Well, the Minister himself has finally acknowledged that there will be surplus of doctors soon (please read the 2nd last sentence) but of course, he claim that the moratorium is to prevent the surplus. However, as I have said before, I don’t think the moratorium is going to make any difference in preventing surplus of doctors in 5 years time. We already have about 4000 new doctors coming into the market last year. Remember, almost 50% on the 30 medical schools in the country have not even started to produce their graduates! Even if each produces 150 students , almost 4500 students will be graduating locally by 2015 but I am sure the number will be much higher as some public universities are already producing more than 200 students per year.
This news also confirms that you can do medicine wherever, including African, South American or eastern european countries and the government is not bothered! Getting NOC is a joke anyway. Some stupid clerk sitting in the MOHE will decide on the NOC! BUT what is for sure will be the Medical Licensing Exam(MQE) that every overseas graduate will have to pass before being eligible to be registered as a doctor. This is where a major problem will occur with substandard students may not even be able to get a job/practise as a doctor. I just hope that the MQE will be standardised and transparent enough. I won’t mind being one of the examiner thou!
Malaysian students will be able to pursue medical studies at any institution of their choice anywhere in the world once the Medical Act 1971 is amended, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai said one of the amendments would be the nullification of the Second Schedule which lists all the 375 recognised medical institutions.
Under this approach, the students would be able to choose the institutions of their choice, provided they obtain the “No Objection” certificate before hand from the Ministry of Higher Education, he said.
“After graduation, the students will have to sit for the Licensing Examination to determine their ability to function as quality and competent doctors,” he said when replying to a question from Dr Tan Seng Giaw (DAP-Kepong).
Liow said that students who passed the examination would be eligible to register with the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) to serve as doctors in the country.
“It cannot be denied that it is difficult to conduct regular monitoring of the quality of medical studies by institutions abroad in view of the geographical and logistical factors and prohibitive cost involved in sending an evaluation panel overseas,” he said.
Liow said the moratorium on new medical programmes offered at local institutions of higher learning would come into force once it had been approved by parliament.
The moratorium, being worked out by the Ministry of Higher Education with input from relevant government agencies, was necessary to prevent the creation of a surplus of medical graduates, he said.
Liow also said that the number of medical graduands registered with the MMC had grown from 2,527 in 2008 to 3,150 in 2009 and to 3,257 last year.
– Bernama
Pagalavan's Avatar 
Theres three perspective to this news
1. The Pro Government Ppl – awesome! spectacular! brilliant! now we can control the quality of our doctors and etc etc etc… since malaysia is gona be a developed country ala Switzerland, Norway, Australia, etc by 2020, its only fair that we display stringent quality control to prevent ukraine, indonesia and romanian grads from populating our high quality system.
2. The Opposition Ppl – of we r screwed. yet another attempt to internalize the business aspects of medical education yada yada yada. The licensing exam is designed to fail this ppl and to increase number of students going to masterskill and mahsa yada yada to fatten the businessmen/politician/crony pocket
3. Those who feel racial marginalization – bah humbug! yet another attempt to prevent indians/chinese to become doctors.
* note i am not supporting any of the three ideas above *
hahaha the way I see it it is a just another scam by the government as they don’t have enough guts to say they simply dont have the money to hire more house officers which is due to they very own stupid policy of recognizing dubious medical school in the ex-ussr colonies and indonesia which are like factories without quality control producing doctors by millions yearly. and to mention allowing new medical schools to be opened like kedai-kedai mamak at your local neighbourhood.
currently they are steady stream (average of 100) of house officers from these countries plus local medical schools every week or fornightly being employed by MOH. imagine each house officer is being paid rm 3500(x100) irregardless of how incompetent and lazy they are.
so now this is a “solution” or easy way out for them. the exam will not be neutral nor will it based on merit, it will be based on quota (i hope it’s not racial) and the government financial capacity.
again, those who are govt sponsored in uk,ire,oz,nz will simply refuse to come back, why should they take another exam when they can simply work in the country in which they earn the degree from. they just can fail the exam deliberately and say to JPA, im sorry im not good enuff for malaysia but uk is willing to accept me.
even the locals…um and ukm grads if they are subjected to the same exam…more and more will leave for singapore.
what will happen to those who managed to escape the exam? they will be MOs soo.in the end our rakyat will be served by those who graduated from dubious medical school where a number of em cheat and paid they way through and these people are being awarded by the government the title “MO” which mean they can produce MC, medical reports,certify death etc……run the district hospital and KK on their own joint.one would wonder the abuse of power and corruption, medical malpractice in these places.
yet again this is malaysia where things like these are normal.
i for one believe they should be a qualifying exam for MO not just HO. and doctors should be recertified on regular basis like in America.
