Since my last post on 1/12/2013, I received numerous insights on what is being planned for the future. Just few days after my post, there was a symposium held in UM regarding this issue. One of the recommendation that was proposed was for a common entry exam known as MMLE (Malaysian Medical Licensing Exam), similar to USMLE. The 1st Part of this exam can be sat when you are a student. As I had predicted long time ago, there will come a time where this will be inevitable. The government will not be able to provide job to everyone and thus some sort of screening test must be done. It is either a common entry exam or a common exit exam after housemanship. The only problem in Malaysia is transparency ! Being in Malaysia, we are so used to being influenced by political masters to artificially implement a quota system. What will happen to JPA scholars, MARA scholars and public university graduates? Will they be given priority or will they be in the same boat? Even though I support such a move to eradicate the poor quality students, transparency is always my concern. Who will conduct these exams and how will it be conducted remained to be seen.
When I was admitted to UM Medical Faculty in early 1990s, every single one of us will be given JPA scholarship. It is up to us whether we want to accept it or not. Over the last few years, the students were given an option whether to choose JPA scholarship or PTPTN loan. The latest news that I heard was that many students this year were not offered JPA scholarship at all. Many of those who applied were also rejected. This was across the board for all universities. Is this a prelude to the fact that jobs are not guaranteed in the future ? Being a JPA scholar means the government must provide a job for you as you will be bonded for 10 years. I was also informed that JPA has stopped giving overseas scholarship for medicine.
Many people do not realise the implication of oversupply of doctors. Many are just talking about quality which I had written many times. Introducing a common entry or exit exam will overcome the issue of quality (hopefully) but what will happen to the rest? Many would have spent almost RM 300-500K not knowing that they will become unemployed. Likely they will venture into selling products either pharmaceutical products or supplements. The public will be convinced with what they are selling as they are “doctors” on paper. It has already started. I know a few who had quit housemanship and working as “medical consultant” for companies selling supplements and health products. It is a business and capitalist world out there, where everyone wants to make money out of our society’s ignorance, similar to our many medical schools in this Bolehland.
And for those who completed housemanship but could not get a MO job in government service, they may end up opening GP clinics or venturing into complimentary medicine like Ozone therapy, chelation therapy, homeopathy etc etc. Unethical practices will become a norm and cheating public will be a daily affair in the name of survival. You can already see it happening when GPs are selling supplements, traditional medicines and venturing into aesthetic medicine, anti ageing etc etc. I know one GP who wanted to give growth hormone injection and hydrocortisone tablets to a 75 years old lady to make her “younger”!!
I spoke to one GP who is doing law. He told me that when he opened his clinic, it was the only clinic for surrounding 8 Tamans. Now, each Taman has about 3-4 clinics, fighting for the same pool of patients! Thus, he decided to do law and soon to become a medico-legal lawyer! A good move I must say as looking at the current situation, the number of medico-legal cases will definitely increase in coming years. As for the GPs, their income will gradually decline to the extend that they will end up closing shop or end up doing what I described above. Overall, it will be the public who will be at the loosing end………….
Well, I will be going on leave again from tomorrow till Next Thursday. So, I may not be able to answer any comments till I am back. The dengue epidemic has drained me enough over the last few months, Thus, for the first time, I will be taking my family not overseas, not to a land but “on the sea” ……………Welcome to Starcruise………………
Dear Dr Paga, it seems like the MMLE will be inevitable to separate the good quality graduates from the bad. May I suggest that, in all fairness, MOs and Specialists should also sit for the MMLE or something equivalent to the test? While it is easy to point fingers at incompetent HOs and blame the Universities, there are some doctors that are and remain incompetent in their MOs/Specialists years. I believe that practising MOs and Specialists will know of colleages who are less competent than they should be.
How did these “less competent” specialists pass their masters or ST papers??
That wont happen. MO and specialists especially are short in supply so there is no logic to have such exam to reduce their numbers.
The time will also come for that as what is practiced in US etc. For a start, specialist will be required to accumulate certain number of CME points to renew their Specialist registry soon.
This is the norm in most developed countries. At least they haven’t implemented recertification exams yet (Internal Medicine in US).
Another trend I see in private healthcare is there will be even more private medical centers being set up in next few years. Those bosses are changing the strategy of hiring specialist. They now like the idea of having salaried specialist rather than letting them charging what they want. With this, they will be able to control the cost and secondly control the pricing of healthcare to patient and maximize the workload for the doctor.
