How ironic? Is our PM saying that the medical education in Malaysia is useless to the extend that the government still need to send students to other countries like Russia, Indonesia, Egypt, Poland, Jordan and even Czech republic? I think the “foot in the mouth” syndrome from our Health Minister has infected our PM!! Reading this news in the Star really made me wonder whether our PM knows what he is talking about ( similar to the John Hopkins fiasco). Who approved all these medical schools and send JPA and MARA scholars, even before it is accredited by MQA and MMC?
I am very sure this speech was not written by him. Usually, most speeches by VIPs are written by the inviting body and sent to the political secretary of the VIP for vetting proposes. I have written a speech for Minister of Health on behalf of SCHOMOS when we invited him to the opening ceremony of SCHOMOS workshop in 2006. Unfortunately, as a leader he should vet through the details before reading it. I know that Dr Mahathir is the only person who writes his own speech.
However, in this speech he has directly indicated that we have too many sub par medical schools producing “jaguh kampung” graduates. I wonder whether our Ex-DG has anything to do with this speech, being the VC of MAHSA? very suspicious indeed!
PM: Local medical schools need to offer high quality education
By MAZWIN NIK ANI
KUALA LANGAT: Medical schools should get serious about offering high quality medical education to lessen the need to send students abroad, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
The Prime Minister said fewer schools offering high quality medical education would be a far better strategy than having too many offering sub-standard education.
He said adhering to basic requirement for accreditation was insufficient, adding it was far better to benchmark the quality of medical education with the best schools in the world.
“Once we have achieved that, there may no longer be a need to send our students abroad as they can get equal or better medical education locally,” he said at the ground breaking ceremony of Mahsa University College in Bandar Saujana Putra.
The Prime Minister said, currently, some students were sent to sub-standard medical colleges overseas and this had become a perennial problem.
He added medical schools should also re-examine their curriculum not only to impart medical knowledge and clinical skills but also psychosocial, communicative, interpersonal and people skills to help their students become good healers and safe and competent clinicians.
Najib said the Health Ministry should forge formal relationships with proven medical schools for training opportunities where medical institutions could provide specialist care in smaller public hospitals and the ministry would upgrade facilities to cut down backlog of cases for minor surgery and emergencies.
Najib advised aspiring doctors to have passion and a genuine interest in taking care of the sick, at whatever cost, and be prepared to toil and sacrifice irrespective of time.
“The vocation of health care is not for everyone although we know that many students aspire to become doctors. Good doctors are not only those who are competent and skillful but those who are caring, compassionate and motivated to provide service above self.
“Malaysia requires the services of healthcare providers who are well trained and well mannered. They must be beyond reproach. They must be professionals who are ethical and put the welfare and care of their patients above everything else,” he said.
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“The Prime Minister said, currently, some students were sent to sub-standard medical colleges overseas and this had become a perennial problem.”
Then why do our govt agencies continue to send sponsored students to these medical schools? Because this govt is dysfunctional and the ministers have no clue what they are doing because they are too busy thinking of ways to line their own pockets.
For everyone’s info (maybe I was just the one who is ignorant to this little fact) JPA sonsored students have RM5000/month for their living expenses abroad. I have a friend who is doing her mbbs abroad in uk, she bought 1 iphone, 1 iphone4s and macbook after going to UK! They are definitely living a luxurious life there! perhaps the gov should spend the taxpayers money more wisely.
this has been happening for a long time. I think recently they increased the monthly allowance quantum. That’s why I feel the gov should just stop sending students overseas since we got so many colleges here and claiming we are “education hub of asia”!
with the new education blueprint ( common sense really)…it’s high time for our healtcare system to have blueprint…top 30% graduates to be recruited for teachers..i wonder what’s the numbers for doctors….district education to have autonomy and all acounts made public…district health should do the same
Sometimes, the blueprint will just remain as a blueprint! It is the implementation that is important.
these posts are becoming too redundant.emphasizing on the same matter wont make any difference.we already know how f’ed up our government is, if only ..
Always good to keep reminding on what kind of people who are running this country.
Hi doctor,
If given a choice to do a medical degree, which is better in terms of quality of graduates, academic and employer reputation? – UM or IMU twinning programme?
Both are OK but I don’t think there is anything as employer reputation in medicine, so far.
Thanks for your reply..
If a medical student graduates from a UK university and want to pursue specialisations in UK, what is the process?
You need to do your internship in UK and proceed with MRCP/MRCS etc before going into the CCT programme(specialist training programme).
It is likely, at the current trend, that students entering UK Med Schools now will not be allowed to continue with specialty training in the UK. And if projected numbers of new graduates continues, there may also be a shortage of F1 positions, like in Australia, which can potentially mean some International students graduating may NOT get F1 matching.
I do not think so it is.particularly happening in aimst uni only.other colleges in Malaysia also face similar trends of under qualified lecturers and not forgetting lecturers who can’t speak proper English.Pinpointing particularly one university is absurd and I believe aimst does have quality lecturers.
I think some move must be taken to tighten the entrance requirements for students wishing to pursue a career in medicine because often I see my friends whose requirements does not meet good university..say IMU or Monash..tend to go to AIMST for their MBBS.
It is not just AIMST, most of the other medical schools also do that. It is very competitive out there when you have 34 medical schools for a population of 28 million!
