MALAYSIA: THE DOCTOR FACTORY

Salam

When I write this, I have nothing anyone who is currently studying in the school below nor outside the country. My main concern is the policy behind it and the repercussion of this kind of aproach.

I am dumbfounded when I notice that we have at least 14 private and public universities which are producing doctors every year in Malaysia alone. On top of that we are also sending our student to multiple universities in Indonesia, India, UK/Ireland, Russia, Ukraine, Mesir, Jordan, Australia and New Zealand. In the country, we have UM, UKM, USM, UIAM, UPM, UNIMAS and UiTM in the public sector while in private we have RCMP,PMC, MMMC, AIMST, MSU, CSWU and IMU.

That is an average of 1 medical school for every state in Malaysia and we are looking forward for another new medical school in the future. What is the purpose of so many medical schools in such a small country is totally out of my reach to ponder. The only reasonable reason that I can think of is the government is trying to limit the sending of our children to the outside country and to reduce the burden of supporting them. However that is not the case yet.

It is totally ridiculous to me to have so many medical school in the country. What is actually they are trying to do here. Of course medical field is always the favorite among the parents. They can go to a long extend just to make sure their child is being admitted to the school. While previously the one who entered the school are the selected few, now the same principle can't be applied to. I do realized that every year there are more and more students who get good and excellent result but I do not agree that every single one of them deserve to be in the medical school only.

They need to put a limit on this. We can't effort to produce more and more doctors and jeopardizing the quality that will come out from it. This kind of populist approach of entertaining every single demand of the parents for their child to be a doctor should be stopped. Doctor is not the only career in the world. There are a lot more career that need above average student like them. We need teachers, dentist, pharmacist, engineers and lawyers who have good grades in school too.

The continuous production of straight A student also is somewhat disturbing for me. I don't think they are any better to their seniors or parents. The only different is our system now is judged by how many As and how many Bs. The effect is every year they are churning out more and more As student who are not necessary any better than their predecessors. This kind of phenomena makes the student and the parents become arrogant and demanding. Everyone want to be admitted to the medical school and to pleased them, the government is only concern to make their dream a reality despite knowing that we don't have the means and the capabilities to do it and further more we don't even need every single one of them becoming a doctor.

Are we saying all the straight A student are the best? I don't think so. There is always the concept of the best among the best. Therefore, the higher the demand, the higher the qualification. Full stop. There is no need to cater to everyone.

The business of producing a doctor is also a very lucrative business and glamor. This will further hampering the basic fundamental of quality over quantity. There are more and more complaints from the senior specialists and doctors who need to face a poor quality graduate who has neither knowledge nor the skills. They can't effort to teach all this new breed of doctors who don't have the X factor to be a good doctor. Anyone can be admitted. As long as they have the minimal requirement that is sometime pathetic. Considering the level that they should have if really want to become one as long as they have enough fund to support their student's life.

There are more and more doctors coming out every year. It was 4000 last year and ever increasing. Where is the benchmark for quality then if even the specialist can't effort to teach and guide them? Do the lecturers have the capacity and ability to teach all of them? Do we have enough training places for them? Or do we just doing this to shut all the mouth and will deal with all of the product later?

The government should realize this vicious cycle. They should stop the rot before it is too late. They should start somewhere. Be more stringent in allowing medical school. We are not producing a worker to man a machine here. Medical school is a serious business that should be handle seriously. No populist approach please or the future of this field will become dark and humiliating. This career was always being one of the best career and always pulling only the best.

Are we planning to have a doctor in every family? If that so, the medical assistant will one day become redundant jobs. If needed, we need to reduce the sending off so man student outside the country and concentrate with all the colleges that we have. Hire the best available professors all over the world if we need to. Makes everything available and do make sure the quality is always at the top.