They have always liked the idea of controlling doctors and taking some of their professional fees. This is already happening, in ‘charges’ made by the hospital, ranging from 5-30% of the professional fees collected.
Salarying doctors already happens for non-specialist doctors, ie the RMOs running the emergency departments. It is a double edged sword, fixing salaries, for the hospitals. Workload may not be enough to cover the salary. And motivating doctors to work is going to be a big problem. We do not have to re-invent the wheel here, in anticipating what will happen if a hospital salary specialists. Just see what happened and is happening in the USA.
Not only do they take a cut of the professional fees, they also mark up the equipment costs significantly, even those brought in by the doctor (who has already done a mark-up). Patient gets the bill and thinks the doctor is charging them a fortune, not knowing how much the hospital actually makes.
Fool-proof business model really, which is why even the GLCs are getting so involved. And the hospitals have very little liability either, because most doctors work as contractors and are not salaried.
Many new hospitals hire doctors on salary as a way to guarantee the doctor’s income while they are establishing their private practice. They need to attract these doctors to have to have a minimum number in certain specialties, in order to get accreditation from MOH. Some have a hybrid system of salary + fees per patient (more if patient gets admitted).
Yup, it has started.
sir this s sowmiya from chennai. and my degree s from unrecognised college. I want to do mrcp. so how do I start. how long it ll take to complete part 1&2 . I wanna settle in Singapore. is other any option to do some coursework programme in Singapore for now!??
Please contact the MRCP HQ in London
Dr Pagalavan, enjoy your holidays with your loved ones.
Enjoy your holidays, Dr Paga. There is nothing better than spending good quality time with the family.
thanks
I for one, am fully in support of the MMLE and hope that it will be implemented soon. As you have brought up, transparency will be an issue, but I feel that the benefit of it definitely outweighs the potential lack of transparency. Malaysia definitely needs it to separate the competent from the not-so-competent, especially to provide quality doctors when there is such an oversupply of doctors.
To be honest, it is the fault of the private medical colleges sprouting up like nobody’s business here in Malaysia. A medical graduate from a top university abroad, or even a top national university in Malaysia is not the same as a medical graduate from the private universities here that accepts students as long as they are able to fork out the money.
there r good ones in private uni also. why not u try getting in first.
MMLE SHOULD BE FOR EVERYBODY.
as for me, i also from private uni student with 4A in A-level(CIE) in 2009
i’m going to butt in here because i see where both of you are coming from. dino, i don’t think anyone means any disrespect to students of private universities. a lot of people have acknowledged how schools like IMU produce very competent doctors.
i think what shantini (pls correct me, shantini if i’m wrong here) is trying to say is that the private colleges that are ambiguous (TARC, allianze etc from the top of my mind) are inevitably producing too many doctors that could be incompetent. this is because their entry grades itself are lower than a lot of the other medical schools, and i mean no disrespect to you as clearly you have done very well for yourself, but it may not be the same with the majority of the students in those schools.
of course, i too am in full support of MMLE for ALL medical graduates.
MMLE is proposed for EVERYBODY but the MMLE exam maybe based from public medical faculties final year exam.
Not everyone from private universities are bad. Furthermore, it is not the private universities fault either. They were given license by the government to start. As we are in a capitalist world, people will take advantage of it to make money!
[…] once i graduate. a lot of people say it’s naive and wishful thinking, especially with the hoo-haa around the oversupply of doctors in malaysia. that i should stick in the UK, and possibly succeed more as a doctor over […]
Shantini…..can u sort of define or tell us some pointers on what in your view constitutes incompetency or in your words “not-so-competent” doctors please. Tq
The BLAME GAME…..so why blame the private Uni….they are been issued licences and are assessed by the relevant authorities regularly and ensure they comply with standards…so who do u blame now…the authorities??
Every student who has graduated from whatever Uni…is supposed to have acquired a certain amount of theoretical knowledge…And as for the clinical experience…it very much depends on 1) the training & hands-on allowed and
2) the attitude of the housemen themselves. These housemen are assessed by the specialists & training hospitals..if they are not competent enough they can be retained as housemen for as long as necessary….so who do you blame now…the specialists & the hospital??
So when exactly will this mmle start being implemented? early 2015 a possible year or 2014 itself?
