Limited training slots available for medical grads

The Star

BY LOH FOON FONG

Cause for concern: Dr Adeeba is concerned that top students are sent abroad to universities of much lesser ranking than local medical schools.

PETALING JAYA: Medical students who slogged through their five-year year programme may just find that places are limited in the training hospitals.

Senior doctors foresee that a selection process might be imposed on medical graduates in the near future in view of the high number of 5,000 graduating each year.

Students may stand a better chance of getting into the limited number of training hospitals as housemen if they graduate from better ranking schools.

Training hospitals, where graduates planning to practise locally have to undergo housemanship, could only cope with about 3,000 new housemen each year.

Healthcare sources said that about 4,000 to 5,000 medical students would graduate annually, with more than half returning from overseas.

While those graduating from local universities, especially public universities, and established overseas universities have fewer issues entering the healthcare system, those graduating from foreign universities with a poor track record might face difficulties.

Universiti Malaya Medical Faculty dean Prof Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman (pic) said the Malaysian Medical Council was considering introducing a common licensing examination for all graduates to ensure that only those with adequate training were given positions in these hospitals.

“There may not be enough houseman and medical officer posts. The Health Ministry may select those from schools with a proven track record,” she said.

A source said training hospitals in the Klang Valley, for instance, were accredited with multiple private medical schools, as well as some public universities, resulting in doctors being overstretched and too many students practising on patients.

He said the Cabinet should reduce the number of programmes and the number of students entering local medical schools by 70%.

Dr Adeeba said funding bodies too need to be selective and send students only to better ranking schools.

“My concern is that our top students are being sent abroad to universities of much lesser ranking than local medical schools,” she said.

Dr Adeeba said that while the various authorities need to do proper human resource planning, parents should wake up to the fact that there would not be adequate posts for doctors in government hospitals and hence, should not push their children into studying medicine if they did not have the aptitude for it.

She cited a number of students who struggled with the demands of the five-year programme, which they had no interest in.

A senior doctor, who declined to be named, said the situation would only get worse each year if nothing was done.

The Cabinet, he said, should start capping the number of students entering medical schools.

Proposed tougher entry requirements for aspiring doctors

PETALING JAYA: The minimum entry requirement into medical schools may be increased to all As or a combination of As and Bs for Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia and Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia students.

Sources from the Malaysian Medical Coun­cil said the ministry and the Education Ministry were looking into making that proposal to overcome the huge number of medical students graduating each year, thus over-taxing training hospitals.

“The move to increase the minimum qualification is not too drastic because each year there are 14,000 to 14,500 SPM students scoring all As and 400 to 500 of them scoring all A+,” a source told The Star.

For now, the minimum requirements are Bs in Science and Mathematics for SPM and STPM.

According to the source, the ministry acknowledged that the large pool of medical graduates had raised concerns whether there were adequate number of instructors and training hospitals for them.

There were also complaints that some private institutions brought in expertise from other countries that could affect the quality of students, he said.

By increasing the minimum criteria, the source said better quality doctors would be recruited.

The five-year moratorium on establishing new medical schools until end of 2015 would likely continue after the deadline, the source said.

Another source said that the ministry hoped to remove the list of accredited foreign medical training institutes in the Medical Act and impose a medical licensing examination for medical graduates returning from overseas.

Currently, under the Act, only students in unrecognised foreign medical schools are subjected to the Malaysian Medical Council’s qualifying examination.