Friday, March 26, 2010

Too many doctors in Malaysia

come across this blog, can't agree more.
Let's share after the jump

http://hsudarren.wordpress.com/2010/...r-too-many-ii/


Malaysia, a country with about 26 million populations, boosts of 24 medical schools now.

Just a few years ago, the number was less than 10. In fact, when my eldest son entered medical school 10 years back, i could count medical schools with my fingers. Now even with my toes and my fingers, I could not do so. Some of the names are so new that I, as a doctor, do not even know they exist until I did some research for this article.

The list is below:

Public universities:

• University of Malaya, Faculty of Medicine

•Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Faculty of Medicine

• Universiti Sains Malaysia, School of Medical Sciences

• Universiti Putra Malaysia, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

• Universiti Malaysia Sabah, School of Medicine

• Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

• International Islamic University Malaysia, Kulliyyah of Medicine

• Universiti Teknologi MARA, Faculty of Medicine

• Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

• Universiti Darul Iman,Faculty of Medicine

Private Universities and Colleges’

• UCSI University, Faculty of Medical Sciences – School of Medicine

• Monash University Malaysia, School of Medicine and Health Sciences

• International Medical University, Faculty of Medicine

• AIMST University, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

• Allianze College Of Medical Sciences, Faculty Of Medicine

• Management and Science University, Faculty of Medicine

• Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine

• Royal College of Medicine Perak, School of Medicine

• Melaka Manipal Medical College, School of Medicine

• Penang Medical College, School of Medicine

• MAHSA University College, Faculty Of Medicine

• Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia ( NuMED)

• Taylor’s University College, School of Medicine

• UTAR

These are the medical schools in Malaysia. These schools when fully functional will produce about 4000 doctors a year. There will be thousands more Malaysian doctors being produced overseas, since many Malaysians are studying medicine in UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Russia, Taiwan and even Ukraine.

The sudden mushrooming of medical schools are apparently due to shortages of doctors in the public sectors. This is because most doctors in government service resign after their compulsory services and opt for the supposedly greener pasture in the private sector.

In most other countries, the logical thing to do to counter this brain drain of doctors to private sector is to find out why doctors are resigning from government service and then try to address the woes of the doctors , and hopefully keep them in service. I call this common logic.

The Malaysian solution , like in many other instances, does not take common logic into account but rather uses the sledgehammer approach. After all, we do have Malaysian logic which is different from common logic practiced in most other countries. For example, if we cannot have spacecraft of our own, we can still produce Astronauts by sending Malaysians into space hitchhiking on other countries’ spacecraft.

In most other countries, the common logic will be to try to improve the working conditions in public sector so that doctors will stay back. But Malaysian logic is sledgehammer logic, and is very different.

If the doctors do not want to stay in government service, then Malaysia shall flood the market with doctors, so goes the Malaysian logic. Never mind that setting up of medical schools and training doctors are expensive businesses. We have petroleum and huge amount of development funds. By building more buildings and buying expensive medical equipment to equip these medical schools, billions will have to be spent and of course, in the Malaysian context, everyone will be happy, down from the planners, the contractors, the parents and all others involved, since the perception is that projects in Malaysia inevitably will have some leakages and wastages and many people are very happy with these leakages and wastages. Never mind that we may have the hardware but we may not have enough qualified people to man these medical schools.

The Malaysian logic seems to be like this: If enough doctors are produced, the market will be saturated with doctors and thus doctors will have no where to go but to stay put in government service.

Well, the people may be clapping hands and rejoicing that with more doctors than are needed, medical costs will come down.

Unfortunately, things do not function like this in medical education. Experience in some countries tells us that some doctors in private practice , when faced with too few patients will charge higher and do more investigations, some of which may not be needed, so instead of medical cost going down , it will go up.

In any advanced nation, the setting of a medical school requires a lot of planning and not on ad hoc basis. Planning that must include where to source for experienced and qualified teachers, where to build new or source for existing teaching hospitals which are big enough for the placement of these medical students to do training. Planning such as facilities, equipments, classrooms, curriculum. In the west, it takes many years of planning for a medical school to be set up; whereas in Malaysia, we see more than 10 in the last 5 years.