Can be as early as 2015 but I feel it may be around 2016/17
Don’t worry if you are from public university as public U is automatically exempted from any form of licensing exam. Some lecturer in public U has mentioned that they will follow a standard guideline similar to the accountant professional body in Malaysia, like MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountant) If you got an accounting degree whether from Harvard or Cambridge, it is still not recognised by MIA. You still have to take an MQE exam to practise in Malaysia. However any accounting degree from our public U will suffice for practising as an Accountant.
& there’s medical faculty of a public university (located between seremban & KL,medical campus somewhere near zoo negara) without adequate full time lecturers, being granted 3 years accreditation-while MC & MQA scrutinize private colleges like crazy-sorry, even IPTA is no angel.
That’s the easiest way to discredit a public university. You can’t compete, just discredit it. If you want to state a fact please name the university and be prepare to back your claim.
Hurricane will never arrive. Typhoon Haiyan has arrived! It was stated clearly under the new Education Blueprint that “any new proposition of policy with regard to licensing practice,whether in legal practice, accountant practice, medical practice or any other professional practices must correlate to the current composition of races in public universities only”. As reported in the China Press, if MMLE is going to be implemented at all, there will never be one MMLE exam for everyone. It will be at least two different categories of MMLE exam. The first MMLE will be for the public universities’ student graduates which comprise of 95% student with their initial entry qualification to public university from Matrikulasi or Asasi Matrikulasi stream. The other MMLE exam will then be opened to the rest of the universities’ graduate student, whether foreign or local, whether it is STPM. A-Level or Foundation holders and any other universities’ entrance examination other than the local Matrikulasi exam. As analyse by the Chinese local daily newspaper, unlike other countries, there will never be any hope of a one system exam in Malaysia, as it is truly Asia.
Please read the original document, there is no such wording.
After downloading the ‘education blueprint’, I only manage to find one part that mentioned: examination after undergraduate or post graduate studies for public universities student will only be held in isolation as the majority composition of public universities’ student intake which over 90% were from the matrikulasi stream (1 year programme). From this statement, I think the Chinese newspaper only presume that any MMLE exam if to be held will be segregated to compromise for the weaker student in public universities. One more thing mentioned; licensing exam question must be bilingual i.e. Bahasa Melayu and English. Answer can be in any of the two languages.
when you do submit an article to the new england journal of medicine soon, make sure a malay and english copy is submitted as well. their bilingual section can then do their due diligence and review that article
Dr Paga,
I’m going to study is RSMU which is now recognized by the MMC. I have a passion to study Medicine and plan to get a JPA loan in order to cover up the fees. My teacher does not encourage me to take STPM since the system has changed and the chances in getting Medicine in IPTA are so low. Does RSMU produces good students? I can’t afford the expensive fees in the private U here even with the JPA loan. That’s why I will choose to study abroad. Dr, what’s your opinion about this? Thanks!
Unless you can secure the JPA scholarship, you maybe at risk of not given a job as HO when you graduate 5-6 years later as number of doctors graduate at that time is out of our imagination. There will be probably another 35k-40k new doctors in the market in these 5-6 years. MOH will never be able to absorb all these. Priority will be given to doctors from IPTA, those with JPA bond or those from commonwealth countries. Those from Russia will probably take the MQA as the others but since our MQA is most likely based from the British system, the passing rate will naturally lower.
That is why I need to secure my JPA loan! The university I will be going is under the list of second schedule of the MMC, do I still need to take the MQA exam once I have finished my 6 years there? Thanks!
Very soon, every graduate will have to sit for MQA exams. Only
those who pass will be given a job
If (when) the MMLE is implemented, it will apply to ALL medical graduates, who can proceed to Housemanship only after passing the exam. This will likely include IPTA graduates and scholars. This is at proposal stage, but it is likely to be implemented, as there is no other way of selecting the best graduates, and it is not possible to absorb all fresh graduates as there are too many and not enough Houseman training jobs.
If IPTA graduates are also needed to take exam it should be a great news? MQA will filter out the good and mediocre one purely according to their performance and not the university? I mean is there any bias in the MQA exam for students who study abroad and those who study in IPTA? Thanks!
The bias do exist at the moment
IPTA graduates do not need to sit for the MQE.
The proposed MMLE (modelled after the American USMLE) is intended to test all graduates. However, there is objection from some Deans of IPTA med schools.
