Below, I have attached the “Health Facts 2012” which was recently released by Ministry of Health.  These are the figures for 2011. Well, the writings are on the wall.  If you look at the figures carefully, as of 31/12/2011, we have already achieved a doctor: population ratio of 1: 791 compared to 1: 900 in 2010. This figure includes all the housemen with the total number of doctors standing at 36 607.  I am very sure with the exponential increase in the number of medical graduates, we will achieve a ratio of 1: 600 by 2014, almost 2 years before the targeted year of 2016. If the trend continues, we will achieve 1: 400 way before 2020, probably by 2016!! Always remember that 50% of the current 34 functioning medical schools have not produced their graduates.

It is obvious that in comparison, we are still very short of dentists (1: 6800) and pharmacists (1: 3355) despite the post in civil service being almost full as mentioned here and here. Once the 1Care system is implemented and the dispensing rights are given to the pharmacist, more pharmacists will be needed to run these NHS dispensing pharmacies. I was informed recently (not sure how true it is) that smaller pharmacists are being advised to merge with the bigger ones as the government may only appoint few big chain pharmacists as their dispenser.

It is also interesting to note that the population growth rate is declining to 1.3% last year but the doctor’s growth rate is increasing at 15%/year, at least.  It is quite obvious that we have enough doctors but it is the maldistribution that’s needed to be addressed. We all know that Klang Valley has a doctor: population ratio of less than 1: 400. Many doctors in Klang Valley are struggling to survive and venturing into unethical practices and direct selling’s.

When we include the private and public sector, the number of hospital beds and doctors are more than enough. What we need is integration of public and private healthcare. The government is hoping that the 1Care system will address this problem.  Once 1Care system is implemented and the public hospitals are corporatized, medical graduates will need to apply to individual hospitals for a job and will depend on job vacancies. When this time comes in another 5-10 years, the maldistribution issues will be automatically solved. Many will remain jobless as it is only so many that the system can absorb!

Please read : health_fact_2012_page_by_page

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

I was recently asked to comment by “afterschool.com” regarding the problems with the shift system which appeared in NST last weekend (https://pagalavan.com/2012/09/02/for-future-doctors-the-hurricane-is-coming-part-2/). Thus I was obliged to give my comment. It was published yesterday on their website http://afterschool.my/news_details.php?nid=251.

With the current overflow of graduates than what the system can cope, whether it is the old “on-call”system or the new “shift” system, the clinical exposure and training will definitely be compromised. That is for sure. The horror stories that I am being told everywhere really scares me at times. The situation will only get worst within the next few years when the number of graduates reaches an unimaginable level of 7000-8000/year.

The attitudes are another matter. I just heard a JM (Jururawat Masyarakat) who was so disgusted with the attitude of housemen in a general hospital, decided to deliver in my hospital instead. When she went to the hospital for leaking, the housemen were laughing among themselves and was not even paying attention to her. In fact the housemen got guts to even question her on why she went to private hospital to do Ultrasound and why she had so many Ultrasounds being done in private hospital, in a sarcastic manner. FYI, this is a lady who is having her 1st pregnancy after 8 years of sub-fertility! Of course, they did not know that the patient is a JM and her husband is a businessman who was with her when this happened!! I can give you lost of stories like this . I will say this again, if you are not interested in working as a doctor, please leave !

I found some interesting articles (below) in NST today. In fact, it is a follow-up to an article published last week (http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/doctors-may-end-up-being-under-trained-and-untested-1.128106) which was an abstract of our Ex-DG’s MMA AGM speech which I had published before over here. The recent SCHOMOS/MMA survey of about 908 HOs who had undergone training in both the old and new system showed that almost 75% claimed that they are not getting adequate training under the new shift system. Something that I had expected when it was introduced. Remember my post on this matter last year ? see here and here.

