jpa taking up more places in ipts means the venting is reduced......

i don't think any student graduating in indonesia will stay back in that country......just as none will in india/russia/middle east.......so they are pretty safe places to send people to if one is afraid of brain drain........

human migration follows a pretty predictable and usually very logical trend.......and if you follow the flow, you just about rank the economic standing of the list.....

there are very good medical-legal reasons why teaching hospitals are always public funded hospitals.........and why people going to private hospitals will NOT want med students to experiment on them.....

training hospitals will generally be public funded, and a condition of admission for treatment is the understanding that they cannot determine who treats them, and they can and will be used in teaching of students, and in return they receive heavily subsidised care.......this is the case in both the university hospital, and the moh hospital settings........

on the other hand, if one elects to pay fully for his treatment, he will want to choose his doctors (obviously someone senior and whom one trusts), want to have absolute privacy, and do NOT want any medical students at all......

therefore, it is NOT possible, in the well defined dichotomous way public and private healthcare is delivered in msia, for private hospitals in it's present form to be teaching hospitals.......

even in systems where the public/private divide is blurred, a patient who opted for the private category in the same hospital can choose not to entertain medical students.......

seriously, you all talk about deliveries, which is the HIGHEST MEDICO_LEGAL RISK of all medical disciplines, would you want your/your wife/your sister etc to be experimented upon by students??

there is a significant difference between clerking a patient in an elective setting, and doing invasive procedures on them.........

and here lies one of the differences between 1st and 3rd world........the amount of hands on procedures a student can do........in oz for eg, students so very little hands on procedure for obvious reasons, patients will NOT consent, and certainly NO student will be allowed to deliver any babies (you can assist of course).......even at postgraduate level, trainees have few chances of advanced procedures, as the fresh consultants themselves wants to do it........

in that respect, students in the 3rd world have more opportunities at hands on experience, but at the expense of increased morbidity and occasionally mortality to patients........part of this is due to the poor supervision of students, lecturers seldom get involved in this as often these opportunities occur at odd hours, and the ho and mo's are too busy........and the student ends up learning from the nurse......!!

that's the difference between spoon feeding and independence.......however, in many good unis, while there is no lecture notes given, the powerpoint presentation of the lecture is available online for download, to act as a skeleton for self study......

you will be glad you are able to self research and study later on in your student and working career.....

only in countries like msia, do often 'not smart' people get into med school......

in advanced societies/countries, they select their future doctors VERY carefully, and a basic 1st prerequisite is enough smartness, ie generally from the top 10 percentile, and mostly from the top 5 percentile.....

based on standard iq testing, assuming a normal distribution and 100 being median, top 5% means people with iq of above 125.......and top 10% means iq above 120.......

some med schools only take student from the top 1%, or iq above 137.....

there were many instances where people with little of no exposure to healthcare profession get into med school, only to find they have haemophobia, or just not suited to the job........

to minimise this, potential jpa scholars have to undergo a very brief 3 day attachment......in the early days, there were people who rapidly dropped their applications with that......but lately, applicants appears to have self selected themselves to be those more interested......non dropped out in one group i know.......

the requirement to have 1st hand knowledge in healthcare has been standard requirement in application to uk med schools for some time......

one of the purpose is certainly to discourage the faint hearted........

the worst thing will be to think it is gonna be like er or house or grey's anatomy........

there is no evidence that a postgraduate system produce better doctors than an undergraduate system.......

in oz, where both systems exist side by side, it was found that the postgraduate schools have difficulties in attracting top applicants......the top school leavers prefer the undergraduate pathway.......and most give up on trying for graduate entry after they have done another degree......instead, the postgraduate med schools get more 2nd tier applicants, interest does not equate to academic excellence........

excellent students find they also excel in their alternative 1st degree programmes, and most opt to follow through on their alternative careers........

that is why uq after experimenting with their graduate 4 year mbbs programme over the last 10 years, now have a double degree programme, 6 years arts/medicine or science/medicine........after the initial 2 years, they get a BA or BSc, and meeting a set cutoff cgpa, embarks automatically on the 1st year mbbs 4 year graduate programme.......that way, they managed to attract some good students who would otherwise have gone to the undergraduate med schools.........

you are all mistaken.......in a graduate med programme, based on the particular country's school system, one should still graduate before 25-26......

