Concern over Russian and Ukraine Med Schools III
posted in - Education, - Palmdoc, - Training |
I was following the busy discussion over at POTS’ post and came across some interesting tales from students’ perspectives. Some are indeed highly controversial and one really is sceptical how much of it is true. There may be some black sheep amongst the students (like in any student community anywhere in the world), and there might be some bad medical schools in that region (just as there are good and not-so-good medical schools in our homeland)
Allegations of debauchery and cheating? My, my. These allegations are by anonymous commentators in POTS’ blog post and in general you should take these comments with a large pinch of salt. As they say, on the Internet, no one knows if you are a dog.
What are the students’ viewpoints? Lets visit their blogs and find out.
First is this blog post Are Russian medical graduates so incompetent? where Kamil thinks medical students in Russian might be getting too little practical experience in their undergraduate years. I wonder how much of this is due to the training system or perhaps language barriers? The most important textbooks in your clinical years are not bound paper books. They are your patients and the more you clerk and study around the clinical problems and read up about the differential diagnoses, investigations, management of the patient, you will learn real medicine. There are no short cuts. You cannot learn medicine by reading books in the library.
Ken Lui also came out with a post on Confessions of a CSMU student. What he is basically saying is highlighting some bad apples doesn’t mean the whole barrel is rotten.
Btw, I must also point out that Ken is quite upset about someone impersonating him in POTS’ blog post. It only emphasises how one must learn to read blog posts critically and not swallow what is posted as the gospel truth. This is especially so for unmoderated comments by anonymous people who could be faking identities.
Ken concludes
I believe that as long as one has the right attitude, aptitude, and necessary skills, experiences and with of course with hard work, no matter which medical university one graduates from, one can be a good doctor.
I generally agree with Ken. It has to be said though that a good foundation is also important. A good student might not realise his or her potential if the foundation is weak and that is indeed a great pity.
I am sure there are many good Malaysian students in Russian and Ukranian medical schools. Studying medicine is a tremendous challenge. It’s even more challenging having to study medicine in a foreign language. How our students are coping clerking in Russian I can only imagine. It must be very hard.
In the quest to become doctors, I think sometimes people are willing to do anything, pay anything and go anywhere. However, is it worth it? At the end of the day it is the individual’s decision.
As for standards, it is up to the MMC to ensure that graduates are competent and that medical schools meet certain standards as well. As for poor housemen, it is the responsibility of their supervisors to ensure that the bad hats do not get through, wherever they may have graduated from, local or foreign medical schools. It is however easier said than done. Some may say there are GO (Perintah Am) and guidelines etc. The MOH system of training makes it difficult indeed to actually dismiss a bad trainee doctor altogether. Pardon the language but the shit unfortunately continues to circle the dump for quite a long time and it’s very difficult to flush it away. Some even think that in the MOH, driftwood will eventually be promoted. Actually in the system, I think the scarier bit is not so much the driftwood. It’s the fact that there are many people initially quite competent at what they do, but because of the Peter Principle they get promoted and eventually become quite incompetent, but that’s another story.
Related posts
Concern over Russian and Ukraine Med Schools
Concern over Russian and Ukraine Med Schools II
Feedback: Vodka Medical Degrees
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March 28th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Nice post Palmdoc. This further underscores the need to critically review medical schools before granting them accreditation. Perhaps the MOH should suspend further enrolment into Russian medical schools and study the matter further. There has been an explosion in the number of housemen in government hospitals lately without a proportional increase in the number of senior registrars and specialists. Flooding the market with incompetent houseman(either local or foreign-trained) will undoubtedly compromise healthcare standards in government hospitals. There’s a well-known maxim for this : Too many cooks spoil the soup.
March 28th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Of course…it’s not just Russian medical schools that need a review. Some of the local med schools, especially the newer ones might benefit too.
March 28th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
some of the excuses given in the comments in POTS website:
1. The local graduates are as bad as well: well some of them may have bad quality but my experience told me that almost all the russian graduates lack any clinical experience. One of the russian graduate even told me that there is no clinical experience in their O&G posting.