This article in NST http://www.nst.com.my/top-news/training-blues-for-housemen-1.134263#, basically talks about the SCHOMOS survey. But another article http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/sunday-spotlight-housemen-can-rest-but-learn-less-1.134094 interested me more as right at the end, you will realise that whatever I have been saying in this blog over the last 2 and half years will eventually come true ! Jobless doctors! Please see the highlighted paragraphs.

Remember, I started ringing the warning bell of overflow of doctors way back in 2005. People laughed at me and said that I am over exaggerating. But now, almost all the top guys in the medical fraternity in Malaysia agrees with me. I guess that this blog did some good by exposing a lot of issues about medical schools and oversupply of doctors. Now, the newspapers seem to be more interested. Undertrained doctors will also eventually become a national issue when the rakyat starts to complain. I am already seeing more and more patients who were once loyal customers of government hospitals coming to see me and venting out their frustration. These are pensioners and senior citizens who are well-educated. Many openly told me that the current generation of doctors do not even bother to listen, examine and take concern of their problems. They can clearly see the deteriorating quality of the doctors. These people have been going to government hospitals for at least 20 years!

It is beyond doubt that the quality of intake of medical students have deteriorated over the years followed by the quality of the products of medical school. Mushrooming of medical schools, overproduction and inadequate training, further deteriorates the situation to a point where there will be no way of turning back soon. We are talking about this when the product stands at 4000/year but it will hit 6-8000 by 2016. Almost 50% of our 34 functioning medical schools have not produced their graduates.

AND when the jobless scenario hits, some knee jerks reaction will follow from our government! Don’t be surprised when they ask private hospitals to employ housemen with some pathetic salary!

Or, our jobless doctors will be performing “Gangnam Style”  on the road side! Have you seen doctors working as Taxi drivers? It happens in some countries.

Read more: Training blues for housemen – Top News – New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/top-news/training-blues-for-housemen-1.134263##ixzz25I9cdwrT

The new shift system has to reduced the long working hours of housemen, which was the main cause of stress for them, and also prevented too many from working infrom overcrowding wards.

INTENDED to solve the woes of exhausted and overburdened housemen, the new flexi-hour shift system itself is turning out to be one of Gordian complexity.

One of the most vocal critics of the shift system has been Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican, the former director-general of health.

He believed that while it might have improved the quality of life of housemen or house officers (HO), it might result in HOs being under-trained.

In an excerpt of his speech delivered at the Malaysian Medical Association Oration 2012, which was carried in the New Straits Times on Aug 23, Dr Ismail also expressed concern that with the shift system, there would be no continuity of patient care or accountability.

He also noted the lack of interest among HOs in attending professional development programmes because these were held outside their working hours.

“They may attend if their shift duty coincides with the programmes.

“Otherwise, they prefer to stay at home and rest than continuing their medical education,” he said.

Medical education in Malaysia is indeed at a crossroads, said Dr S.R. Manalan, president of the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA).

“It has been much politicised and faces many unresolved problems, such as shortcomings in the selection of students for entry into medical schools, structure of undergraduate training, cost of medical education and the need for dedicated medical educators.”

He said the apparent commercial interest in establishing medical schools because of the increasing demand to produce doctors was also not helping the situation.

In 2009, there were 3,058 HOs. In 2010, the figure rose to 3,252 and last year, there were 3,564.

According to statistics, Malaysia will reach the doctor-to-population ratio of 1:600 by 2015 and 1:400 by 2020.

“The question now is, why do we have to train so many to become doctors and is there a drop in the standard of knowledge and skills of these doctors?”

Dr Manalan said the shift system was implemented to replace the old on-call system. It not only reduced the long working hours of HOs, which was the main cause of stress for them, but also prevented too many from working in the wards.

Working in smaller numbers optimised their exposure to a wider spectrum of clinical cases.

He said following complaints from housemen about the shift system, the MMA ordered a survey and entrusted the Section Concerning House Officers, Medical Officers and Specialists (Schomos) with the task. About 908 HOs took part in the online survey.