Since Malaysia is so proud to have 30 medical schools, why should it send students to overseas anyway!! It’s time JPA?MARA etc start to send their students locally and become jaguh kampung!
Dear MN
I quote from your statement:
“they should be a qualifying exam for MO not just HO”
Do you mean a common “exit” exam for HOs who are going to finish housemanship and work as MOs? Or are you simply generalising about most MOs?
Please bear in mind that, not all MOs are lazy or incompetent, and not all of them are products of dubious medical schools.
There are alot of MOs who are doing masters, doing membership exams, slogged their arses off to serve the people while being paid peanuts and strive to improve themselves.Most have to juggle between studies,work, stupid on call system which has not changed till today and also bearing all the respobnsibilities of a bread winner. Probably their knowledge and competency is far better than alot of “bosses” who usualy do nothing, say nothing and get paid on JUSA rank.
If you are generalising, hell why dun ask all the HODs and specialists to have another exam as well?
Alot of MOs are backbones of the periphery health system and it seemed very unfair to judge them and to subject them to such an exam.
DRC,
My apologies if i have offended you. Yes I’m talking about these newly appointed MOs from dubious medical schools who managed to be exempted from MQE who are now slowly going to flood the district hospitals and KKs. At my hospital there’s alot of complaints from district about how poor these MOs are performing. Yes, an exit exam would be fitting.
Every medical professionals should be re-certified on regularly basis like what the americans are doing.
Yeah there are hardworking MOs out there who are being ill-treated in the system, I feel for them. But I have also seen a number of chronic MOs who fail at doing basic resuscitation and cant even make a proper diagnosis from history.
owh by the way those grads from cyberjaya are now working as HOs. speaking of toothless tiger hahahahhahaha. welcome to malaysia.
I think the batch you are talking about must be 2010 batch. They were recognised from 07/2010 till 12/2010.
BTW I still think MMC is toothless!!
“The amendments will only apply to new medical students and not those who are already in existing courses,” said Liow when replying to a question from Dr Tan Seng Giaw (DAP-Kepong) in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.
That being said those doing 1st year in some foreign universities are exempted, which means we still need 6 years for the rules to take effect if the act is to be implemented this year. Is that right, Dr?
Well, in Malaysia anything can happen! We just have to wait and see. When the number of graduates starts to increase very fast, they may just implement it!
current houseman number 4000+ x 3500 monthly. 14 million+ monthly minimum to pay all the house officers. not including the free medications. overcharge supplies. the corruptions.pharmacist MOs Specialist PPKs. MAs.Nurses. Radicare. those clerks at admin office and reception( they have cut down a number of allowance for them).
medicine is an expensive business man. i think if BN wins…with 2/3 majority. thats it for the poor rakyat ..no more free healthcare…insurance all the way offered by some company owned by cronies.
maybe it’s a good idea. then it will be market driven. survival of the fittest.
hello doc,
it is really a good news for me as i am studying in a unrecognized medical institution, i feel i got a opportunity to grab a place in malaysia.
be reading all the above comments, i would like to say that not all the unrecognized medical students are not competitive with malaysian health care.
Dasan,
This is not really good news for you. Your situation is exactly the same before. You still have to sit an exam before you can work in Malaysia.
which means, im not eligible to sit for the common qualifying exam like others?
or should i sit for MEQ?
