SUBANG JAYA: Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam is concerned about the standard of foreign medical graduates seeking to practise here and may make amendments to the Medical Act 1971 to improve this situation.
"We (the ministry) are looking at how we can address this issue, one of which is to make amendments to the act.
"It should be mandatory to see that a minimum requirement is met when taking up a medical course, apart from having a recognised degree to practise here."
Dr Subramaniam said this in response to the deans' council of the Medical Faculties of Public Universities' call for the setting up of a task force to re-examine medical education in light of the proliferation of medical schools and oversupply of inadequately trained graduates.
The council had cautioned that the standard of medical practice in the country could fall further if the issue was not redressed urgently.
It added that Malaysia had the highest number of medical schools per million people in the world.
The council's dean of medicine Prof Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman said there was a need to set up a task force, comprising representatives from the Health Ministry, Education Ministry, Malaysian Medical Council (MMC), Malaysian Medical Association (MMA), Public Service Department and the deans council of public and private medical schools to review the situation and devise a plan for the development of the medical profession.
Speaking after declaring Sunway Pyramid the country's first health-promoting mall, Dr Subramaniam said such a step would need the engagement of all parties concerned, including deans, the ministry and those related to medical education.
"We must also control the numbers, because as it is, the number of those returning is very high and we might face problems to give them adequate training and ensure quality."
It is understood that some 2,500 medical graduates are produced annually from local public and private universities, with another 2,000 from foreign universities.
Dr Subramaniam said the ministry was serious about addressing the issue of proliferation of medical schools and oversupply of inadequately trained medical graduates.
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