Just when everyone is talking about the 5 year moratorium of medical colleges, here comes another advertisement in the Star:
Royal College of Medicine Perak has a long history. It started off as Sheffield University in 1998, the first branch campus of a foreign university. Unfortunately it failed due to financial reasons as well as the fact that Sheffield was unable to receive GMC accreditation. It was then taken over by the Perak state government and used UM’s curriculum and offered UM degree. Subsequently it was taken over by UniKL. As I have said earlier, the 5 year moratorium is of no use as the existing medical colleges will continue to expand and recruit more students. This advert just proves what I had said. By having another collaboration, the university can increase their student intake, which means that they will have 2 sets of students, one following the local UM degree and another using the twinning programme with Salem university!!
The below article also appeared in Star on the same day:
Second degree in medicine
By ALYCIA LIM
educate@thestar.com.my
STUDENTS who have completed their first degree in the science field can soon pursue a a graduate degree in medicine with Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine (Pugsom), which will open its doors for the first intake of students in September.
Adopting the full model of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Johns Hopkins) in Maryland, the United States (US), the institution will be using the “Genes to Society” curriculum, which encourages students to explore the biological properties of a patient’s health within a larger integrated system of social, cultural, psychological and environmental variables for its four-year doctor of medicine (MD) degree.
At an information session on the institution recently, Pugsom dean and chief executive officer Prof Dr Charles Wiener explained, “The benefits of going into medicine after the first degree is that students would have a greater sense of altruism, and they would be more prepared for the course.
“Because of their maturity and academic preparation, the curriculum can also be more demanding, and allows for more research to be done.”
Prof Wiener says that the university would only have an intake of about 100 students a year to ensure the quality of graduates.
He added that the graduate school, which would be the first in Malaysia to offer a US structured medical education, was a separate entity of its own.
“While we are working very closely as partners with Johns Hopkins, Pugsom is a Malaysian university, not a branch campus,” he said.
However, he said, half of the initial teaching staff at the institution would come from Johns Hopkins.
Despite its campus size of 130 acres (52.6ha), the institution would only have an intake of about 100 students a year to ensure the quality of graduates.
“If we have to, I think 125 students per intake is about as high as we go, because beyond that you cannot treat every student as an individual,” Prof Wiener said.
He added that anyone with a first degree in a science-related field could apply.
However, as a baseline, applicants are required to sit for the US Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).
“At the moment, we are quite flexible with the applications because we understand that this system is new in Malaysia.”
He added that the applicant’s background also played a big role in terms of gaining admission to the institution.
“We are not looking for someone who has all the A’s but has no experience and cannot relate to people. This is because as a doctor, you would be working with people all the time,” he said.
The institution’s main campus and teaching hospital are scheduled for completion in 2014.
In the meantime, students will be placed at the interim campus in Serdang.
The students will be doing their medical placements in 2013 in five hospitals allocated by the Health Ministry; namely Putrajaya Hospital, Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital (Seremban), Bentong Hospital (Pahang), Likas Women and Children’s Hospital and Beaufort Hospital, both in Sabah.
The Johns Hopkins University has campuses in China, Singapore and Italy. This is the first foray for the School of Medicine outside the US.
During her visit to Malaysia last year, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin witnessed the signing of collaboration, affiliation and licensing agreements between the Academic Medical Centre Sdn Bhd, Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine International.
It is interesting to note that the dean himself has officially announced that Perdana University is NOT a branch campus but merely a collaboration!! So, why is this university offering a local, non-recognised degree for RM 1 million? I must say that John Hopkins’ is NOT stupid. It is our PM who is making a fool out of himself!
Have anyone wondered where the money to support this university is going to come from? The tax payers! Just see the advert below which was just released by JPA:
PROGRAM PENAJAAN PELAJAR PERUBATAN KE UNIVERSITI PERDANA
” Saudara/ saudari adalah calon yang telah di senarai pendekkan oleh pihak Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) untuk mengikuti Program Penajaan Pelajar Perubatan JPA Ke Universiti Perdana bagi program Universiti Perdana (UP) – Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine (PUGSOM) / Universiti Perdana (UP) – Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) bermula semester pengajian September 2011. Program UP-PUGSOM adalah bagi calon lepasan Ijazah Sarjana Muda Sains. Manakala program UP-RCSI adalah bagi calon lepasan STPM/ Matrikulasi/ Asasi/ A-Level /AUSMAT/ IB.