“Overall results showed that 85 per cent felt they were getting enough rest in between work compared with the previous system.

“About 52 per cent felt the old system was better than the existing system. On whether there was enough teaching or ward rounds by medical officers and specialists in the shift system, 52 per cent felt there was,” said Dr Manalan.

Not so positive was that 75 per cent of the HOs who felt that they were not getting adequate clinical exposure and were unable to complete enough procedures as required for their training.

Of the total respondents, 60 per cent felt there was no continuity of care for patients.

The MMA presented its findings to the Health Ministry in July. Dr Manalan said the ministry felt the results submitted by MMA needed more study and, therefore, it might do a further survey.

“In the meantime, the MMA executive council’s recommendation to the health minister is that there be a moratorium on the number of medical colleges or house officers until we have enough training facilities in government hospitals and better supervision of the new doctors.”

Equally concerned about the efficacy of the shift system was Prof Datuk Dr Kew Siang Tong, dean of the School of Medicine in International Medical University.

Although housemen were getting enough rest, Dr Kew was concerned with the MMA survey of HOs thinking they were not getting enough clinical exposure compared with the on-call system.

“That’s very significant isn’t it?

“But it’s reasonable because they are spending less time in hospital, less time with patients.

“Then there is a question that asked if the housemen are able to log in more procedures than in the previous system — a very important question — and only 25 per cent of the respondents said yes. That’s a very telling indication about the current system.”

Another factor that pushed for the implementation of the shift system was the big increase in the number of HOs over the years.

“The Malaysian Medical Council used to register a few hundred house officers every year, but now, it’s about 4,000 annually.

“If we follow the old system where everybody works the same hours, there will not be enough place for them.”

But the major concern for Dr Kew, which she believed was shared by many of her peers, was the lack of continuity in caring for patients.

“Now, put yourself as a patient. You’re seeing different faces all the time. You’d be confused and worried when different doctors tell you to do different things.”

It also puts the housemen at a disadvantage, for if they didn’t see a patient from beginning to end, they would not know the patients’ progress.

When housemen don’t get proper exposure, are not confident of their skills and do not know their patients well, this creates extra stress for medical officers as the work burden would be shifted to the seniors.

Another senior specialist opined that if we wanted quality doctors, we should control the number of doctors being churned out.

“If you count, the number of medical schools in such a small country is amazing. Yet, we are also sending students to Russia, Europe and other places. If this glut continues, we will soon have more doctors than nurses and end up like the Philippines. We will have to export our doctors,” he said.

Although conscious of the fact that our doctor to population ratio has yet to reach the aspired 1:400 by 2020, Dr Kew thought the problem might be distributive in nature.

“There are more than enough doctors in the Klang Valley. But if you go to Sabah and Sarawak, there are clearly not enough. So, the medical and healthcare service planners have to look at the problem in its totality.”

The sheer number of housemen had made the previous on-call system unfeasible, but the criticisms on the current shift system cannot be ignored.

Dr Kew, who has trained housemen for years, candidly admitted that she did not know what was the best way forward.

“There are only 37 designated housemen training hospitals in the whole country.

“On the other hand, there are some 4,000 new housemen every year. They need to be paid too and the government’s coffers are not a bottomless pit.

“It’s a difficult problem to solve. It may come a time when there’ll be housemen without jobs because there are only so many vacancies.”

Read more: SUNDAY SPOTLIGHT: Housemen can rest but learn less – General – New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/sunday-spotlight-housemen-can-rest-but-learn-less-1.134094#ixzz25I9tiHcV

In April 2012, I wrote this article in the MMA Magazine https://pagalavan.com/my-mma-articles/unpublished-since-september-2011-madness-is-like-gravitywhat-you-need-is-just-a-little-push/. Unfortunately the madness is continuing and becoming ridiculous at times. Over the last few weeks I have been receiving numerous emails asking me a lot of questions, especially about certain promises that are being made by some medical colleges.

