Materia Medica Malaysiana

Faculties’ resources stretched to limit

The six public medical faculties cannot accept more than the 779 students allocated places this year as their resources have been stretched to the limit.

Council of Medical Deans chairman Professor Dr Zabidi Azhar Hussin said some had vastly exceeded their capacity, with a 1:8 medical lecturer-student ratio when 1:6 was the accepted ceiling.

He cited the case of Universiti Sains Malaysia, which was meant to take in only 120 students but accepted 180 this year.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, which was meant to take in 150, took in 205.

Dr Zabidi, also the dean of USM's School of Medical Sciences, said increasing the intake any further would adversely affect the quality of teaching.

"Instead of one lecturer supervising eight students, he might have to supervise 16. So many students crowding around a patient is not good. Smaller groups are more effective as training needs to be personal.

"Increasing the present intake would be feasible, but it would not be in the best interest of the public or the medical profession. The public has a right to be reassured that Malaysia still produces high-quality doctors," he said.

He was commenting on Malaysian Medical Association president Datuk Dr N. Arumugam's statement today urging public universities to each take in three to five of the 128 students who had not received places in medical schools.

Dr Zabidi said medical courses should also be offered at more public universities.

At present, only eight of the 17 local universities have medical faculties.

Besides USM and UKM, the others are Universiti Malaya, International Islamic University Malaysia, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and Universiti Teknologi Mara.

Dr Zabidi said 70 medical lecturers left USM between 1998 and 2000. Twenty-eight of them joined the private sector , 19 other institutions and three the Health Ministry. The rest were those whose contracts had expired (11) and those who had retired (nine).

Last year, 25 lecturers joined USM.

It is understood that 45 lecturers each had left UM and UKM in the last three years. Figures for the five other universities were unavailable.