Sehubungan itu, sekiranya saudari berminat, saudara / saudari adalah dipohon untuk melayari laman sesawang http://www.perdanauniversity.edu.my/ bagi tujuan permohonan kemasukan ke Universiti Perdana terlebih dahulu sebelum memohon penajaan Biasiswa Kerajaan (JPA). Manakala bagi permohonan penajaan Biasiswa Kerajaan (JPA), saudara / saudari boleh melayari laman sesawang http://esilav2.jpa.gov.my/ untuk mengetahui garis panduan, syarat-syarat dan kriteria permohonan bagi Program Penajaan Pelajar Perubatan JPA Ke Universiti Perdana. Permohonan Biasiswa Kerajaan (JPA) adalah bermula dari 27 Jun 2011 sehingga 4 Julai 2011.
Ingin diingatkan bahawa hanya calon-calon yang layak dan memenuhi syarat-syarat serta kriteria permohonan sahaja akan dipertimbangkan untuk mendapat tajaan Biasiswa Kerajaan (JPA). Pertanyaan mengenai program tajaan boleh dibuat dengan menghubungi talian 03-8885 3704 (10 talian) pada setiap hari bekerja mulai jam 8:00 pagi hingga 5:00 petang atau e-mel di alamat lspamc@jpa.gov.my bermula 27 Jun 2011.”
Sekian, terima kasih
Hazwan Nizam Bin Fadil
Penolong Pengarah
Unit Penawaran Latihan Sebelum Perkhidmatan
Bahagian Pembangunan Modal Insan
Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam Malaysia
Basically, JPA or should I say, our PM’s department has come up with special scholarships for any students who are accepted to Perdana University!! So, what private initiative is our government talking about. It is still our tax payers money being pumped in via a different pathway! Remember, it is RM 1 million for 1 student and for a degree which is not even recognised anywhere!!
God bless this country. Will it end up like Royal College of Medicine Perak? Time will tell.
Pagalavan's Avatar 
Dear Doctor,
Has perdana university RCSI program get recognition of MMC or elsewhere like Ireland?
Nope!
Doctor,
Do you think the program will be a success since the university’s chief executive Maj Gen Datuk Dr R. Mohanadas claimed that this programme will be a duplicate of what is delivered at RCSI in Dublin,deliver the same curriculum and have 50% of the teaching staff from Ireland?!
So does Penang Medical College, which conducts the same programme via twinning but yet it is not recognised elsewhere except Irish medical council and MMC.
Dr, maybe we need someone like ms Ambiga, in the MMA or MMC to organise another BERSIH, to clean up the hanky panky going on in our local medical school. god bless malaysia.
@esther, frankly-speaking, all this hanky-panky still going on and it’s just purely depressing that seniors in MMA or MMC or our medical world is just too timid to fight for the fraternity, hiding behind the catchphrase ‘our hands are tied.’
the real problem is their balls are – part and parcel of defensive medicine, i guess.
Dr Pagal,
Hello! I’m C, an MBBS Year 4 student from Monash Malaysia. I’ve been following your blog with great interest for the past year. It is indeed a shame that I’ve not had the chance to be taught by you last year, save for that lecture on melioidosis where you gave us the quote: “Once a melioidosis, always a melioidosis!”
However readings of your blog often follow with swift depression. You spend a lot of time lamenting the mediocre standards of housemen nowadays, lambasting current medical schools and generally providing a bleak viewpoint for medicine in Malaysia in the future. I understand most of these articles are realistic, with the aim of ultimately producing better students, housemen, and doctors.
I would like to ask if you have any advice at all for current medical students on how to better themselves to meet these rather high demands and expectations that we are subjected to. Also, have you any advice for students post-college on what are good universities to apply to? Let’s say for the sake of discussion that the students are highly motivated, and keen on pursuing a medical education.
Thanks!
Good to see someone from Monash. Yes, I talk about the reality on the ground which you will realise soon. I am not discouraging anyone from doing medicine but don’t do medicine for the sake of guaranteed job and money. Those days are gone.