The competition among the medical colleges (34 functioning) is getting very tough and many are struggling to get enough students. They introduced self assessed Foundation studies as a short-cut to attract students but the situation got worst when MMC introduced the minimum entry qualifications in May 2011. I was informed that many colleges did not meet the target number of students this year. Some how, I expected this to happen and it will only get worst when the jobless scenario happens in few years time. Unfortunately, there seem to be a twist in the plot.

I received few emails from budding students that they were accepted into some medical colleges despite not having the minimum qualifications. The college has asked them to pay the deposit and appeal to MMC. Basically, they are asking the students to do their dirty work.  Then I received few emails from students who completed Matriculation but did not get a medical seat in local public universities despite scoring a CGPA of 4.0. In about turn of events, these students were offered a special scholarship by JPA to continue their education in private medical colleges. Surprisingly, most of these medical colleges have not even been accredited by MMC or MQA!!  Is the government supporting these medical colleges using our taxpayer’s money? Even though I am happy for the students, as many of them are good students but can’t afford to do medicine without scholarship, but sending them to unrecognized and untested medical schools is not the way forward. I presume this JPA issue started due to Perdana University’s special JPA scholarship that was introduced by the PM’s department. Other colleges would have started to demand the same privileges.

Then I received few emails and comments saying that some of these medical schools have guaranteed a job for their graduates in their “soon” to be built private hospitals!! After HUKM was built-in 1990s, the government refused to allow any teaching hospitals to be built. Many public universities like UPM, UNIMAS and UiTM requested to build their own teaching hospital but were rejected. They insist on these universities to use existing MOH hospitals for teaching. MOH always felt that teaching university hospitals are a threat to their service, as many specialists tend to join the university hospitals for better salary and perks. This happened when UH and HUKM was built. The other reason could be to make more money. At that time, the government was already allowing private medical schools to operate. I am not sure how many of you are aware that the medical colleges have to pay certain amount of fee for every student per-year to MOH. When I was with Monash, the figure was RM 500/student/year. On top of that, each HOD of the hospital has to be paid a monthly allowance of RM 600-1200 for facilitating teaching whether they do any teaching or not. If MOH consultants teach the students, they must be paid an allowance per session but not vice-versa. The private medical school’s lecturers are supposed to give free services to the attached hospital.  The private college must also provide academic services to the hospital by allowing the usage of library etc and when they do research, large amount of fee must be paid to Clinical Research Centre of each hospital for facilitation and for using MOH patients. It is all about money, I guess.

Now, how can this medical colleges promise a job in their private hospitals? Monash suppose to have the first private teaching hospital known as Monash Medical Centre in Sunway. In fact, the students who were enrolled in 2006/2007 were told that by the time they reach 3^rd year, the new private hospital will be ready and they do not need to come down to JB. Many students were upset when it did not materialize. The initial plan of having a 500-bedded private teaching hospital was abandoned or postponed. They found that it is not economically viable and I do agree with them. I always wondered why they couldn’t use Sunway Medical Centre instead of building a new hospital.

Then suddenly the government approved Perdana University’s private teaching hospital, supposedly the first private teaching hospital. Soon after, all other medical schools started to come up with their brilliant idea of setting up private teaching hospitals including UCSI in Port Dickson, AUCMS in Kepala Batas (2 hospitals) and I heard IMU has bought over Pantai Ampang. AUCMS is planning to build 2 hospitals, a 200-bedded hospital in Kepala Batas and an 800 bedded hospital in Bertam!! According to the statistics, the entire Seberang Jaya Utara has a population of only 300 000 with about 18 000 people staying in Kepala Batas!! Why the hell do we need a 200 and 800-bedded private hospital in the same district when we already got a government hospital in Kepala Batas? The largest private hospital in Malaysia is 500 bedded (Lam Wah Ee Hospital) and generally most private hospitals are less than 200 beds. Any right thinking economist will tell you that it is not sustainable and bound to fail.

