KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 22 – The Ministry of Health (MOH) is collaborating with RCSI & UCD Malaysia Campus, to establish a new pathway for family medicine specialist training for doctors in Malaysia.
Called the Malaysia-Ireland Training Programme for Family Medicine (MInTFM) the training program commenced in Penang on Oct 21.
“For the past one year, suitable centres and trainers were identified and accredited to deliver the training,” MOH director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a Facebook post.
“The Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) curriculum were customised to meet the healthcare needs of Malaysia’s population. Today, the first cohort of doctors have been selected and training has commenced whereby 35 trainees has enrolled into this program.
“Currently, there are over 700 FMS in public and private facilities nationwide, but this is still far from our actual requirements. The country still needs at least 8,000 more FMS to fulfil the need of our population with the target ratio of 1 to 4,000,” he said, adding that family medicine and primary care are among the ministry’s main focus areas.
Apart from the said programme, the training also offers the FMS Masters programme in local public universities and also the Diploma in Family Medicine plus Fellowship of Australian Royal College of General Pracitioners training, conducted by the Academy of Family Physician Malaysia, together with the Australian Royal College of General Pracitioners.
“We hope this programme and other programmes can be expanded in time to come to cater for more doctors,” Noor Hisham added.
