Tech-savvy doctors can fulfill M’sia’s healthcare vision — DG

GEORGE TOWN: The ability to embrace technological advancement and to apply the technology can be one of the prerequisites for junior doctors to fulfill the Health Ministry’s vision to provide better healthcare in the country.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said training for medical specialists should focus on quality over quantity to ensure that postgraduate medical training would be able to train young doctors to become better than their seniors in time to come.

“I believe that the development of human capital must continue to be given great importance because our people are our greatest assets and the performance of the MOH will be judged by the performance of its organisational members.”

Dr Noor Hisham said this when sharing his thoughts on his official Facebook yesterday after attending the ministry’s Specialist Conference, here, where he was one of the keynote speakers.

“We shall not jeopardise our patient safety due to incompetent doctors as we all have pledge to ‘First Do No Harm’. So let us strive to be competent and ensure that our future generations of doctors too are competent plus ready to face the future,” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said one of the main challenges in training medical practitioners now was to ensure that doctors would be able to attain the necessary skill sets and knowledge to perform at the expected competency level.

To do so, he suggested that training be outcome-based and directed towards competency; standardised curriculum and benchmarking; training the trainers and continuous professional development; soft skills competency; and empowering and training medical officers to run their services in district and cluster hospitals.

He said the biennial conference themed, “Competency: What it takes, How to make it better”, had offered him an opportunity to be involved in an engaging dialogue session with senior clinicians.