Firstly, no private hospital has been accredited to conduct housemanship training. You can’t just go to any hospital to do housemanship. It must have enough number of specialists in each discipline. The usual allocation is 5 housemen to 1 consultant in a hospital. Under the Medical Act, private hospitals are not included in housemanship training.

Secondly, as far as I am concerned, private hospitals are NOT suitable for training purposes. If even now, the junior doctors are getting inadequate training, it will only get worst if the government allows the private hospitals to do so. Private patients are also fussy and would not allow any tom, dick and harry to touch them. Private patients go to these hospitals to be treated by the doctor of their choice. We can’t compare our healthcare system to that of US etc where all hospitals are private hospitals.

Thirdly, do you think opening a private hospital is like opening a shopping complex? It will take years (5-10 years) before a private hospital have full load of patients. At the moment, we do not have a National Healthcare System that supports the citizens who get admitted to any hospital. Private patients are either full cash paying patients, paid by employer or personal insurance. In fact, only less than 15% of the patients who gets admitted in a private hospital are cash paying patients. The cost of private healthcare is just too expensive for any middle-income population. I am in an 80-bedded private hospital that opened 2 years ago. Till today, we have just opened 50 beds and the highest number of patients that we have ever had is 40, all disciplines included!! So, do you think these private hospitals going to be able to provide any form of training even if what they promise becomes a reality? And what is the salary that they are going to pay you? I know one medical college that claim that they will give scholarship for half of the tuition fee but the student will be bonded for 15 years with them!! What bond?? Perdana University claims that all their graduates will be given intern post in their private hospital and they can continue with their American style residency training in the same hospital. Now, who gives them the authority to do so? Everyone knows that Perdana has a special connection with the government but what kind of training are these students going to get? I hope MMC will play their role well to prevent such occurrences. BTW, I don’t see these promises in their website which means it is not confirmed. I feel they should not promise something that they are not sure of. Furthermore, all their students are JPA scholars, which means they are bonded with the government.

As I have mentioned many times before, private hospitals do NOT employ HOs and MOs. A few MOs are usually employed to run the emergency department. Consultants are always self-employed. Private hospitals are a business entity and every cent counts. It is profit driven. So, how are they going to employ all these doctors as their HOs and MOs? Private hospitals will take at least 5-7 years to make profit from the investment that they have made. Do you think they have that much of fund to “employ” all these “bonded” doctors? Even if they do, the salary will be pathetic and you can’t say NO as you are legally bonded.  One of the medical colleges is also planning to set up 200 polyclinics throughout the country. I presume they will use these “bonded” students as a cheap labour to run these clinics! Private medical colleges are also a business entity and profit driven.

The 1Care system is yet to be implemented. It may likely start in 2014 for the primary healthcare and probably after 3-5 years, it will be extended to tertiary care hospitals. For full implementation, it may take up to 10-15 years. The 1Care system will integrate both the private and public healthcare system that in turn will make more patients to visit private hospitals. Is this the reason why these private medical colleges going into this madness?? Are they assuming that by the time their hospital operates, the 1Care system will support them? This is one of the reasons why many opposed the 1Care system. Why should the public pay to make a private entity rich? It looks more like “piratisation” !!

Well, there are a lot of hanky-panky things going around nowadays. Sometimes I am shocked to hear some of the information given to the budding students by these colleges. Some even claim that their degree is recognized worldwide and you can work anywhere in the world, as dangerous as the agents who send students to unrecognized universities. I pity all those students who believe what these colleges are telling them. I hope they do their own research. Anything, which is not written in black & white, is not valid! Gosh, what has happened to our country?

As I sit and write this piece of article on the eve of our 55^th Merdeka Celebration, I wonder what is going to happen in the next 5 years, “Janji Dicapatikan”………………….

