Training abroad: are you coming home?
posted in - General, - Palmdoc |While there are post-basic training programmes for doctors in Malaysia, I think most would agree, training stints abroad will open up one’s horizons and add valuable experience. Some training opportunities, particularly in very specialised areas, may also be only available in some overseas centres.
There are Malaysian doctors training overseas in countries like the US, UK and Australia. Some indeed in prestigious medical centres or Universities. Many are working on their own steam and not dependent on scholarships.
Will these doctors come home? Or will we lose their talent and skills to these countries?
Vagus recently wrote to the Star in Don’t waste these talents.
It’s a real waste when highly trained doctors come home only to be pushed around and worse still in disciplines irrelevant to his training
Many Malaysian doctors I know are keen to return. However, we all share the same fear, that after having trained for up to 10 years in our areas of sub-specialty, even in a top US or British hospital, that when we return, we are forced to work as housemen, in whichever department we are assigned to.
I know of a laparoscopic surgeon who was trained in New York and was not given the job he had trained for when he returned.
I also know of a Malaysian anaesthesiologist who spent 10 years in the United States, who was made to work in obstetrics when he returned.
Never mind that he hadn’t delivered a baby in five years. Despite his love for Malaysia, he left. He is now working happily in Canada, earning more than 10 times what he was offered back home.
The DG of Health himself wrote the reply in Perks to woo docs back
·Although the Medical Act 1971 mandates that obstetrics and gynaecology posting be a compulsory component of the housemanship training, the Malaysian Medical Council imposes this ruling only on those who have recently completed their housemanship without undergoing this particular posting during the training.
Medical practitioners with post-graduate degrees or specialists are exempted from this posting; and
·On the issue of placement, the Health Ministry, being a caring ministry, will consider requests by those returning from abroad to work in specific areas or localities as long as their services can be optimised for the benefit of patients in need of their services.
I am all for encouraging Malaysians working abroad to return to serve the country in the hope that their valuable services can be utilised fully to further enhance the standards, quality and accessibility of healthcare in this country.
I give my firm assurance that the policy of the ministry to place specialists in their relevant specialty areas will be adhered to.
Reassuring words indeed from the DG. But somehow I get the feeling that there is still uncertainty in the way things are implemented in the MOH. The DG himself has put it in writing that “Medical practitioners with post-graduate degrees or specialists are exempted from (O&G)” yet Vagus just pointed out that a Malaysian anaesthesiologist who spent 10 years in the United States, was made to work in obstetrics . So how did this happen in the first place? DG says one thing, minions in the MOH do otherwise?
There are lots of other obstacles and uncertainties facing the returning specialists: relocating is no easy matter particularly if you have a young family; the inevitable loss of income (Malaysian salaries are much much lower); having to cope with and adapt to the local culture and medical practices; putting up with Government bureaucracy etc.
There has been also a recent exchange of letters to Malaysiakini touching on this subject:
Foreign trained doctors sometimes misfits
The sinister side of gov’t policy for doctors
Medical training – Asian centres just as good
Overseas training for doctors helpful
You might also be interested in ongoing discussions in the MMR Forums on related issues:
Recognised postgraduate qualifications: a very long thread which also deals with issues in post-graduate training
There is a thread in the Doctors only section with the Topic “Internship in Australia” which really has gone somewhat OT into a discussion about doctors studying and eventually settling overseas – this includes parents’ perspectives since some Dobbers have children studying medicine abroad.
So, if you are doing post-grad training abroad, will you come home?
Last 5 posts by Palmdoc
- Doctors gone wild again - September 1st, 2010
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- Feedback: Housemanship - August 31st, 2010
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October 10th, 2005 at 7:47 am
My main point in that letter was not the implication that foreign-trained docs should be treated better, but that specialists and subspecialists, whether foreign-trained or local, should be treated as such. and the problem i keep hearing about, is how foreign-trained specialists don’t get the posting they trained in.
i think you’re right, in that i suspect the biggest culprit, is that the people (minions as you call it) processing the paperwork either don’t care, or don’t know how the US/UK system works.