In Malaysia, due to the sudden ‘exponential’ increase in medical schools, we have medical schools pinching staff from each other, even the mediocre ones, and with that number of qualified teachers only, it is unavoidable that many teachers may not have the experience and qualification to be medical lecturers.

The early birds (medical schools) are more fortunate. Their students are placed in bigger hospitals like the General Hospitals of Kuala Lumpur or Penang. Now, some of the medical schools just opened have to send their students to smaller district hospitals to do their training. The smaller hospitals are often manned by more junior doctors who are not qualified to be medical teachers, and these hospitals have only very basic facilities and equipment.

This is just the beginning of the problems. For a doctor, graduating from a medical school is the beginning of a life long journey, and the basic medical degree is more like a license to start to really learn how to manage and treat patients.

The most important year after a doctor graduated is the houseman-ship. If a doctor does not have proper houseman training, then he would face a lot of problems later on. He or she may know all the medical knowledge in the world (just for argument sake only since knowledge of medicine is so vast that no one can know everything), but without the proper houseman training, he or she will not get the hand-on experience so crucial and important to doctors. A doctor without proper houseman training is not unlike a person, who has played only racing in the arcade games, suddenly being asked to race in a real life race. He would not have the hands on experience to do well. A doctor without proper houseman training would be like a person given a license to kill and a disaster waiting to happen.

Now, with 4000 doctors being produced in a year, where do we find so many houseman positions for these young doctors? Even now, with some of the medical schools just starting and not yet producing doctors, and the number of doctors being produced is much less than the 4000 , the wards in some of the bigger hospitals are filled with so many housemen that in some wards, there are not enough patients for these housemen to learn management skills. About a year back, I was told, in HKL some of the units have more than 20 housemen. Recently one doctor told me that in some units, it may have even more than that. I was aghast. Since with that many housemen in a single unit, and so few senior officers to guide them and so few patients for them to learn from, how are they going to learn the skill of doctoring?

When there is not enough training for these housemen, what do you think our policy planners do? In the typical Malaysian style, they increase the length of houseman-ship from a year to 2, hoping that the longer time will help to give better exposure to these doctors. Compared to Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom, houseman-ship is still one year only. By increasing the length of the houseman-ship, it is a tacit admission that our one year houseman training is not as good as the above mentioned countries. A poorly trained houseman will become a not so good medical officer, and since now most of the specialists are trained internally, it will be a matter of time that future specialists may not be as well trained as present.

Many parents do not know about the actual situation and still encourage their children to take up medicine. They are not told of the actual situation. The day will come when there are simply so many doctors that none are adequately trained. There will come a day when a doctor graduating from a medical school cannot even be placed in a houseman position and that day is actually very near.

14 comments:

seeteng said...

Hw about pharmacist...in ur mindset?

TehJiao said...

tcteng: i think in Malaysia, there is over supply of Pharmacist (just like doctors) esp in urban area, and will face serious competition soon among pharmacist.

Jennifer Ting said...

Hi, just came across your blog and read this article, can I know what about dentistry? Because I am actually considering about taking up dentistry..

TehJiao said...

Jennifer,
i'm not really sure about Dentistry but i think it would be facing the same problem in MALAYSIA as this is the problem cause by our politician.However, if u r really interested and will continue subspecialty training, u would be able to survive. All the best!

Anonymous said...

i am a medical student in one of the mentioned colleges.....i agree with u on ur views...its a bad bad situation. the government shud place an exam before anyone starts working. Probably a singapore marked examination. the worst doctors are produced from countries like ukraine, russia, indonesia, bangladesh and romania....these unis shud be totally banned...the quality is horrible

Anonymous said...

Hi, great post. But reality hurts. At least for my generation. We hate politicians for what they've caused.

I'm a med student and worked hard to get in the med school. But current situation has created a stigma among some of the 'senior' doctors thus contributing to negative impression towards the fresh doctors. Honestly, i'm worried about this stigma.

These 4000 fresh doctors, annually, don't choose to be born in this era. They just want to be a doctor, helping people, make their parents happy and continue learning.

But i guess this is a life circle and part of global change. Will work hard and contribute the best that i could.

