Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the downfall of medical education in Malaysia.

Yep, internship = housemanship in Australia. It lasts a year.

It can only be done in affiliation with major public tertiary hospitals, although a few private, sub-urban and rural hospitals have recently been approved to train interns.

The short answer is no, you do not need to finish your internship in Australia to work as a doctor here, assuming you can get a job offer in the first place.

However, you will need to either to be holding a recognized degree or sit for the AMC exam to get a provisional practicing license. If it's the latter, you will also need to be supervised for a year before full registration is granted.

This post has been edited by BrachialPlexus: Nov 2 2013, 06:56 PM

... what do you mean? Can you be more specific?

And where are you studying med, if I may ask?

This post has been edited by BrachialPlexus: Nov 2 2013, 10:25 PM

Hi guys, just a few questions for those who are attuned to the healthcare system in Malaysia. Does anyone know the state of psychiatry/mental health in Malaysia? I'm a Malaysian medical student in an Australian medical school with an interest in psychiatry.

I must admit that I'm not entirely keen on practicing medicine back home, but I would be slightly more receptive of the thought if there are signs that psychiatry will become more acceptable to the Malaysian population in the future.

Other side questions include:
i. What is the extent of psychiatric teaching in Malaysian medical schools? (eg how many weeks/rotations/etc?)
ii. How bad is the stigma in Malaysia? From my very limited exposure, it seems that Malaysians only see psychiatrists when things get REALLY bad or when they are forced to do so, either by law or coercion. I'm guessing it's mostly due to embarrassment or the impression that psychiatry is a 'lesser' branch of medicine, but correct me if I'm wrong.
iii. Do psychiatrists in Malaysia deal mostly with voluntary patients or involuntarily-admitted patients?

Thank you in advance.

Internship update from Western Australia:

As of today, at least 70-80% of internationals from UWA have received internship offers. I myself have just gotten one just hours ago ^^ Things are looking decent here; there might be opportunities for interstate internationals at this rate.

Most states including NSW and Queensland are halfway through their offers for internationals. Not sure about Victoria. As far as the crisis is concerned, SA seems to be bearing the brunt of things because of the funding cut by the glorious Tony Abbott. To date, no international from SA has received an internship offer.

Edit: 28/29 who applied have gotten offers.

This post has been edited by BrachialPlexus: Aug 14 2014, 07:34 PM

Ohh good luck with finals! Did you apply interstate for internships?

I'm sure you'll get a spot. If not, there's the Commonwealth Medical Internship thing that opens in Oct. Up to 100 spots for internationals!

We've done our final OSCEs in 5th year. All 16 stations of pure horror. 6th year is mostly gaining experience in the core internship rotations eg gen med, surg, ED. The assessments are spaced out throughout the rotation. Tbh they could easily shorten the course to 5 instead of 6 years haha but I suppose that makes it difficult to squeeze extra money from us.

UTAS is 5 years right?

Man, the Malaysian med scene is pretty sad =/

Then again, not all first-world grads are fantastic either. One of my Aussie colleagues in her final year didn't know know what ANCA blood tests were for.

That's pretty scary O.o Did you do an elective back in Malaysia?

I've experienced some horror stories too. A GP tried to give my dad NSAIDs for upper GI pain.
Never.Again.

I don't know about you but if a patient had epigastric pain + dyspepsia, I would be very hesitant to give NSAIDs straight off the bat before trialing other things. No PPI/H2RA, no H. pylori testing, nothing. Just NSAIDs.

This post has been edited by BrachialPlexus: Aug 19 2014, 12:23 AM

I suppose you have a valid point. Maybe my impressions were biased from the start since the patient was my dad haha. No hard feelings.

Singapore has a horrible culture of elitism. Basically, if you did not graduate from the NUS medical program or VERY top tier UK/US/Australian medical schools (and even this is debatable), you will be discriminated against. The workload is apparently very heavy (comparable to Malaysia before the bajillion medical schools popped up) and the bullying culture in medicine is still very much intact in Singapore.

I am quite certain of the above issues as a number of my Singaporean colleagues have reported their strong distaste about returning to work there. There are other horror stories floating around, but I shall not spread unverified rumours. Basically, while the pay may be somewhat better in Singapore, life as a doctor there certainly isn't.

This post has been edited by BrachialPlexus: Oct 2 2014, 04:41 PM

Are you planning to enter surg training?