As I have said from the beginning that this is a Malaysia Boleh phenomenon that will screw up the country in the future. We manage to add 27 medical schools in just < 15 years, probably the fastest in the world(we had 3 medical schools when IMU started in 1995) and currently the highest number of medical schools per capita of population!! Tan Sri Abu Bakar is right in what he is saying but he should have voiced out this issue long time ago but of course, no one would have listened to him anyway! Politicians make the decision in Malaysia and everyone just have to listen whether you like it or not. The 27 medical schools mentioned below does not include Perdana University, Premier University of Perak and Isaniah College, which means the number is actually 30!!!!!!. I do agree with him as well that with 30 medical colleges in Malaysia, why do we need to send students overseas for medicine (including JPA and MARA)?
Well, the health system in this country is going be screwed forever and it is not going to be easy to reverse the situation. Jobless and poorly trained doctor will become a reality and like most other developed countries in the world, people will then realise that doing medicine is not glamorous anymore. The income of each doctor will also gradually reduce whether in private or public sector. The good ones will continue to do well because of their reputation. The new ones will struggle even to get postgraduate training. Watch out for my latest article in Berita MMA which will be out soon.
Unhealthy growth of medical schools
P. Selvarani
Tan Sri Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman says every state now wants to have a medical school
KUALA LUMPUR: With too many medical schools, lack of teaching staff and insufficient training facilities, Malaysia is in danger of producing sub-standard medical graduates.Former director-general of health Tan Sri Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman said: “Too many medical schools have been allowed to be started in too short a time.”
He said this could become a problem when the country produced thousands of doctors who may not be as good “as they could be”.
“We don’t want numbers. We want quality: quality of medical schools, quality of medical graduates, quality of post-graduates. What we should be doing is working hard to make sure our medical schools are of international standard.”
Commenting on the mushrooming of medical schools and the low quality of medical graduates, Dr Abu Bakar, who was D-G of health from 1991 to 2001, said the the authorities needed to consider the country’s health planning when setting up medical schools.
“During my time, we used to advise the Education Ministry (the authority for higher education before the setting up of the Higher Education Ministry) on the formation of new medical schools, based on the country’s health planning needs.
“There was coordination in terms of what was needed and what was the production capacity.
“For example, whenever there was a request for a medical school to be formed, the ministry would enquire which hospital would be used for training. The prospective universities would come to us and we would discuss with them what they were going to do.
“We allocated hospitals to them so that they had facilities for training and clinical experience. Without that, they could not go to the ministry to consider their application. They had to consult the ministry before it could get the approval.
“That was how it was when universities such as Sheffield, International Medical University and Monash set up their medical schools. It was difficult to get a medical school licence then. But now it appears that this link between the Health Ministry and the Higher Education Ministry in terms of manpower needs is not there.”
Dr Abu Bakar, who is now IMU president, said co-ordination between the authorities was important, otherwise, the process of educating doctorswould not be done in a way that met the standards of local and foreign universities.
“Too many public universities are also being built too quickly and this is not healthy. There are too many housemen now, so supervising them can be difficult. And we worry they may not get adequate training.”
He said producing 20-odd medical schools in fewer than 10 years did not make sense, adding that there was a need for the authorities to justify the existence of these schools through evidence-based decision making.
“At present, every state wants to have a medical school. But is there a need? Some don’t even have enough training hospitals.”
Having too many medical schools also results in difficulties in recruiting academic staff, who are in short supply locally and abroad.
He said even IMU, which has been in the industry for 19 years, found it difficult to recruit the right staff, adding that although a doctor may be a specialist, he may not necessarily make a good academic.
“We need experienced people with academic management skills, curriculum planning, assessment, benchmarking and accreditation.”
On the quality of students pursuing medical studies, Dr Abu Bakar said while good grades were important criteria for entry to medical schools, students should also have the aptitude and desire to serve the community.
“The essence of being a doctor is to serve. Just because you are a bright student doesn’t make you a good doctor.
“You must have other attributes such as being interested in people, the desire to help others, patience, and the independence of thinking and learning,”
He added that he had come across cases of intelligent students not doing well in their medical exams because of a lack of interest.
“Some students graduate but they don’t want to practise because they are not interested in medicine; they took it up only because of pressure from their parents.”
Those intending to pursue medical studies, he added, should opt for local public and private medical schools, especially in terms of meeting the local needs, failing which they should consider medical schools in the Commonwealth countries or the United States, which have a similar healthcare system to Malaysia .
He advised them to avoid studying medicine in other countries where the healthcare system was different than that of Malaysia.
“If you send them to Russia or the Ukraine, they are trained to perform in the healthcare system of their host country, which is not similar to the system here. I have reservations about that. But that does not mean they cannot perform.
“And why do you need to send them to other places where they have to learn a different language? Why do you place such a huge burden on them? There are more than enough local programmes here for them.”
Read more: Unhealthy growth of medical schools http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/2educ/Article/#ixzz1FuLP1aTT
Pagalavan's Avatar 
Medicine will switch from a sickness model to wellness model, further compounding the problem. Doctors will be ‘preventive care personnel’ at best.
But we should also not forget that the world is changing. The practice of medicine is on the brink of a complete revolution.
The minute ‘information’ collides with ‘technology’, it’s growth becomes exponential (its a Kurzweil prediction)
10 years ago, MIRC and ICQ was cool. Today, multiply those technology by 100x, and you have Facebook and Google. This is ‘social interaction’ (information) colliding with ‘internet’ (technology)
10 years ago, huge desktop Pentiums topped out at 500 mhz. Today you have a dual core 1.6 gighz processor in my tiny HTC phone. ‘circuit optimization’ (information) colliding with ‘microprocessor engineering’ (technology)
So, our genome has been fully coded and proteomics is next (information). Technology is hard at work to compound the gains via cheaper manufacturing, wireless internet, smartphone technology, emerging pharmacotherapeutics, etc etc. 10 years from now, the face of medicine will be as removed as Facebook is from IRC Chat Rooms. Are we prepared for THAT?
I doubt anyone in the medical fraternity disagrees there is a glut of substandard junior doctors now, me included.
But what’s wrong with a ‘wellness model’ Chillax? Though I am a typical ‘sickness model’ doctor, I realize preventive care is the most cost effective strategy which results in the best QoL and mortality benefits to the general population.
Preventive care is definitely not as glamorous as heroic life-saving measures, but it provides the best results for the most people.
So “Doctors will be ‘preventive care personnel’ at best,” should be phrased as “doctors who are preventive care personnel are the best.” 🙂
reading this makes me feel sorry for future doctors and also .. patient…. because of the poor quality and inadequate training.. can anybody do something about this..
*sigh*
probably you should Rawrrrr
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The only course of action is to amalgamate the medical schools. If they govt could force the banks into doing it, they can make the medical schools do it as well. This will help limit numbers as well increase the pool of qualified academics for the medical schools.
In order to stop people going to cheap substandard medical schools overseas, the MMC just needs to derecognise them. Really simple solution but complicated by the fact that the JPA and MARA themselves send students there (5,000 medical students in Egypt – what a joke!)
But this is what will come first: Qualifying exam a la CLP. Just hope that it will be implemented fairly and that local and sponsored graduates are not spared.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/royal-college-of-surgeons-in-ireland/major-expansion-of-ucd-and-rcsi-medical-education-programmes-in-malaysia/10150452033195338
sigh… another so called expansion of medical school in Malaysia! Are they so blind? Can’t they see there is overflow of HO in Malaysia and there is no more hospitals available to be used as teaching hospital!