Even if the IPTA students need to sit, they will have a marked advantage over IPTS and overseas graduates, as the exam is supposed to be based on the final Exams of the IPTAs. It will be like doing 2 simliar exams in a row, in final year, one the individual Uni final exam, the other MMLE.
There is a 3rd possibility, ie there will be no individual final exams, all IPTA students do the MMLE, and passing that means passing their final year as well.
Why not local IMU program under JPA? At least you get pretty decent clinical experience in you own country. You do realise that you will have to come back to Malaysia after you finish in RSMU where as I understand it, your clinical exposure will be very limited.
If medicine is your passion, you should be looking at the end game. RSMU and all other Russian medical schools are in the “blacklist”, as far as I know.
Frankly, IMU is expensive, even if I can secure my JPA I can’t even cover up the fees. Can you explain to me about the limited clinical exposure? 3 years pre-clinical and 3 years clinical, it should be decent isn’t it? I’m sorry if I’m wrong, but I need to gather more information before making any decision, I hope you can understand my situation. Thanks!
Unless you can speak Russian, your 3 years clinical is equivalent to nothing
If let say I have graduated from russia and coming back to malaysia for houseman and I will sit for the exam, so what is the problem face by me when I’m taking the exam, I mean things taught in Russia are not the same with local here? Is it hard for students who study abroad to take this exam? ( I mean for those good one)
What about studying in Bangladesh?
Forget it
Every country have their own healthcare system and diseases. It is definitely not the same!
Going for second schedule medical faculty is like going for a suicide mission. This is an excellent way to screw your own life. Do you know how many of these graduates takes years to pass MQA exam despite multiple attempts? Some never pass and end up not being a doctor or just doing illegal locum.
Okay thanks for your info! Appreciate it alot! 🙂
I think you mean 3rd schedule. The 2nd schedule is recognised unis. 3rd schedule unis, after 300+ in the 2nd schedule, are going to be poor quality, and with 300+ choices to choose from, anyone going to un-recognised med schools is going to be very mediocre students who cannot get into one of the 300+ recognised ones. So it is not surprising many cannot pass the MQE.
Personally I don’t trust any of the Russian universities even though I have seen some good students. Generally most of their products are bad likely due to the poor quality of students taken in and communication issues. If you don’t speak Russian, the chances are you will not learn anything.
Secondly, I don’t think there is such thing as JPA loan. Furthermore, I was informed that JPA has stopped giving scholarship for medicine overseas.
Doctor, fyi there is really a JPA Loan for both local and overseas uni. Medicine belongs to the critical courses. Max. loan is RM250k. And yea JPA has stopped its scholarship long ago, but not the loan. One question is shall I wait for the matriculation and get into the IPTA? The reason why I will choose to study abroad is because the chances of getting a place here to pursue medicine are so low. Who will choose to go to overseas if he or she can study in IPTA here? I have confidence that I will get the bursary from the government for the Pre-U program. But I’m pretty sure if I take Alevels I wont be able to go back to IPTA anymore.
Medicine is no more a critical field. This JPA loan is similar to PTPTN and you need to pay back. Why don’t you take the loan and do it locally than going overseas??
Doctor, fyi there is really a JPA Loan for both local and overseas uni. Medicine belongs to the critical courses. Max. loan is RM250k. And yea JPA has stopped its scholarship long ago, but not the loan. One question is shall I wait for the matriculation and get into the IPTA? The reason why I will choose to study abroad is because the chances of getting a place here to pursue medicine are so low. Who will choose to go to overseas if he or she can study in IPTA here? I have confidence that I will get the bursary from the government for the Pre-U program. But I’m pretty sure if I take Alevels I wont be able to go back to IPTA anymore.
What do you think I should take after SPM if I want to study Medicine here? Thanks!
IPTA aside, how is doing medicine in Russia any better than doing it in the IPTSs here? There are so many IPTSs to choose from!
The way fees in IPTS med schools have ballooned, Russia is cheaper. That’s ‘better’ for some people.
JPA do provide loans to study overseas up to RM250k but may change it to MARA.
Re JPA loans, I was told it’s not that easy to get, as there are conditions that needs fulfilling. Unfortunately I don’t have the details. We are thinking of applying in yr 3.
