HIGHER Education Minister Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir said Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UiTM) has been given provisional recognition by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) to enable the institution to conduct cardiothoracic surgeon training courses.
Zambry was responding to a question from Senator Dr RA Lingeswaran in the Dewan Negara on Wednesday (March 27) where he said UiTM received its provisional recognition in 2020 for the two-year Master in Surgical Science (Cardiothoracic) course.
The doctors who complete this programme will then have to join the four-year Doctorate of Cardiothoracic Surgery programme before they can be listed in the National Specialist Register (NSR), FMT reported.
The Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) only places doctors in the NSR if the college is on its recognition list. Those not listed in the NSR cannot practise as specialists.
“With this, UiTM is recognised as a training centre for cardiothoracic surgeons,” Zambry was reported as saying to Lingeswaran, who asked how the institution is able to conduct the course despite not being recognised by MMC.
According to Lingeswaran, the MMC officially recognises cardiothoracic surgeons graduating only from four foreign institutions, adding that several doctors are already undergoing the programme at UiTM which is not among the names in the list.
Acknowledging that the issue is plaguing the health sector at a time when the country is in “dire need of specialists”, Zambry noted that this “technical problem”, which had been prolonged, had denied the rights of those with qualification to be absorbed as specialists.
“It’s a big loss for the nation. The Cabinet has discussed this matter and decided to set up a special committee to resolve recognition issues affecting both the parallel pathway and the local master’s programmes.
“We don’t want this problem to be prolonged,” the minister remarked.
Meanwhile, Zambry also did not rule out the possibility of a need to amend the existing Medical Act 1971 to streamline the recognition of specialists.
He said the problem has to be resolved soon as the nation targets to have 19,714 specialists by 2030, adding that the local training university hospitals have only produced 7,935 specialists so far.
“Right now, there are 95 specialist programmes, with 91 of them in public universities. The remaining four are in private colleges which have been accredited by the MQA and MMC,” he added.
“That is why the local master’s training and the health ministry’s parallel pathway programmes must co-exist to meet the nation’s needs.”
“Nonsensical”
On Tuesday (March 26), the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) said it had never recognised cardiothoracic surgeons from a college in the UK despite the health ministry declaring that these groups of doctors could apply for gazettement as specialists.
However, MMC president Dr Radzi Abu Hassan said they have been made aware of issues related to these cardiothoracic surgeons who graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, which falls under the Health Ministry’s parallel pathway programme.
In a statement, Dr Radzi, who is also the Health director-general, said a task force has been set up to resolve the issue as quickly as possible which will be communicated to the relevant stakeholders in due course.
His response came after Dr Lingeswaran had asked the Health Ministry to clarify why the MMC decided to cease recognising the parallel pathway programme for cardiothoracic surgeons involved in twinning programmes with universities in the UK.
Lingeswaran, a former director of the Sungai Bakap Hospital in Penang, said it was “nonsensical” that countries like Singapore and Hong Kong continue to recognise the training provided by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, but Malaysia does not.
Citing the Ministry’s records, he said the specialist course under the parallel pathway programme had been recognised until 2021, before it “suddenly went missing” from the list of recognised postgraduate qualifications in the MMC website and no reason was provided. – March 28, 2024
Main pic credit: Bernama
