Disheartened doctors find easier ways to practise abroad

GEORGE TOWN: Unable to get recognised as a heart and lung surgeon after completing his training, a young Malaysian surgeon sought work in London and was given an offer to practise in a children’s hospital there with an annual basic salary of £46,404 (RM278,424).

He accepted the offer and is leaving Malaysia soon.

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Revealing the offer letter that was sent to the surgeon early this month, the Health Ministry’s chief of cardiothoracic surgical services Datuk Dr Basheer Ahamed Abd Kareem said: “I am saddened to say that some trainee surgeons are disheartened and are thinking of practising overseas, worsening our brain drain.

“They were trained under government sponsorship using taxpayers’ money. But because of difficulties in being registered as full surgeons here, one is leaving and some of the others are thinking of leaving too.”

He explained that these trainee cardiothoracic surgeons had enrolled in a Health Ministry training system called the Parallel Pathway Programme (PPP) that was started in 2016. There are 32 of them now, with four having completed the training while the others are at various levels of completion.

The four who completed the training had their applications to become full surgeons rejected recently by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC), a statutory body comprising appointed and elected medical professionals from the government, private sector and universities that oversees policy matters of the medical profession.

“When they are rejected, they cannot practise, so the government has to resort to using parliamentary gazettes to let them serve in the Health Ministry,” said Dr Basheer.

Those who completed the training and passed the examination are awarded the Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) in Cardiothoracic Surgery, which Dr Basheer said is recognised in Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei and the United Kingdom.

“It was recognised in Malaysia until 2022, after which MMC chose not to recognise it.

“Two senior Malaysian cardiothoracic surgeons are on the National Specialist Register (NSR) with this same qualification after passing the same examination many years ago,” he added.Without PPP, a medical officer must first become a general surgeon before training to be a cardiothoracic surgeon, a process that would take well over a decade.

With PPP, Dr Basheer said qualified medical officers could be trained in cardiothoracic surgery under several surgeons in approved training centres for six years.

“The centres include Penang Hospital, Serdang Hospital, IJN, UM Medical Centre and Pusat Jantung Sarawak.

“Junior trainees in their initial years also undergo training in Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz UKM, Sultanah Aminah Hospital in Johor Baru and Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sabah.

“After that, examiners from RCSEd conduct the examination on trainees from Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong,” Dr Basheer explained.

As PPP trainees go through intense training in the ministry’s best hospitals before being awarded with RCSEd certification, Dr Basheer said MMC should enter them into the NSR so that they are professionally recognised.