When I was teaching in Monash, I use to tell the students not to waste their time doing those PBL crap! The real medicine is in the wards! Unfortunately, most of the time, I only see a few enthusiastic students in the ward , clerking and examining patients on their own. That tells me who are the students who are really interested in medicine and who are not. Of course, I partly blame the curriculum which is not suitable to Malaysian context with a lot of “home works” for you all to do!. I always felt that a lot of changes is necessary to make it relevant to Malaysian healthcare but always been shot down by Monash Australia. The more cases you see in the ward the better you become. Medicine cannot be learned from the textbooks and I am sure you would have noticed that patients do not present like text book in real life.
Good Uni: I still feel that the public universities are still the best, such as UM/UKM and USM as they got their own teaching hospitals with all the consultants being lecturers. However, their standards are also declining. I can’t say much about private unis which are more interested in making money. I am well aware of what is happening in Monash recently as well. One of the reason I left is because of these issues. many more will leave soon. There are just too many medical colleges in Malaysia with too few academics.
Helo Dr Pagal… I am a medical student from Royal College of Medicine Perak. I am unsure of what kind of feeling shall i have after reading ur post.. But, the feeling definitely towards depression. About being a good medical student, i agree with you sir, that student shall spend more time in the ward.. But, a veteran patients in ward will often pretend like sleeping when they saw students. And some patients are just very uncooperative to the students. Which, eventually makes me to think twice about going to ward to clerk. Sir, in your opinion, do you think we shall knows everything by the time we start HO’ship or most of the learning actually occurs during HO’s ship? Bcoz, i often heard HO told us “wat r u doing in ward, go enjoy ur self” or “what u learning in medical school is totally different from real life” and etc. Do give ur comment sir. Thank you Dr Pagalavan.
Patients are uncooperative because either you behave like you are god or you have poor communication skills. When I did my elective in Malaysia, I was trying to get consent to cannulate a patient. The response that I got was “what ? you are a student ? you think I am a guinea pig for you to play your experiments on ?”. It took lots of patience, persistence and persuasion, and eventually he did let me put an IV cannula.
You medical students in Malaysia are just not aware of how lucky you are to have the wealth of patients for you to perfect your skills without so much of hassle. Just because some patients behave like that puts you off to go to the ward to clerk patients. If you are already thinking like that as a med student, frankly speaking, medicine is not for you. This is the very mentality that is producing poor HOs. The HO that told you to enjoy yourself probably passed med school by “clerking patients” at midvalley, therefore he/she falls into the category of HOs that are condemned here.
You don’t need to know everything, but you must at least know the basics, history taking, examination, coming to diagnosis and differentials, knowing how to initiate management for common stuff including basic procedures, recognising sick patients and early referral for care escalation. If you can’t do that, you wasted 5 years in med school. And no, you started to learn the minute you enter med school, not when you start HO, so catch up. Frankly speaking, if after 5 years in med school, you can’t insert a cannula and can’t diagnose dengue fever from history and examination and do not know how to initiate treatment for dengue patient, you do not deserve to pass med school.
The only way to be a good doctor is to consistently try to be a better doctor today than you were yesterday, for that you need to have the right attitudes and work ethics. Also, at all times, be convinced yourself that what you are about to do to your patient is safe. There is no point telling your MO that a concious patient who has fast AF and widen QRS complex on ECG might have WPW when the very next thing you do is to grab the defib and shock him (A real life experience of my friend who is MO in HKL when dealing with his HO).
Best wishes (I don’t believe in Good Luck because doctors who passed med school by luck aren’t good) and be a good doctor.
Even when you become a doctor, there will still be uncooperative and aggressive patients. It is all up to your skills in convincing the patients to be comfortable with you. You need to treat the patient with dignity and as a friend/human being rather than as a specimen/case. As a medical students, you should know how to take a good history, examine , come to a differential diagnosis, order basic investigations and management. HOship is to enhance whatever you have learned during medical schools, especially in terms of management. It is NOT for you to learn how to take history and coming to a diagnosis. Of course, you can enjoy better during student days BUT can be done after your normal office hours as you do not have any on calls!