JPA Skim Pinjaman Yuran Pengajian Luar negara
Click to access Garispanduan%20Pinjaman.pdf
This is rather tricky as you can only apply after being accepted into the university and after 1 year of the course. Furthermore, as it is mentioned in the circular, policies can change from time to time.
“medical graduate from the private universities here accepts students as long as they are able to fork out the money.”
I have seen repeated accusations of private universities being accused of the above statement.
Let me inform the graciously learned ignorant ones that i sit on the board for interviews of medical graduates in private colleges when they are selected.
Todays selection of candidates is difficult because the candidates possess 10 A i their SPM and 4 A;s in their STPM,A levels.OR GOOD GRADES WITH THE baraculatte exams.
Question is are they up to the mark compared with their counterparts a few years ago.That’s where the problem lies.
The private medical colleges are scrutinised by MQA for students admission criteria and these are senior proffesionals in heir own field.Any shortcomings is dealt with severly .
We hope this favouritism of favouring priveliged private med schools ,public school;s and rhetoric continous criticism stops unless he she is familiar with the ongoings of med schools of to day.
Living in the glorious past and spewing malicious statements without evidence is bad for any kind of medicine .
Having quite extensive experiences with the processes of getting into local private med schools, and knowing the grades of many students who eventually are offered places, I beg to disagree completely.
If the IPTS med schools are sure of the quality of their students, please publish the list of entrance qualifications of their students. It will then be obvious how ‘Todays selection of candidates is difficult because the candidates possess 10 A i their SPM and 4 A;s in their STPM,A levels.OR GOOD GRADES WITH THE baraculatte exams’. Or not. It’s often not, because often those who has money don’t have the grades, and those good students do not have the money. A quick scrutiny of those selected will tell you which is the priority.
I second that. Yes there are a lot of straight As medical applicants but still I have seen mediocre students getting admission into IPTSs, including IMU which is regarded as one of the best private medical schools in Malaysia. I personally know of someone with “BBC” in a levels got into the PMS stream of IMU and now working in the UK. We cant deny the fact that private medical education is a business, the main purpose of the admission process is to select the best applicants “to fill up all the seats”. And if the applicant cohort is not comprised of 100% straight As students, they have no choice but to lower the selection criteria.
Soulmate…as you pointed out the fact that someone who scored BBC is now working in UK. I also know those who performed mediocre in stpm or A-Levels such as BBB or BBC and ended up in private local unis but they are now specialist after passing mrcp or north American board exam after residency. My point is, not everyone need to score all As to do well in medicine but agree that those score score all As will more likely do well. There are many other reasons that determine a successful career in medicine.
I completely agree with what you said. Academic performance is not the only criterion that determines how successful a doctor will be, other factors do come into play in the working life. But since the previous post was something about “all medical applicants scored straight As, thus there was difficulty in selecting candidates”, I provided an example saying that NOT ALL who applied to IPTSs and got admitted have straight As under the belt.
And I believe most of those who are doing “Very Well” in medicine have been high scorers/academically competitive throughout their lives.
BBC will not likely get you into the PMS program now.
That was like 7 years back. The number of straight As keep increasing year by year.
That is not the issue. It is whether IPTS are selecting the best students, or the richest students. The fact that some mediocre students do actually quite well in their course and profession does not justify choosing on the basis of money.
And the issue is that somebody actually tried to defend the practice by denying it here, in the face of evidences to the contrary.
The minimum entry qualifications was only introduced in 2011. Prior to that, I know many students who got Cs and Ds in SPM doing medicine in some of the private schools as well as overseas. In fact even last year, I had students who did not fulfill the min criteria but was accepted into a private medical school in Malaysia!
The min criteria was fixed at SPM level as we have too many dubious foundation programs being done by private universities.
AND of course, we have the highest number of straight A students in the world!! IF close to 10% of PMR students can get straight As, how many would have got 7As, 6As etc. Probably more than 50% would have got at least 5-6 As!!
I got admitted into med school 15 years ago. I had friends doing pre-u with me who obtained EEE in A-levels and got into a recognised private medical college with twinning in South India (the miminum requirements were DDE at the time if I recall correctly).
I suspect this was still going on prior to the NOC being enforced, although the universities involved have changed during the past 10 years, to those in eastern Europe.
Above average students who scored BBC in A-levels 15 years ago would have been fine doctors. This is not the same as BBC now. The number of high-scoring students have increased so much that they needed to introduce an additional grade in A-levels (A*) to separate the cream. Are students now just more smarter or hard-working that even 15 years ago? I don’t think so.