No, you still have to sit an exam, whatever it may be called.
ok. i understood. thank you 🙂
hello doc,
the representative for Perdana University had come to my university.. giving a lecture on how we can further our study there.. the min years is 4 years, and he proudly said that the JPA will sponsored an outstanding student to study there.. about 1 million is the total fee for the whole 4 years .. and he also said that in the future, he think that malaysia are becoming more like USA med system..only people who had first degree can study medicine.. and the way he sad about studying there… is more toward holistic approach,… not more toward quantity but quality… not more toward competing between student but more toward complementing.. and with the link wit John Hopkins University..i think it’s a great boost for my career…
what’s you take on that doc?
there are few things that you must understand:
1) All developed countries are moving towards graduate medical degrees where in order for you to do medicine, you need to have a basic degree. UK and Australia are also moving towards this system. It is believed that students are more matured by then and knows what they are getting themselves into compared to SPM/STPM leavers who are totally unaware what they are getting themselves into!! Most of these graduates students would have already started to work and earn a leaving before thinking of doing medicine. Even Singapore started their 1st graduate school in 2007 and the 2nd is coming soon, with collaborations with a UK medical school.
2) Jonh Hopkins is not offering a John Hopkins degree in Perdana University. Your degree is Perdana University degree with a small statement saying ” in collaboration with John Hopkins University”, So basically it is a local university degree with no international recognition!
3) All universities in Malaysia will start off with their grandiose plans but what they don’t realise is the fact that our country DO NOT have enough human resource to make it a success. When I first joined Monash Malaysia in 2006, the head of school Prof Anuar Zaini and Prof Khalid, who are big names in Malaysia academic world said the same things about Monash Malaysia which really enticed me to join Monash. The way they decribed their plans and how Monash will offer a 5 year programme in Malaysia which will be internationally recognised and how they are planning to make it as good as Monash Australia etc etc really impressed me. But after 4 years with them I was really dissapointed. They never implemented what they promised and till today, they are unable to employ enough clinical academics to run the medical programme. Recently they have also started to recruit Burmese and Indian academics. The students are taken for a ride with the exorbitant fees that they are paying!! The same situation is happening with Newcastle university in JB. When I met the CEO last September, he was very confident that they will be able to get enough academics to start the programme by this year. In fact, he was not keen for part time lecturers. By Dec 2010, they were desperately looking for part time lecturers and willing to offer higher than Monash!! You understand what I mean?So, the person who comes and talks to you do not understand the real situation in the ground. If it fails, John Hopkins will just pull out as what happened to Sheffield university in Perak few years ago. But you will con’t to receive Perdana University degree. ………………….
1 million is a lot of money and I can assure you, the quality will be atrocious simply because they will not be able to attract enough good academicians! At the end of the day it is all about money, period!
The sheffield effort is what IMU is now. I see that Monash Malaysia is recognized in Australia but not in Singapore. If you read the SMC schedule..it says clayton campus only. I guess Singaporeans are just too near to us to realize what’s going on the ground compared with their Australian counterparts.
Initially if i’m not mistaken the monash malaysia idea stems from the fact that MARA is sending huge number of students yearly to Monash. It seems like a huge cash cow to milk if a local institution can be setup using a Monash brand. Similarly the John Hopkins plan.
If our fellow ministers are really serious about many things, the situation will not be as dire as it is now. But you see they are think about their buncit perut first and the peruts of their family and crony before even bother about the future affairs of Malaysia.
as I said, it is all about money making business. Yes, Mara use to send a lot of students to Monash Australia. In fact, MARA has an office situated within Monash Clayton campus. After MOnash Malaysia was up and running, Monash Australia began to cut the number of MARA students in their Clayton campus.
Yeah, interesting about the Monash situation in Singapore. Same with Penang Medical College – at first Singapore recognised their RCSI degree but they’ve since taken away that recognition.
Also, Monash Malaysia uses AMC recognition to try and attract students but neglect to tell them that there is no extra space for interns in Australia currently, let alone for foreign students who have done their clinicals in a non-Australian hospital.