Keep on posting TehJiao!

Anonymous said...

hye. i read ur post and i am quite worried rite now. i really want to be a doctor. does malaysia have over-supplied doctors? how if the interviewer asked me about this issue? how should i answer them? thnk u ^^

Anonymous said...

I wish to ask, which career in Malaysia have not been oversupplied?

From my knowledge, Pharmacy, dentistry, or Electrical&electronic engineering, civil engineering are facing the same problem.

Perhaps, astronomy, nuclear engineering, biotech, agricultural Sciences are better choices?

Anonymous said...

I think in any course there will be too many graduates produced, it is not the graduates to be blame, it is just the system, and we have to accept the fact. Before, computer engineering was said, to 'lack of', but now they r just overwhlming. For me goverment should make a new policy, probbly by improving and measuring studnts interest in that particular courses, not just blind seeing their good marks before they even been placed into particular courses. Sometimes in my opinion not all of these top scorers are not even eligible for medical study. Simply because we r not really see what actually they really want to be and what is their talent.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about talking bad on doctors from Russia or Ukraine makes you better at the 1st place. Even I'm not a med student from those country but then it depend on your courage & determination to become a good doctor. For eg if u been produced by a good unis or renowned college, still u don't have the passion to learn so nothing can't be done. Yup, we blame the system for over production of med school in Malaysia, but you still want to blame on those young ambitious generation to persue their child dream-ambition to come true?

AZNIAL RAHMAT said...

PERMANENT DOCTOR NEEDED - URGENT !!!

We are Owner and Operator a General Practice (GP) Clinic in Bandar Sungai Long, Bangi and Putrajaya (Presint Diplomatik - Klinik Pakar KASIH).

We are looking for a dedicated Medical Officer at Bandar Sungai Long Clinic as required below:-
Lady doctor
MBBS or equivalent from a recognized institution approved by Ministry of Health Malaysia
Possess valid Annual Practicing Certificate
Registered with Malaysia Medical Council
Minimum 2 years working experience in Obstetric & Gynecology
Attended an Obstetric Life Saving Skill
Attended A Neonatal Resuscitation Program
Working hours negotiable with minimum on-call
Very attractive salary RM7,000 (starting)
Kindly please send to recommend CV to: aznial@gmail.com

Clinic information:-

PUSAT RAWATAN SUNGAI LONG
NO. 12 JALAN SL 1/13
BANDAR SUNGAI LONG
43000 KAJANG
SELANGOR
TEL / FAX: 03-90114833

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir / Madam

Please consider circulating this opinion, the aim is to inform people , and hopefully enable them to carefully consider medical studies

Recently the news has reported that malaysia currently has too many private medical colleges, too many
young doctors..

Many new medical graduates now will have to wait many months , sometimes up to a year
before they will get a contract housemanship job .

Housemanship jobs will be given on contract for 3 years and then , subject to satisfactory completion of
housemanship the young doctor , may get a 2 year contract to do the 2 years compulsory service which is required
for full MMC registration,

Unlike previously , permanent employment with the govt & the ministry will not be guaranteed, but based on
performance appraisals , reports, and reccomendations by the DG Ministry of health


5 Do not be misled by education agents , Make sure , make sure that your qualification will be recognised, in the
country you wish to work in and you will qualify for residence requirements , and that you have a realistically, a
reasonable chance of being given a chance to get medical officer position

6 Choose a medical college which/ with
-reasonable fees, not for profit, run by established local Malaysian organisations eg UTAR, AMIST, Mannipal, IMU,Monash
- a substantial faculty, with many experienced , staff members with full time appointments,

7 Do not , Do not make the big , big mistake , Do not choose any medical college with/which
- expensive fees , twinning programes linked to colleges overseas , or having preclicinal teaching overseas,
- advertise , advertise excessively as excessive advertising chews up resources better used for teaching facilities eg library ,
- charge fees of RM 500,000-00 but do not inform that the real cost , inclusive of the living expenses is about RM 1,200,000-00

8 If in spite of the difficulties and difficult uncertain future of a medical career, you wish to study medicine then consider,
a medical college with
reasonable costs 250k - 350k
recognised by Malaysian Medical Council
full time academic staff , who have substantial track records in clinical service, teaching , research and publication