Maybe our government cannot be blamed for this situation. After all, students that might not be prepared for the workload of a doctors, pursued this career envisioning themselves as a useful and respected citizens in the future. I have a friend studying medicine (1st year) who change her ambition from being a dentist to a doctor..and when I asked her, why do you want to be a doctor? I was thoroughly appalled by her answer..She said that she thinks being a doctor is GLAMOROUS. She said she wants to be like the doctors she saw in our GH, walking around in the white coats with a stethoscope around their neck..Later on, she tried to cover up this little slip od “scandalous” info by saying that when she looks into an open wound, she does not feel repulsed by them, instead she is interested by it.
Sorry if you feel that I am ranting over here, I just feel that its not fair when someone who has no real interest in medicine could end up in medince. To tell you the truth, I really really really wants to study medicine and my results qualify me to do so..but unfortunately my family does not encourage me to study medicine as they too have the same view as you, Dr and also my crazy desire to experience life abroad before starting my career, I decided not to study that..
Our government is to be blamed for allowing 36 Medical schools, commercialize medical education and sub par medical degrees. The rest of course is students and parents fault for not knowing what they are getting into.
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Hello, I am studying in IMU, doing the local program and am currently in my clinical years in Seremban. I do not know enough about other institutions to comment but this are my two cents of the teaching faculty here. The lecturers here are incredibly knowledgeable and approachable, especially those in the clinical school; personally I look up to some of them as role model physicians. The CtME here continuously review the competence of the lecturers here so the quality is reassured.
That said, I find your honest views incredible refreshing. Truly the situation in Malaysia is depressing and I find myself scrambling for alternative options in the future. I do not wish to find myself jobless after working so hard for my degree.
What are the overseas options I have with a local MBBS degree? Is there a different licensing exam for every country? And would they still look at my only-Malaysian recognized MBBS degree if I have an international post-grad qualification? I have a reasonable preference for O&G but I think I’m gonna leave myself open to options for now.
Thank you for your time.
I know many of the IMU top lectures like Dato Kanda, Dato Siva etc. That’s the reason I always support IMU medical programme. However, their local MBBS degree is not recognised elsewhere. You need to sit for respective country’s entrance exam if you want to work elsewhere.
MRCOG is still recognised in malaysia. BY having MRCOG, you can go on to Singapore and even UK if there is vacancy.
The IMU MBBS is only recognised in Msia and Sri Lanka. However, with a MRCOG, one can get provisional registration with Singapore.
For UK, it is not possible, and one will need to sit for the PLAB qualifying exam, in order to get registration to practice. Even if one does so, it is now almost impossible to get a job in UK and Tier 2 visa, without having worked in the UK before, a catch 22 situation.
Yup, I am aware if this. However, I know a few with MRCOG who manage to get a job in UK but that was about 2-3 years ago, without PLAB.
34 local universities in Malaysia, i dont think when i wanted to study medicine that time has this many uni… had to go and study at so called substandard overseas universities. Wondering who’s fault it is. M sure my SPM was good enough.. And m not rich to afford to go private institutions…
Just yesterday AIMST put out an advertisement in an Indian newspaper “The Times of India” looking to hire staff members for their medical faculty.
(Im in MSU-IMS Bangalore by the way, I just came across the ad while browsing through the newspaper)
So… what’s going on? Any AIMST student care comment?
This is not restricted to AIMST. Most of the private medical schools (esp the ones that charge lower fees) recruit from India, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. This is because there are no Malaysians willing to take up the posts for a salary of RM9,000-15,000 per month.
If you are the govt service as a consultant, you may be earning approx. RM10k a month – why forego all the perks for only a small pay rise? Most would rather go private.
However, some AIMST students are claiming that their med school does not bother even trying to recruit from Malaysia, and that they give preference to lecturers from India. It would be very difficult to prove this unless you have a lecturer/former lecturer will to speak up. I am pretty sure legally that a job should be given to a local over a foreigner if there are qualified locals who are interested (there may be none!)
Almost all medical schools in Malaysia do advertise in India, Sri Lanka, Burma and now even Vietnam and Phillipines. We just have too many medical schools with too few academics
Dr.Pagavalan sir,
Philippines and vietnam`s medical qualifications aren’t even recognized by MMC, importing medical lecturers from there to practice and teach in Malaysia will probably require them to take and pass the MMC’s exam…
Unless… the IPTS managed to get around that requirement… and import them anyway….?
… and another thing I’m curious about is regarding the foreign clinical phase lecturers. Their basic medical degree may be recognized by MMC, but how about their postgraduate degree?
If we Google the ‘Malaysian specialist register’, we will find a list of recognized post graduate qualifications, most of the recognized qualifications are from Malaysia, UK, Australia, Belgium… none from India, Russia, Burma, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc etc
How does the imported foreign specialist get around that?
Perhaps you can enlightened us.
Yes, an interesting question but very complicated.
For preclinical lecturers, there is no need to get MMC registrations. They can teach anything as long as it does not involve patients.
For clinical lecturers, their degree must be recognised by MMC. However, the tricky part is when it comes to the postgraduate degrees. At the moment, there is NO compulsory specialist registration and thus it is up to the medical colleges to decide whether the person is qualified to be a specialist or not.
For some degrees like Master’s from India, they can be recognised as a specialist if they have more then 5 years experience working as a specialist.
Most Burmese lecturers have MRCP/FRCS or MRCOG.