God save this country from these madness…………….

Happy Merdeka Day 2012.

I wrote 3 parts on ” The Storm is coming……..” but realised that the storm has already hit us. It is now the hurricane that is coming. I just received the info below from a friend of mine in Facebook. In 2008, just before the last general election, the government introduced the night clinics in some of the government polyclinics and klinik kesihatans. The night clinics are supposed to run from 5pm till 10pm daily and 8am till 12.30pm on Saturdays. They idea is to serve the people with a RM 1 clinic and to reduce the load at emergency department. Many was not interested initially  but with the RM80/hour rate that the government was paying, soon there were long queues waiting to get a slot . In fact, the hospital doctors on the other hand were complaining as they were receiving RM 150/call when the KK doctors were getting RM80/hour. My wife works in a KK and I use to tell her that it is likely a temporary measure as I could see that the storm was coming then.

With the increasing number of graduates being produced over the last 2 years, it is almost likely that most KKs will have full number of MOs. KKs which had only 2 MOs before are now having close to 10 MOs. I was informed that most KK’s MO post in Selangor, N.Sembilan and Malacca is deemed full and by the end of this year, the entire Peninsular Malaysia MO post will be full. I know some of these states have already sent their MOs to Klinik 1Malaysia which was supposed to be manned by Medical Assistants (MA). Most of these KKs previously use to get their MAs to run the clinics, to help the doctors. However, I was informed that MAs are not running clinics anymore in most KKs. In fact, some MAs are being sent to Klinik Desa to do admin and clinical work. I know 1 MA who was complaining about this to me quite some time ago. The MOs are now being asked to do more and more admin work, audits and even becoming bidans to visit antenatal mothers and visiting old folk homes!! Who knows that soon MOs will also be doing the nurses jobs! Too many mah………..

With the overflow of MOs in KKs, it is time for MOH to introduce the shift system for the night clinics. This will remove the RM80/hour allowance that these doctors were enjoying before. Can anyone complain? The answer is NO. With the flooding of the market with doctors, the administrators will just say ” you tak suka , you boleh keluar……….. “ I wrote about this in 2006 . It is just a matter of time when these system is introduced to ALL Klinik Kesihatans throughout the country to serve the rakyat………

Now, didn’t I say the storm has hit us ……………… and it will only get worst……….. I am very sure they will remove the critical allowance (RM750) by 2016. Our new medical students in public universities this year are now given an option between PTPTN loan and JPA scholarship, it use to be only JPA scholarship. Some hidden message ?

Oh, and don’t think the private sector is greener either. The 1Care system is just around the corner…………

ATTENTION GOVERNMENT DOCTORS ……. i’ve got DISTURBING NEWS

now KKM is unable to cope up with the payment of extended hours in the klinik kesihatan…….. so they have proposed a plan which KK Port Dickson is going to be the PILOT health clinic to carry out the SHIFT SYSTEM……..

there will be ONE doctor allocated for that week starting from monday upto friday starting work from 12.30pm UPTO 9.30pm…. then on SATURDAY that doctor has to work from 8am-4.15pm…. WITHOUT GETTING PAID FOR EXTRA HOURS DUTY…….

Last week, I wrote on the situation of internship in Australia . I was also informed via a comment in this blog that Ireland has also shut their doors to international student graduates :

“If you are thinking of working in Ireland, you might just as well forget about it now. The Irish government is so stupid as they dont even take their own Non EU graduates to work with them. They rather employ Non EU students from Polish medical schools. Majority of us, the Non EU students who graduated this year didn’t get a job because our grades are lower from those Non EU who studied in Poland who don’t even know how the Irish system works. To make matter worst, we paid 295 Euros for the application and later found out we didn’t get a job. The irish government is making money from that. They didn’t reply to any of our emails, calls and they treat us like rubbish. SO my advice is, don’t go to Ireland for medical education. Go to anywhere else in europe like Poland, Romania, Slovakia where everything is cheaper, score a first class and apply to Ireland. And dont forget to pay your income tax at 40% per month. Oh, they are increasing the income tax again this year. Good luck and all the best!”