Please feel free to edit or publish, Thank You

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir / Madam

Please consider circulating this opinion, the aim is to inform people , and hopefully enable them to carefully consider medical studies


4 Never, Never , Never take a big loan to pay high fees you cannot afford , This is stressful , painful and cruel to your family,
good potential ,brilliant people have had to abandon specialist training because of socioeconomic reasons

5 Do not be misled by education agents , Make sure , make sure that your qualification will be recognised, in the
country you wish to work in and you will qualify for residence requirements , and that you have a realistically, a
reasonable chance of being given a chance to get medical officer position



7 Do not , Do not make the big , big mistake , Do not choose any medical college with/which
- expensive fees , twinning programes linked to colleges overseas , or having preclicinal teaching overseas,
- advertise , advertise excessively as excessive advertising chews up resources better used for teaching facilities eg library ,
- charge fees of RM 500,000-00 but do not inform that the real cost , inclusive of the living expenses is about RM 1,200,000-00

8 If in spite of the difficulties and difficult uncertain future of a medical career, you wish to study medicine then consider,
a medical college with
reasonable costs 250k - 350k
recognised by Malaysian Medical Council
full time academic staff , who have substantial track records in clinical service, teaching , research and publication

9 Do not pay excessive amounts for medical college fees hoping that their degree is internationally recognised as claimed in adverts
because the country you wish to get a job in may
a) change the recognition , ie cease/ stop recognition of the degree in future eg as happened to one medical college
b) not have a vacancy for a position at your stage of medical career , when you require one
c) may only consider international medical graduates for temporary remote , rural jobs after which they need to pass difficult exams
d) may only consider international medical graduates who qualify for permanent residence or citizenship

10 Do not study medicine
to emigrate
become rich

11 If a real internationally recognised programe desired , do the IMU partner medical school programe. Recently someone, graduated
from a New Zweland University, through the IMU partner medical school [rograme, He could not get a housemanship job in NZ , but got
one in S'Pore,

Please feel free to edit or publish, Thank You

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir / Madam

Please consider circulating this opinion, the aim is to inform people , and hopefully enable them to carefully consider medical studies

Recently the news has reported that malaysia currently has too many private medical colleges, too many
young doctors..

Many new medical graduates now will have to wait many months , sometimes up to a year
before they will get a contract housemanship job .

Housemanship jobs will be given on contract for 3 years and then , subject to satisfactory completion of
housemanship the young doctor , may get a 2 year contract to do the 2 years compulsory service which is required
for full MMC registration,

Unlike previously , permanent employment with the govt & the ministry will not be guaranteed, but based on
performance appraisals , reports, and reccomendations by the DG Ministry of health

Recently 1000 of 5000, housemen have been reported to, not complete their housemanship , going missing in action
because, they were not interested in medicine but were forced to study by their parents, disillusioned by the hard work,
long hours, because they couldn't handle the stress of a medical job, as well as the the scolding from their seniors

Also it has been reported that of those who finally complete their housemanship, about 30 % have repeat a posting
or get an extension because of unsatisfactory performance

In addition , the keen competition, low prospect of being able to specialise (only about 5-10%), limited prospects of
private general practice ( recently reported widespread gp clinic difficulties and closures),and the hignly likely
prospect of unemployment, or underemployment or or employment in a different /lower professional level or
in a different industry , individuals wishing to study medicine shoulder consider


7 Do not , Do not make the big , big mistake , Do not choose any medical college with/which
- expensive fees , twinning programes linked to colleges overseas , or having preclicinal teaching overseas,
- advertise , advertise excessively as excessive advertising chews up resources better used for teaching facilities eg library ,
- charge fees of RM 500,000-00 but do not inform that the real cost , inclusive of the living expenses is about RM 1,200,000-00

8 If in spite of the difficulties and difficult uncertain future of a medical career, you wish to study medicine then consider,
a medical college with
reasonable costs 250k - 350k
recognised by Malaysian Medical Council
full time academic staff , who have substantial track records in clinical service, teaching , research and publication


Please feel free to edit or publish, Thank You