in oz, one starts school at 5, and spend 12 years......so will enter uni at 17, and graduate from a 6 year undergraduate med school at 23. if one does a 3 year 1st degree, and a 4 year mbbs, then one graduates at 24.......

in the us, similarly, one starts school at 5, 12 years of grade, junior high and high school, entering college at 17, and graduating at 21, and after 4 years graduate med school, graduate an md at 25........

in msia, one start school at 6, finish stpm at 19, waste 1/2 year before entering ipta, and graduate mbbs at 25..........one would be 1 year faster through the 1 year matrik pathway.......

so there, all the same.........

these info is just as it is, for info, so people know what's happening elsewhere in the world......

graduate med school is NOT gonna happen in msia, so let's move on......

eh........not quite true.........once you graduate, you will be working and getting paid, even throughout your postgraduate training........more important is getting noticed and selected into a training programme.......which sadly in this country, is still dependent on one's ethnic grouping.......that is why many choose the membership/fellowship pathway, which is purely based on merits........but that is closed for the surgical disciplines unfortunately......

exams do cost some money, how much depends on which pathway you are on.....but should not be a significant amount, unless you keep on failing........which then begs the question: should you be doing postgraduate then.....

british system: generalist specialist first before sub-specialisation.....

american (and oz): directly into a sub-specialisation.....

there are pros and cons in both system.....

mmed is the only pathway left for msian surgical training......the mrcs (which replaced the old 'frcs in general') is not recognised by msia........and the subspeciality frcs requires recognised training jobs, which most msians grads do not/cannot have.......

spore is a good option for surgical training, but many cannot work there, degree not recognised........

they don't believe in backdoor pathways.......

they are short of junior doctors, but they have lots of hunting grounds, targeting msians, education all paid by parents, and they just grab the finished product.....eg a team went to auckland, they could offer you a job on the spot, and get you registered within days....

see how long you wait when you return to msia and apply for you compulsory service........

This post has been edited by limeuu: Sep 1 2008, 10:29 PM

you do not, and SHOULD not 'qualify' to pursue medicine with spm......

based of the principle of top 5% being potentially suitable, and current results of spm, if you are not straight a's (1 and 2) you would be below the 95th percentile.......

blackrobin would presumably be referring to jpa scholarship after spm.........which is a different thing altogether......

as for stpm/matrik --->ipta........there are many more 4.0's than places, so even a flat 4 is no guarantee.......for ---->ipts, bbb+money will get you in......for --->overseas, (any grade)+money may get you in eg russia.......

This post has been edited by limeuu: Sep 1 2008, 11:20 PM

not true........many ipts/overseas accept from spm, they just add in a 'foundation' which could be just language training......

some ipts used to take in from spm 4 year engineering degree programmes......discontinued only when iem says they will NOT recognise any engineering degree from spm intake.......

you cannot enter spore uni with spm........

which course? if medicine, there is only ONE med school with undergraduate entry.....and 4a at stpm would be a good starting point, but few are chosen......

we are talking about postgraduate training here.......

as for undergraduate intake into med school, of course, like all civilised countries, they take in and train citizens to provide health care for their own citizens......(unlike some other places).......but allocate a few places for full fees international students, which msias are.......

remember, spore owes you nothing.......you are NOT a citizen ..........

eh.........don't you know they are always looking out for human talents?.......once you start work, you are quickly offered pr........then they will also offer you citizenship........if you want.........

in case people don't know, 1/2 the doctors in mt eliz hosp are msians or ex-msians......

cos it's cheaper to get somebody after he has trained himself........they know lots of msians chinese and indians pay a lot of money to study medicine at world class unis, and they just poach them when they graduate.......instant workforce without having to pay a cent, your parents pay, they reap the harvest......

it is costly to train a doctor, but at post graduate level, it's cheap, as the doctor undergoing postgraduate training is also working and providing service.....

why am I explaining spore's strategy to you all?........

asean scholarship does not guarantee one any course after a levels.......

spore likes to do social engineering........they will tell very bright students they cannot do medicine, and instead channel then to other areas, eg, finance, etc.......(i was 'engineered' into dentistry, which i rejected)

studying in oz does not mean one will stay on there.......there are many examples of graduates after oz, going elsewhere to work, including spore.......

case example of one cannot be extrapolated to apply to the many.......

This post has been edited by limeuu: Sep 4 2008, 02:38 PM