Entrance exam for docs seeking specialties

KUALA LUMPUR: Doctors seeking to pursue certain specialties in a public university are now required to take an entrance examination, which will run for the first time next month, says Medical Deans Council of Malaysia chairman Prof Dr Shaiful Bahari Ismail.The first examination will be held on Nov 16, he said.

Medical Specialist Entrance Examination (MedEx), which will be conducted by the Medical Deans Council of Malaysia and Malaysian Education Council, will replace entrance examinations for 12 specialties, and impose an entrance examination on two specialties which did not have one, he said.

The 12 specialties are paediatrics, general surgery, pathology (inclusive of forensic pathology), family medicine, psychiatry, radiology, rehabilitation medicine, sports medicine, neurosurgery, paediatric surgery, transfusion medicine and nuclear medicine.

The other two that did not have entrance examinations are clinical oncology and plastic surgery.

MedEx chairperson Prof Dr Zaleha Abdullah Mahdy said that the new entrance examination will increase transparency in the way entrance examinations for specialist courses are run.

“The way it was conducted before this was very haphazard.

“For example, you would only have known the examination date if you had contact with people who were connected to the board or committee, ” said Dr Zaleha after the Malaysian Medics International open forum on specialising in Malaysia.

She also said the entrance examinations for specialist courses would become more uniform.

The exams were previously run independently by specialist boards.

“We felt there should be some uniformity because after all, they are conducted by the same group of universities, ” she said, adding that different boards were also imposing different fees, and some were not even imposing fees.

Dr Zaleha said the standard RM800 imposed fee was necessary, and it was not fair to universities if no charge was imposed to cover costs.

“We have to fly people in to formulate the questions, vet through the questions and proofread, ” she said.

The examinations will be held in five centres: Malaysian Examinations Council in Selayang, Selangor, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital in Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Universiti Malaysia Sabah in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak in Kuching, Sarawak.

Eight more specialist programmes are expected to join MedEx next year.