Yup, Monash Malaysia is NOT recognised in Singapore! The first Monash batch had 7 singaporeans who were assured that MOnash Malaysia degree would be recognised by Singapore since it is the same degree as Australia. However SMC is way smarter then our fellows here. All the 7 students who graduated end of 2009 could not work in Singapore. Luckily they manage to get internship in Australia. One of the student who had Malaysian girlfriend went and saw up to the Singapore Health minister but still were unable to get a housemanship post in Singapore. Since his girlfriend was a JPA scholar, she had to work in Malaysia and this poor guy even applied for a post in Malaysia, only to be told that housemanship in Malaysia is only for Malaysian!!!
BTW, SMC did tell the student that even though the curicullum and exams are the same, they still consider Monash Malaysia equivalent to all the other private medical schools in Malaysia in terms of quality!!!
exactly. we need talent (quality human resource) to pull off any of our projects. Right now, we have sporadic patches of researchers/academics, but its not enough thanks to brain drain etc.
think about it, we have cardios, gastros, surgeons and pediatricians in us, uk and australia. you want brain gain? call them back, match their foreign salaries, allow them to buy cars tax-free and put them into all our unis. Now THATS a commitment to improve the status of our unis.
you dont need 30 fragmented medical unis. someone ( i think dr nav sidhu) mentioned to amalgamate the schools. while its a superb idea, its not gona happen because expecting all the dato’s and tan sri’s who are currently CEO’s of the private med school to share profit, etc , aint gona happen.
I am patriotic. I truly love my country. But let me say this.
All our ‘projects’ and ‘efforts’ to develop the health care system of Msia will face major resource related road blocks. At best, we wont achieve a developed system, but prevent our current system from collapsing.
hey chillax,
if you call all the talents back and give them the mentioned perks, how would the jaguh kampung (local talents) feel? Shouldn’t they get the same benefits? Why those who left the country get treated better than those who decided to stay and serve? Hahahahha. The only way for Malaysia Medical Service to improve is cut out this bureaucracy BS straight away. Establish a corporate holding for medical professional recruitment/employment/career where things are done on merit rather than seniority. Then only this UD54 la, JUSA bullshit will go away. But how will the JUSAs feel, some of em are also nincompoops…how to cari makan?
Hi,
I’m not sure whether this is relevant or not. I’m studying in Australia and planning to do my 1-year internship here because I did my elective in Hospital Besar Melaka last year and was appalled by the high no of interns in one unit (I did paediatrics and they have 20-30 interns in that unit). However, I’m planning to go back to Malaysia after that. Will I be able to get the full registration or I still have to do a 2-year housemanship? Thanks
Yes, you need to complete the remaining postings that you have not done in Australia.
In Australia, there will be 5 terms (10 weeks each) during internship. I know that in Malaysia, there will be 6 compulsory rotations (4 months each). If I managed to do 5 of the 6 rotations (I might exclude Orthopaedics), does that mean I only have to do Orthopaedics when I come back, and then I will fully registered?
I just found your blog today and I love it. What is your job, if you don’t mind me asking.
If I am not mistaken, you also need to complete the remaining postings, meaning that you need to add 6 more weeks in each of the postings as well. THis will be arranged in the respective hospital where you will be posted. My advise is : if you want to do housemanship in Australia, don’t return untill you complete your specialist training! BTW, if you are a gov sponsored student, pls come back and do your housemanship in Malaysia. You will know what I do if you click “About Me” page.
Thank you very much. You are doing an amazing job telling everyone the harsh reality of the medical profession in Malaysia nowadays. I am looking forward to read your next insight on this topic. Thank you very much and wish me luck on my studies!
Dr Pagalavan, I think that the future MQE is not about determining who is qualified or not. I think it’s all about raking in the business and squashing all competition. If they do not introduce the MQE, students will forever choose to head out to medical schools in Russia, Indon, Egypt etc because they are CHEAPER. A 6 year medical course in Russia costs about RM280000 ALL INCLUSIVE. Just tuition fee alone in IMU, however, is 350000?
I’m quite sure there will be little or no more students heading out to these unis because frankly, nobody will want to sit for the MQE. Thus opening the malaysian medical schools to a larger share of the market. Overseas competition stiffled.
But when the market get saturated and jobless doctors become a reality by 2016, the public will stop asking their children to become doctors! Then some of these medical schools may close down!