Medical College Cons?

This issue has been raised regularly over the past year or so. It has also been blogged fairly regularly here. Concern Malaysians as well as those involved in the medical profession have been asking, "are we sacrificing too much of quality to boost the quantity of doctors?"

Two private medical colleges in Malaysia are under investigation by the Health Ministry for violating regulations pertaining to training of students in the clinical phase of their studies.

The colleges are believed to be taking in too many students and not providing adequate training for them, which is vital before they can be full-fledged doctors. Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said that, after a six-month-probe, the ministry found the lecturer-student ratio to be 1:20 when ideally it should be one to between six and eight.

“While Universiti Malaya alone is churning out about 200 students each year, these private colleges, which have been operating less than 10 years and have produced 300 students,” he said.

What's more investigations have found that there are NO permanent lecturers at the colleges, just part-timers!

How did the Minister of Higher Education approve these colleges in the first place? Unlike the expansion of tertiary education in other aspects, reckless expansion of medical colleges will result in unqualified doctors, who will put the lives of all Malaysians at risk. And instead of acting with greater urgency, the Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Mustapa Mohamed could only say that "he had not received a report on the matter from the Health Ministry."

Then next question then is, who are these colleges and why are they banned with immediate effect? It has been more than a week since this was reported, what are our Ministries waiting for?

See further related post here:

• Doctor, Are You Qualified?
• No Cure for Medical Schools?
• What's Up, Doc?
• It's Raining Doctors
• Medicine: A Calling