THE last few months saw a lot of discourse in the media on the plight of young trainee doctors, or housemen as they are called. We saw a lot of shocking headlines – ‘not cut out to be doctors’, ‘grappling with housemen woes’, ‘housemen buckling under pressure’ – just to name a few.
The most shocking revelation was that housemen comprised the highest number of civil servants who were sacked. According to some media reports one out of five housemen drop out annually, with the total dropouts numbering up to 1,000 or more annually. The average cost of studying medicine at a foreign university branch campus in Malaysia is around RM500,000 excluding living expenses. Just taking this as a benchmark you’re looking at a loss of RM500mil. This is a colossal waste of resources. After spending years in tuition and training only to drop out just at the threshold of their medical career.
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