Now, UK is also facing the same situation. The news below appeared in UK 3 months ago : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9274753/Up-to-1000-new-doctors-could-face-unemployment.html. Their situation seem to be more critical then Australia! I was also informed via this blog that since April 2012, the UK government has stopped graduates from UK universities from seeking employment in UK :

“It is not only medicine that is affected, now graduates from all other courses in UK (international students) are affected, as the UK government had closed their Tier 1 (post study work) since 5 April 2012. They cannot stay on to gain some overseas (UK) working experience before returning to their home countries. Many (especially those graduated in June 2012) are very disappointed”

This situation in Australia, UK and Ireland will only make the glut back home even more critical as almost all graduates from these countries will be returning to Malaysia to seek employment. This, coupled with the so-called “unlimited MQE attempts” in 16 medical schools for graduates from unrecognised universities will only make the matter worst. It looks like the jobless scenario is definitely going to happen in near future. Someone once argued with me in this blog that doctors can never become jobless according to his father! Well, if it can happen in Australia and UK, please don’t bet it will not happen here.

I seriously hope the government would take drastic actions to stop this from happening. One way is to stop sending students overseas and if anyone goes overseas, they must sit for an exam upon returning ( this was proposed by our ex-DG but was shot down by cabinet). Some of the medical schools in Malaysia should be encouraged to merge which will in turn reduce the intake of students. MMC will then be able to concentrate more on the quality of the local medical schools. Unfortunately, all these steps are politically incorrect for our ruling government. Money is more important in the name of education hub. Then our DG will say exactly like what our DCA DG said ” the authorities would not limit or reduce the number of medical schools or the intake of student as they are private entities which do not receive any subsidy or assistance from the government” !! WTH………………

The government never promises a job for everyone. So, it is up to the public to make an informed decision. Unfortunately, our public is still so obsessed with making their children a doctor by hook or crook, hoping their future is secured. Another piece of advise : If you want to migrate, please do not do medicine!

Selamat Hari Raya 2012………………….

Up to 1,000 new doctors could face unemployment

Up to 1,000 new doctors will face unemployment next year as there are too few training places available, it has been warned.

In January 2011, I wrote this : https://pagalavan.com/2011/01/18/nurses-pilots-and-soon-doctors/ . A country as small as us had 8 flying schools producing almost 400-500 pilots/year. Today, I saw this interesting news in The Sun ( which obviously would not appear in the main stream newspaper), http://www.thesundaily.my/news/464947 which I have attached below.

Despite the warning last year, the government did not bother to take any action on these colleges. I must say that we have one of the worst human resource planning. Even in this article below, I was shocked by the statement by the DCA DG that  “the authorities would not limit or reduce the number of AFTOs or the intake of student pilots as they are private entities which do not receive any subsidy or assistance from the government” !!

WTH, aren’t these trainees paid by PTPTN? Isn’t that an assistance from the government for the students from which the colleges make profit? The cost of training a pilot is high as mentioned below. Imagine someone who spend such an amount of money to become a pilot just to find himself jobless. However, it seems 3 colleges have already closed down but I still see some of these colleges advertising aggressively in the radios about their intake! I have said this many times that education has become a business in Malaysia due our grandiose ideas of becoming a regional education hub!!  Just look at the number of africans who come into this country as students but involved in criminal activities. What actions has been taken to these colleges?

If you read the article below carefully, the same thing is happening to the medical field. 10 years ago, there was shortage, thus allow mushrooming of colleges but now the production is more than the job opportunities. In another 4 years, the title may read ” Trained Doctors Fail to Land a Career “………………….. 

There are enough evidence that this is coming for the medical field. No one can now deny this fact.