Scrapping MQE plan will "open floodgates" to foreign doctors

SunDaily: PETALING JAYA (Nov 6, 2011): The government's decision to scrap the plan to make the Medical Qualifying Exam (MQE) compulsory for all foreign medical graduates may have negative consequences come 2014, when Malaysia opens its doors to foreign medical practitioners under the World Trade Organisation agreement.
A source close to the situation said the decision of the Cabinet recently had obviously not taken into account the consequences of the WTO when the floodgates will be open to medical practitioners from the world over.
He said Malaysia had signed the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in 2005 and the agreement on allowing foreign medical practitioners into Malaysia to practice will come into effect in the next one to two years.
"In two years' time, Malaysia may be flooded with foreign doctors who may not be fit to practise here," said the source, who is a Health Ministry consultant, adding it will exacerbate public fears over the quality of doctors in the country.
He said many of the healthcare professionals who were consulted for the process of amending the Medical Act 1971 had been all for making it compulsory for everyone to pass the MQE before practising medicine here.
Earlier this year, Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai had announced that the current list of 365 recognised overseas foreign universities may be abolished in favour of making it compulsory to pass the MQE before practising medicine here.
However, the idea was recently quashed by the Cabinet which decided instead that the universities are only to be reviewed more frequently and the list shortened.
The source was however skeptical, saying the move will not resolve fears of poor quality medical graduates and low standards -- both of which are very much the realities of the medical profession now.
"Some of these universities have not been reviewed in 10 years, while some, the ministry is not even sure still exists," he said.
"Some even "put on" a show for the review, because they know the evaluation team is coming," he said, adding that it is a huge burden to review universities regularly, as each visit would take at least a week.
"How is it possible to review 365 universities in a year? Even if you review one university a week it is not possible," he said.
He cautioned that the ministry has yet to have a proper mechanism in place to ensure that local doctors will not lose out, and that foreign doctors would be tested for fitness before allowing to practise here.
"In Indonesia, all medical graduates regardless from which university or country must pass the certificate of fitness of practise before becoming doctors. Indeed, any medical practitioner wishing to be a doctor in indonesia must also sit for this certificate," he said, adding that Malaysia has yet to put in place a system like that.
"All this was brought up to the minister, but it was rejected. Many of those consulted, myself included, was in favour of making the MQE compulsory," he said.
He lamented that as more opportunities to study medicine both locally and overseas emerge, standards to studying medicine is lowered.
"The bar gets lower and lower each time, and so candidates get used to having it easy. By the time they come out to practice as housemen, they find it all too much because they are not used to hard work," he said.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Medical Association president Dr Mary Suma Cardosa described the cabinet decision as "an example of political interference in professional matters."
"The task of monitoring the quality of these universities is a massive task, which is why the Malaysian Medical Council wanted the exam to be compulsory initially," she said.
She nevertheless welcomed with caution the proposal by the Health Ministry to reduce the number of recognised overseas medical universities, though she said existing programmes may become more slipshod due to high demand.
"The emphasis should be on teaching modules, quality and caliber of the lecturers," she added .