Doctoring the doctors
506 words
20 June 2005
New Straits Times
NSTRAT
18
English
© 2005 New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad.

THE first thing to do to make peace in the "Crimean War" over last week's "de-recognition" of a Ukrainian medical college is to state the obvious.

Because we trust doctors with our lives, it is in everyone's interest that they apply the highest standards on those entering their profession.

No one wants to fall under the knife of a Jayant Patel, the fugitive surgeon suspected of causing the deaths of 87 patients in a hospital in Queensland, Australia. Similarly, if the Malaysian Medical Council decides that a particular medical school is crowding its classes with dodgy students, no one should argue. Certainly not Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, the MIC president and Works Minister, a non-doctor whose eye is focused on the students already in the college or working to get there, rather than the risks posed by incomplete training. The Patel case shows how easily even professionals can be hoodwinked by one of their own. So the MMC must be respected for moving to pre-empt malpractice the moment it suspects that something like it may be afoot.

Nevertheless, a decision to remove any member from the MMC's exclusive list of approved medical schools can be hugely problematic. Some 1,100 are already enrolled at the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) and hundreds are swotting up for pre-medical courses, eager to get in. Others have paid thousands of ringgit in booking fees, certain that, with a "no-objection letter" from the Higher Education Ministry and a growing student body of fellow Malaysians already in the Ukraine, they were making a worthy investment. Yet, in spite of the numbers left in the lurch, the MMC is right to make periodic reviews of its list of 334 colleges worldwide. To reduce the moaning and groaning over contingencies such as the CSMU, the MMC should declare its decisions as early as possible - and still be prepared to take the flak. The council is thrown into this contentious position because its determination of the status of colleges not only concerns the welfare of patients (on which it cannot be criticised), but the futures of would-be doctors (on which it can).

To be fair to the MMC, many of the doctors who have graduated from some of the unrecognised institutions are already given a fighting chance. The Medical Qualifying Examination is a substantial concession to those who have ill-advisedly taken courses that have not met the council's minimum requirements. But even such back-bending good intentions can be challenged, especially when there are enough malcontents to mount a class action suit or make representations to political parties. As expert as he undoubtedly is in all matters medical, it may no longer be enough for the Director-General of Health to assert that his only worry is in the "quality of doctors". With the country so short of them, and so many pinning their hopes on filling that shortage, he may have to open his decisions to greater scrutiny.