While academic acheivement is not the only criterion for being a competent doctor, there still needs to be a minimum requirment for academic ability. I know of enough people personally who obtained very poor SPM results and ended up pursuing medicine in eastern europe, passing the course without any problem. I know their academic ability has not changed, and this is the situation that really scares me about the future of medical practice in Malaysia.
What should I do if I want to study Medicine locally?
In short, IPTAs – do STPM/Matriculation;
IPTSs – STPM/A levels/FIS
Why medicine? It’s not the best job out there, and prospects do look grim.
We have 36 Medical schools to choose from!
..”the candidates possess 10 A i their SPM and 4 A;s in their STPM,A levels.OR GOOD GRADES WITH THE baraculatte exams”
Do you interview medical graduates or medical school applicants? Assuming it’s the latter, and assuming ALL applicants possess above-mentioned grades, how do they do at interviews? The interview must be the critical selection stage then.
In the UK, an applicant may have 4A* at A levels, and yet fail to get a place in all 4 medical schools applied to, all because they “fail” at interviews.
Ps. I personally know a medical student in a a private medical school who only had 4As at SPM, but went the FIS route.
I personally know a medical student who is studying in local IPTS. The criteria is the cheque they bring into the interview. If this school doesn’t want to accept them, next school he goes will. If their grade not good enough, no problem, they can enroll in foundation program and guaranteed a place as long as you can pay the fee.
doctor, how about indonesian universities graduates? and about licensing exam, when the exact date/time the exam will officially command?
I have seen good students from Padjajaran and gajahmada but not from other universities
Licensing exams likely from 2016 or 17 perhaps, depending on political situation!
Pagalavan, I believe the reason for the MMLE is because of the ASEAN cooperative agreement rather than improving medical standards. We will be forced to allow ASEAN doctors to practise soon (I think 2017) and the agreement states that there should be no discrimination of allowing doctors in the ASEAN region to practise if there have fulfilled the required local qualifying standards. Hence the need for all doctors whether Local or Foreign graduates to sit for a common exam for acceptances into jobs. Look at this as a double edged sword that besides allowing ASEAN doctors (read Indonesian) it also allows our unemployed doctors to try and gain employment there. Good time to learn Thai, I think. Of course qualifying is one thing, being given a job, is another thing. With MMLE, there will be no more need for any schedules for medical schools recognition.
hi doctor, what wil happen to those poor graduated doctor from indonesia 5 years later who will only get their stpm result next year? MMLE too? if i failed MMLE means i couldn’t be a HO in gov hos?
I don’t understand what you are saying
So far that what I can concluded is you must do your best and put more and more effort if you want to stay in this career. Am I?
Yes, life long learning and hard work
hi doctor, what to do with those who will graduated 5 years later (2019/2020) from studying abroad in indonesia? qualifying in MMLE and to be a HO in gov hos?
or should studying in IPTS if couldn’t get squeeze into IPTA? IMU and Monash course fees is too exp for me. Is it okay with AIMST? or mayb doctor you have other recommend medical school?
Firstly, your English need improvement if you want to do medicine.
The time will come where everyone will need to sit for MMLE in order to practice in Malaysia. Again, passing MMLE also does not guarantee you a job
hi doctor, what to do with those who will graduated 5 years later (2019/2020) from studying abroad in indonesia? qualifying in MMLE and to be a HO in gov hos?
or should studying in IPTS if couldn’t get squeeze into IPTA? IMU and Monash course fees is too exp for me. Is it okay with AIMST? or mayb doctor you have other recommend medical school?
Dr Pag…I am glad u advised ‘chill’ to improve his english b4 he decides to do medicine. Chill…what was your score for English in your SPM? Was it A1 ?
A1 in SPM is useless dude, at least for the english paper. My school (chinese medium) had around 50% who scored at least an A2 for english but still a lot of us could not speak english fluently. But surprisingly as a chinese medium high school with the longest teaching hours for chinese we had only 38 who scored A1 for chinese paper out of ~480 (year 2005). You see the difference? I would say the standard of A1 for English has been set too low, while it is exceptionally high for certain subjects in comparison (eg. chinese).
i think ashraf may be thinking of wanting to point out that maybe even “chill” can score A1 in SPM…if that is true, then one can see that our exam standard has truly gone down the drain
ouch. quite harsh to attack his english. this is not a job interview, merely a message board – a medical message board and not a language one. if there are problems understanding him perhaps asking him to clarify would suffice.
great command in english is very important in medicine – but i have been humbled many a times by excellent physicians with poor command in english.