>> do you think we shall knows everything by the time we start HO’ship or most of the learning actually occurs during HO’s ship <<
No, you will not be able to learn everything a HO needs to know by the time you start. There will always be gaps, but that is not an excuse to be defeatist! Work hard in medical school and close off as many gaps as possible! You'll be glad you did once you're on the wards full time.
It is true that one learns a remarkable amount in HO'ship. Which I guess is why some say you learn more in your HO'ship than you did in 5 years of med school. I don't think those who say that realise that such accelerated learning only occurs if you have good grounding in the first place. The more you know when you graduate, the greater the rate of your subsequent learning as an HO (and indeed onwards in your further training).
Yes, a bare pass might be enough to get a medical degree. But no doctor was ever penalised for excellent skills and knowledge. 50% of doctors were in the bottom half of their class. You owe it to yourself not to be in that group!!
Best wishes.
Dear Medical Student,
do not feel discouraged when the patient is being uncooperative, it is the best opportunity to practise the communication skills, how to present professionally in front of them, explaining to them the indications and contraindications for doing certain procedures, potential side effects and how to manage the complications, 90% of patients will let you exam and ‘clerking’ on them. Of course, I had some experience in Malaysia where the same patients would be seen by more than 4 groups of students within a day, and some patients may not be interested seeing students afterward. I was lucky to be trained in Canada, the system is a bit different than in Malaysia, the senior will assign certain patients to a particular medical student, and the student will play the role as a junior physician being supervised by senior resident and attending physician (consultant in malaysia).
Do not give up, patients are the best teachers!!!!!
still i think, it depends on the individual. u cant blame the medical school. n u cant stamp a medical school to be a bad school. the lecturers there, did the best for the students! it depends on the individual whether they wanna be a safe dr or juz wanna have title of a dr in front of his/her name. they are drs who graduated from such a famous med school and they too have problems in managing patient. i think it’s unfair to judge an institution juz like dat. rather than comparing med school, it’s better to recommend something in order to improve the students. i think. hm, everyone has their opinion. but, when saying this school, that school like this, like that..it think it’s unfair~
thanks for the opinion as now we as the next generation of future doctor realized that we have to strengthening our skills so dat we cud try at least to do no harm to patient and makes the peers don’t look down on us.
It is BOTH! You need to have good medical schools as well as good students who are interested in doing medicine for what medicine is all about. There is no way 12 lecturers can teach 120 students and make the medical school world class. That”s what is happening in most private medical schools in the country. The lecturers can only do their best to a limit.
Those who are from good medical schools but have problems are generally students who are not keen to become a doctor in the first place. That is from my observation from all these years.
You must undersatand that most of these private medical schools are just here to make money and standards come second. I have worked in one and know exactly what is happening. Too long to explain here.
Dear Dr,
My daughter got a U.S.M. medical sit and she also call for Perdana Universiti interview. If it is your daughter what will you choose
Thanks,
Shan
I will choose USM. More established with their own teaching hospital. Perdana has not even started!!
[…] the public sector, it imposed a five-year moratorium on medical programs in December 2010. However, the moratorium does not restrict the number of students that existing medical schools can accept— this seems to defeat the purpose of the moratorium.IssuesThere are several problems with the […]
[…] the public sector, it imposed a five-year moratorium on medical programs in December 2010. However, the moratorium does not restrict the number of students that existing medical schools can accept— this seems to defeat the purpose of the moratorium.IssuesThere are several problems with the […]
[…] the public sector, it imposed a five-year moratorium on medical programs in December 2010. However, the moratorium does not restrict the number of students that existing medical schools can accept—this seems to defeat the purpose of the […]
[…] public sector, it imposed a five-year moratorium on medical programs in December 2010. However, the moratorium does not restrict the number of students that existing medical schools can accept – this seems to defeat the purpose of the […]
[…] it imposed a five-year moratorium on medical programs in December 2010. However, the moratorium does not restrict the number of students that existing medical schools can accept – this seems to defeat the purpose of the […]
[…] it imposed a five-year moratorium on medical programs in December 2010. However, the moratorium does not restrict the number of students existing medical schools can accept – this seems to defeat the moratorium’s […]