her/him
so in this case.. it means she does not have any chances to pursue in medicine field at all is it?? isn’t there any chance to retake science stream subjects in spm or either by doing o’levels??
Not that I know of. SPM includes 2 years of education. Is she willing to do that? The other option is to do a basic degree in arts and then apply to a graduate medical school. IN malaysia, there is only 1 graduate medical school: Perdana University.
but cn she do spm which is the two years education in science stream if she is still willing to do it?? cn u explain in detail about the basic degree in arts sir??
You need to ask Ministry of Education. I have not heard anyone doing it.
Any basic bachelor degree in arts stream in any university. E.g Bachelor of Social Arts etc
so the foundation in science coarse which she did before had become a waste is it?? it doesn’t benefit anything for her right now??
Not for medicine
oh ok.. so nw what she needs to do is get a cert of bachelor degree in arts stream and then contact perdana university to become a doctor?? m i right?
Yes, that will be 4 years away and no guarantee that you will get a place.
thank you 🙂
Hello Dr,
I am sorry to butt in but in regards with Arts Stream students doing medicine, I know of a certain Arts stream student (who was in one of the worst class in school) who is now a medical doctor in Malaysia and studied medicine in the now derecognised infamous medical school in USSR.
Honestly, I wondered how the medical school could have accepted an Arts stream student (probably the work of agents?) and also how the government officials could have NOT looked at the SPM certificate during the job interview?
Indeed, in Malaysia, apapun Boleh!
Yes, it was possible before. That was the reason the NOC was introduced then. NOw, MMC has introduced further criterias.