Headache over lack of specialised medical practitioners
While not all is well in the country which is lacking in the number of speccialist doctors, plans are now underway to treat the problem.
THE numbers are nowhere near enough and if the situation isn’t rectified soon, Malaysia is going to face a chronic shortage of medical specialists to treat its patients.
In June, The Star reported that there are just over 7,000 specialists in the country, including about 4,000 in the public sector, and this is not enough to meet Malaysia’s medical needs.
This is surprising since there are so many medical graduates in the country, to the point that some have to wait almost a year for their housemanship placing.
However, it is still a long journey from the moment one graduates with a medical degree until they can begin pursuing their Masters to specialise.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (PPUKM) Faculty of Medicine dean Prof Dr Zaleha Abdullah Mahdy believes that this long time period between graduating and being allowed to pursue their Masters is what puts medical graduates off the idea of becoming specialists.
She says one has to be a medical officer in order to register for the Masters Programme in a public university.
Prof Zaleha, who is also senior consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist and director at the teaching hospital, also known as the Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz, adds that in order to become a specialist, one can enrol in a Masters Programme which is conducted at local public universities.
She points out that it is an extra four years of studying combined with on-the-job training.
Many medical officers may not want to go back to books and specialise since the studying process can be quite taxing.
This could take a toll on them if they have plans to get married or start a family, over the four-year programme.
She also says that the two-year housemanship period is too long as the purpose of being a houseman is to expose the new medical graduates to real working conditions, not turn them into a jack-of-all-trades.
“Those who need additional training in certain areas before being sent off to peripheral or rural hospitals can undergo the extra training as medical officers in urban hospitals before being posted out.”
She says in the early 1990s, she only spent a year as a medical officer before pursuing her specialisation in obstetrics and gynaecology. As part of the training, trainee specialists have to carry out daily ward rounds, attend to patients and the clinic, and training sessions almost every day during the week.
“For example, in my department on Monday mornings, we have a session where a trainee has to see a patient and present the patient’s case to a room full of lecturers and their fellow trainees,” she says, adding that these sessions often see the lecturers heavily critiquing the trainee’s findings and presentation.
However, she points out, being what can be considered tough on the trainee specialists is necessary to ensure they are truly ready to take on their role as life savers in the future.
On top of all this, trainees also have to do research work for their thesis, she points out.
“At UKM, we have 1,217 trainee specialists right now,” she says, adding that this is not enough to deal with the chronic shortage of specialists in the country.
There are 4,483 active trainee specialists throughout Malaysia.
In an attempt to address the shortage, she says, universities continually strive to increase their intake.
But, Prof Zaleha stresses, the increase will not affect the quality o a t
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