Dr , please share your point of view on this matter . What does this statement imply ? Find it very disturbing .
This is taken from a government MO facebook page .
wow never have I known that HOs have been downgraded so much that ortho didn’t want to accept structural CTEV case just because it’s not MO refers..so called new rules from the department. . great hospital always comes out with great new rules.I am so so so love this place! no doubt we are trained so much to learn from defensive medicine!
What is so disturbing? It just says that only MOs can refer club foot cases. Probably because the competence of the HOs might be suspect, so they want an MO to confirm that it is what it is prior to referring.
I don’t know the entire context of course, but that is what it sounds like.
Without details, we don’t know what’s the real picture, but that is not a surprising rule.
Normal practice is that only consultants can decide on referrals, and then only to another consultant. However, in normal practice, it is not possible hence a unit/department practice is in place, with delegation of the right and responsibility to more junior doctors within the unit. This used to be the Registrars in some units I worked in in UK. But the Malaysian practice often downgrade this to the most junior doctor, ie the Houseman.
While the act of referral can be carried out by a Houseman, the decision to refer should certainly NOT be made at HO level. In addition, with the qualify of many HO, some consultants find it impossible to get a proper picture of the patient and reason for referral from HO, and have insisted the referral be made by at least a MO.
So I think it is perfectly acceptable to make a rule that cross discipline referrals be only done at minimum MO level.
Agree, referral should be left to at least MO level as HO may not know anything about the case especially the details of the referral. Ideally the referral should be done between the senior level, consultant, specialist or registrar level.
Agree with jk. In developed countries generally, only registrars/specialist registrars (both maybe equivalent to specialists in Malaysia) are allowed to do referrals. Certain consultants in some hospitals insist that only the consultant is allowed to refer cases. I really don’t think it is appropriate for House Officers to refer cases.
It basically mean that HO cannot refer cases to another department. This is nothing new. Even when I was a houseman, certain department only accepts referral from MO or specialist.
Can u tell us more about medico-legal lawyer and it’s prospects ? What should I do to pursue this career path ?
They are either lawyers you subspecialise in medical cases or doctors who become lawyers. Their job is to handle medico legal cases in court, aka you getting sued in court!
So basically you got to do a degree in law, get appointed to the Bar. A whole new beginning I would say. If you don’t mind, could you elaborate more on being frustrated? Frustrated with the system?
Dear Dr Pagalavan,
i have just been doing some random search regarding this medico-legal lawyers and what i found out is basically we will need to obtain another degree, right? i supposed it’s called LLM and we can do online distance learning (after looking through some UK universities).
Questions are:
– like what was being asked earlier, what are the prospects? We all wanting to survive the hurricane i presumed. making a living
– is there any issue with which university is preferred, will the degree be recognized in malaysia etc
– is there a choice of doing this degree locally? due to the cost concern of course
– out of the top of my head i’m thinking of medico-legal advisor more than switching straight from doctor to lawyer kinda thing, more like a side-income. you do think this is feasible?
your generous opinion is very much appreciated. thank you so much
LLM is the postgraduate degree in law, specifically you are looking at postgraduate degree in medical law. If you want to practice as a medical-legal lawyer in court of law, you have to get a basic law degree first, ie LLB first and there are many private and few public universities offering law degrees in Malaysia.
Also, you have to do the CLP exams, I believe, if you want to be appointed to the BAR council to practice as a lawyer in Malaysia if you are not a local public law school graduate. From what I have heard, CLP exams are not easy, with low passing rates in Malaysia.
[…] graduates whether we like it or not. There is only so much that the government can absorb. Thus MMLE is inevitable. And I can say that it is coming very soon……….. As I once predicted […]
MARA loan can be converted to scholarship as long as you show them your results. It means you don’t need to pay back the initial loan.
Many top JUSA officers and lectures children are MARA loan students. Some studying in Indonesia, Egypt…..
If you get a scholarship to do medicine under MARA.dont be choosy about the country. Just Do It!
Government sponsored candidates would be given priority to work as HO…That I am quite POSITIVE!
Yes of course. It is also a form Of social engineering!!