It’s a crying shame though. so many consultants lost.
And yes, i hope to come home. my nasi lemak and satay beacon.
October 11th, 2005 at 6:56 am
I don’t like the idea of ‘come home first, and we will sort out a job for you’. MOH should advertise job vacancies, not ‘incentives to come home’. The former is inclusive of the latter.
(Having a list of job vacancies also allows MOH to know its manpower needs and shortages, and facilitates planning of services).
October 11th, 2005 at 9:05 am
I agree with UK Doc – that would take away alot of the uncertainties: what sort of job, pay etc.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
I agree. It would sound silly to place oversea trained doctors in other specialties rather than what they’ve specialised in. Sometimes i feel that it’s an alternate way of discriminating overseas trained doctors and discouraging them from returning back to malaysia. The best way is to apply back to malaysia first and see what placement they give you or else we’ll end up wasting time and get screwed!
April 25th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Excuse me, but a lot of doctors trained overseas are doing so on parental scholarship. When it comes to the issue of retaining doctors in Malaysia, maybe someone should have come up with the brilliant idea of awarding our outstanding students the well deserved scholarhsip instead of cherry picking based on other irrelevant criterias. Hence, a lot of doctors decide to stay overseas because it is a more level playing field (in most cases) and all that matters is how good you are. I think the best way to retain doctors in Malaysia is to give the outstanding students the chance they deserve. That way at least they are more obligated in coming home. Otherwise, their loyalty lies elsewhere and the world is getting smaller. If you are an intelligent person, you are much wanted by a lot of other countries and might get a better deal. So the question is, are you coming home? Yes, ONLY when I am given the chance I believe I deserve to maximise my potential.
April 25th, 2006 at 7:32 am
and oh yes, the idea that I might be arrested for canodling in the public scares the hell out of me!!
April 25th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Well, missus, the fact that you are so fearful of arrest (and presumably ISA or OSA) emphasises the fact the there has been something wrong with governance in the country.
Recently, I also discovered that people in Bolehland in the past been executed (hanged) whilst on the ISA! Frightening thought if this is going to be abused in the 21st century for the expression of one’s opinion as did the last BN leader (plus his cronies)[the last purge was by Hitler who, interestingly guillotined or hanged his political enemies - a public show of extreme disdain] http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/guillotine.html
Till the government gives its local and overseas citizens reassurance that this is not the case and till they prove it either by restructuring the ISA to limit its abuse or to completely abolish it, there will hang the cloud of uncertainty. They will have to walk to talk and by virtue of what has been demonstrated so far on many issues, it is not happening!
April 26th, 2006 at 2:47 am
It doesn’t matter, once you took the PSD scolarship, you are to honour your contract by coming back to serve. Specialist training is a priviledge given by permission from PSD. IT IS NOT THEIR RIGHT because without the scolarship, they cannot even able to become doctor. One step that I suggest for these stubborn doctors (who took the PSD scholarship and refuse to come back) is to liaise with the imigration department that their passport immediately made invalid if after warnings given to them. This will make them illegal immigrants in the oversea countries which made them no choice but to be deported back to MAlaysia.
April 26th, 2006 at 4:11 am
@poor doctor: your emotional suggestions are not helpful: they are judgmental and if the steps you have proposed are taken, they may even breach the basic principles of natural justice. If these were valid in the international platform, one would not have a couple of generations of defaulters. So why all the fuss now?
Let us examine another hypothesis: whether this modus operandi was plotted to give the priveleged class an advantage without having to repay – for example like selected companies being bailed out by the government; or, certain individuals having their huge personal debts go free.
It is all part of the sandiwara – is it not? My ex YB friend and ex patient (who is a bumiputera) admits it openly that the technical error was deliberate.
The root of the problem is the management of the country as a whole – you should be attacking it instead.