2. The senior doctors or specialist should bear the resposibility to teach them. The problem is house officer should have some core medical knowledge. Housemanship is the period they apply thier knowledge and gain clinical experience NOT for us to treach them again what they should have learned in medical school
Some examples that I encountered in my hospital:
One of the HO when asked what is the blood test for checking thryroid functions, his answer was FULL BLOOD COUNT (seriously, how to teach this HO medicine in mere 4 months)
One HO set the IV line on the upper limb at the opposite direction of the vein blood flow, away from heart.
They do not know how to calculate EDD, period of gestation.
They do not know even how to do a proper basic obstetric examination.
One of them don’t even know what placenta praevia mean as though this is an alien term for him. etc etc etc
Though I can’t say ALL the russian graduates are bad but so far based on my experience in past 2 years, they are really bad in quality.
How can you trust them when you give them the liscense to kill when they are asked to work alone. But sometime, we have no choice, you can’t expect us to teach them again what they should have learned in 5 years medical school within 2 years of housemanship. There are so many of them. So we are forced to pass them as long as they have good work attitude.
Local graduates may have bad quality HOs as well, but they seldom be as bad as those russian where they can at least present their case in simple english, draw some blood, set IV line, do simple clerking, count EDD etc. Even the medical students attached to my hospitals are better than them.
When asked how they can get into medical school, ome of them got SPM or STPM results which no other local schools will accept not even in other courses. For those who got really bad results, they got into the so called PRE MEDICAL COURSES and miraculously they manage to meet the requirement in 1 year to be enrolled in medical school. Some of them even art stream students. So in Malaysia, semua boleh, you can’t go to UK/US on scholarship, you go to local schools. You can’t go to local schools, don’t worry, there are ample choices of medical schools in Indonesia, Russia, India, Pakistan or even West indies. Don’t forget those schoos like in Romania or other unrecognised schools which are not reacognised by MMC but claimd recgnised by EU. I think in the coming years when the demand continue to grow, we will have medical graduates from Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria or other African countries. How about franchising the South American medical schools as well?
March 28th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Hey there!
I have heard news that the Malaysian government is sending 2x the amount of students, as compared to previous years to study medicine in Russian medical schools!
I also heard that those ‘extra’ students were rejected from entering medical schools in other countries, but since the government has made them(students) an offer to study medicine, they have to send them somewhere.
Something FISHY is going on.
If Russian medical schools are so bad, why make life difficult for everybody by sending so many to RUssia?
why waste taxpayers money by sending these students overseas?
If these students are deemed “fit to study medicine” by the interviewers at PSD, why not try to integrate these students into local Unis?
Not possible? then how some it is possible to send to russia?
Unscrupulous agents? Politics? MMC?
So many questions need to be raised n addressed.
P/S:Best of all, the government sponsored students are given a chance to repeat a year in medical school..and this allocation is being abused by some students to squeeze more $ out of the government who is providing them with outrageous amounts of pocket $. On another hand, these students may be the “blacksheep” further wasting taxpayers money. MALAYSIA BOLEH!
March 28th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
poor doctor
1.FYI even in the early 70’s when i was a medical student in one of the colleges in london,they would reserve 2-3 places for ART stream students who wishes to pursue a career in med.these art students are to take a foundation course in science for a year be4 admission
2.the degree from west indies is a coveted one-graduates are allowed to practise in UK and most commonwealth countries until the introduction of common exams etc.it was still recognised in UK after GMC withrew recognition for our local medical school ie MU in the early 80’s
March 29th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
in Malaysia, as always, everything “boleh”
like it or not, some medical students “graduate” even without knowing basic medical knowledge. These “doctors” are already on the loose in the MOH hospitals. Like it or not, in a few years, Malaysia would be flooded with these doctors. is MMC doing their job in making sure all the “new medical schools” only passes those truly qualified? Many of these new colleges has “high” passing rate for their final year students, sometimes up to 90% passes. It is scary when you think that your doctor might be someone who doesn’t even know what a full blood count means
March 30th, 2009 at 8:58 am
I wonder how some incompetent doctors here can compete with foreign doctors when ASEAN Free Trade Area is opened up by the end of the year.The government seems not to care about whether they will be squeezed out or not .The government just wants to minimize healthcare costs.Of course,the majority of Malaysian population will benefit the most from the government move.This move is long overdue.