Since 2012, JPA has stopped all pre-u programmes in overseas and its undergraduate programmes aboard have also been restricted to Top 10 (critical courses) and Top 50 universities (other selective courses) for all top KPM Bursary students. Looking at the list of programmes and study opportunities in many foreign countries offered by MARA, you can tell why above average Malay/Bumi students prefer MARA study loan over JPA scholarship. Furthermore, MARA loans are bond-free with a mimimum token of repayment if graduated on time. Government job wise, they’re still given preference and priority.
http://www.mara.gov.my/en/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=4833c897-8482-49a3-83ff-5c8fba11f74c
A lot of mara scholars in countries with better pay and lifestyle do not want to return to Msia. They are free top do so because there is no bond. JPA scholars are all forced to return.
There are no more JPA scholarships for medicine even in top 10 unis. I know of two rejections for scholarships from a couple of students enrolled in Cambridge and UCL.
It was a good 14 years, but the overseas JPA scholarship open to everybody is now history. Only Mara scholarships continue to send students to 1st world countries, but that is not a 1Malaysia establishment.
Oops Dr Paga, you might be threading a fineeeeee line here! Another thing though I suppose MARA loan does apply to the vast majority who excelled or simply to a “select few”.?
Both I guess!
I figured that I might just end up at “the other end of the stick” had I applied not bcos of my grades but something else! Pardon my pun!
Luckily I did not succumb to the parental pressure of doing medicine. The usual things were said; job security, noble profession etc. Something just didn’t feel right. One of the very few times that my parents were wrong. I did Accounting instead, recently graduated and have rejected all Malaysian job offers. So, currently unemployed in Australia.
Based on my experience and also experience drawn from others, choosing to pursue a medical career carries a much larger risk in comparison to other occupations. So, think very carefully. 3 years for a fully recognised Accounting degree, at least 5 years for a medical one. In my university, it takes 7 years (recently started). The only university in Australia, at present, that does that.
For some reason, I quite enjoy reading this blog. Brother’s a doctor, working in Singapore with his wife who is also a doctor.
Two highly intelligent medical friends of mine went to Singapore as fresh graduates. Apparently, the system in Malaysia does not favour them. Any medical students graduating from my university can be assumed to be highly intelligent I guess. After paying about RM 750 k for fees alone, they better be.
Malaysian brain drain.
The Australian ‘accounting’ qualification is usually a B Com, and is only equivalent to the 1st part of the professional accounting qualification. You will still need to do the 2nd part professional exams to qualify as a full accountant.
All graduate entry Australian medical programmes are minimum 7 years, ie a basic degree which is usually 3 years, and then the 4 years medical programme.
[…] https://pagalavan.com/2013/12/13/for-future-doctors-the-hurricane-has-arrived-part-2/ […]
hi dr pagalavan, what are the advisable steps to become a medicolegal lawyer if i am currently a house officer? is it possible to become a doctor and lawyer at the same time? thanks.
Call someone from MPS and ask for advice. Most go down the route of law degree after their medical degree but some are just doing a Masters in Medical Law now (Edinburgh has a distance learning course) which doesn’t let you practice law but nonetheless allows you to work as a medico legal consultant. But you have to have a sufficiently broad medical experience – at least a few years our of medical school.
Just read in the star newspaper about 2 twins given national scholarships.
Is it limited to only 50 students in the whole country now?
Can anyone enlighten me on this please?
Yes. As I said, many things will change along the way. Frankly, with so many universities in Malaysia, why do you need to send people overseas?
@ 2 cents, yes only 50 awarded the national scholarship whereby recipient can choose to do their desired preferred course. 9A+ gets bursary for Pre-u first, I think.
I know few doctors who went on to do law. Yes, you can become a medico legal adviser in medico-legal cases. However, you can’t practise both. Our current MMA president is one of them who has both degrees. Furthermore, you need more experience than just housemanship
Hi, Dr. Paga,
My sister is studying medicine in Padjajaran University, Indonesia, in her fourth year. Is that possible to apply for any scholarship/loan for her. We have been used saved and father’s retirement money to support her so far but there is a need to find a tertiary source. I couldn’t barely find any related scholarship/loan now. Do you have any idea what are the related scholarship/loan I can apply to or where I can get the information? Please do assist. Thank you.
You can try MIC/MIED loans. I don’t know any other, other than bank loans.