No need to amend Medical Act to recognise specialists, says group

Dr Noor Hassim Ismail says graduates of parallel pathway programmes can be accommodated within local programmes through credit transfers or curriculum mapping. (Reuters pic)

PETALING JAYA: A group of health and medicine professors says it may not be necessary to amend the Medical Act 1971 to address the shortage of specialists in the country.

Its head, Dr Noor Hassim Ismail, said the existing laws and procedures could effectively resolve the predicament faced by graduates of parallel pathway programmes, allowing them to be integrated into local programmes through credit transfers or curriculum mapping.

“Thus, after undergoing the training, they will be awarded a qualification registered in the Malaysian Qualification Register (MQR) and eligible to be registered as a specialist in the Malaysian Medical Council’s (MMC) National Specialist Register (NSR).

“For trainees who are still in the study system, they can be transferred to a local university programme through the same process as well.

“It is apparent that the dilemma faced by these graduates of the parallel pathway can be resolved without the need to amend the Act,” he said in a statement.

Last week, health minister Dzulkelfy Ahmad said the ministry hoped to have the amendments done by the second meeting of the third session of Parliament in June.

He said efforts to bolster specialist training through homegrown master’s programmes would be intensified to augment local capacity-building.

In the statement, Noor Hassim also said nine local universities currently offer 106 quality-assured medical speciality training programmes, which have been subjected to rigorous scrutiny, approval and accreditation by regulatory bodies.

He said the programmes must also be accredited by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) for qualification registration with MQR.

Post-graduate programmes must also undergo accreditation every three to five years, with the MMC ensuring compliance with the Act’s requirements for practitioners listed in the NSR since July 1, 2017, he said.

“We are concerned with the predicament of the trainees and graduates of this parallel pathway programme run here in Malaysia.

“They are the victims. They have joined a training programme that awards a qualification that does not allow them to be entered into the medical specialist register,” he said.