KUALA LUMPUR, June 27 — More than 1,400 medical officers are currently undergoing specialist training in the family medicine parallel pathway, according to data from the Ministry of Health (MOH).
The training programmes include the Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of General Practitioners (FRACGP) and the Membership of The Irish College of General Practitioners (MICGP), with 1,058 and 345 doctors enrolled respectively.
Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad revealed in a written parliamentary reply to Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng on Tuesday that 102 doctors have completed their family medicine parallel pathway training but have not yet been registered on the National Specialist Register (NSR). This group includes 72 graduates from FRACGP and 30 from MICGP.
While FRACGP is listed among the Malaysian Medical Council’s (MMC) list of recognised postgraduate qualifications, MICGP is not. For FRACGP, the list states that qualifications obtained up to December 1999 will be considered on a case-to-case basis, whereas qualifications obtained from January 2000 must undergo minimum 18 months’ period of credentialing.
The issue surrounding the parallel pathway program has largely centred around the cardiothoracic surgery pathway, where training is conducted in MOH facilities and the curriculum was designed and developed by the Malaysian Association for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (MATCVS) in collaboration with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd).
The MMC rejected specialist registration applications from at least four cardiothoracic surgery graduates on the NSR. However, MOH data reveals that there are 25 times more family medicine graduates who have similarly been denied NSR registration by MMC.
In addition to the 102 family medicine parallel pathway graduates and four cardiothoracic surgery parallel pathway graduates, there are also six parallel pathway graduates in plastic surgery who have yet to register on the NSR.
Dzulkefly added that 16 medical officers are currently undergoing specialist training in the cardiothoracic surgery parallel pathway programme, with an additional seven in the plastic surgery parallel pathway programme.
The health minister said these officers are undergoing gazettement by the Health director-general in the public health sector, based on recommendations from a special medical committee (Jawatankuasa Khas Perubatan) under Chapter F of the General Orders of the Government.
“Amendments to the Medical Act 1971 are underway to address the issue of registering these officers as specialists in the NSR under the MMC,” Dzulkefly said.
The training cost per officer for parallel pathway training are as follows:
- RM250,000 for six years in Cardiothoracic Surgery
- RM180,000 for four years in Plastic Surgery
- RM100,000 for four years in Family Medicine (MICGP)
- RM60,000 for four years in Family Medicine (FRACGP)
In a separate response to Pendang MP Awang Hashim’s inquiry about the number of specialist doctors in MOH, Dzulkefly said there are currently 8,397 medical specialists at MOH who have been gazetted. Additionally, there are 1,276 clinical medical specialists currently in the process of gazettement.
These specialists are in various fields, including 20 in cardiothoracic surgery (17 already gazetted, three undergoing gazettement), 919 in family medicine (673 already gazetted, 246 undergoing gazettement), and 53 in plastic surgery (46 already gazetted, seven undergoing gazettement).
