USM Medical Faculty Exam Leak – Nothing New For Unrecognised Doctors Who Have Seen And Experienced It All

USM Medical Faculty Exam Leak – Nothing New For Unrecognised Doctors Who Have Seen And Experienced It All



The shocking revelations a month ago by Malaysiakini in “Ex-Professor Urges External Probe Into USM Medical Faculty Exam Leak” have suddenly been stone-walled and hidden away from public view with no follow-up by the authorities concerned with just a cursory and pathetic reply stating the examination procedure. As if that answers the gross injustice which took place!



This is nothing surprising as many had termed USM as “University Suka Menipu”. Doctors from overseas unrecognised universities faced all these shenanigans when sitting for the qualifying exams which were outsourced to the 3 local universities by MMC, which was solely supposed to conduct the exams as per law. They were made to sit for the same paper towards the end of the year with the local university students who had failed in the earlier main exam. This was done to use the foreign trained doctors from unrecognised universities as the failure rate to pass off the failed local students.



Before the exam, the local students were given special trainings in the “guise of taklimat sebelum peperiksaan” which was not for the doctors from unrecognised universities. This is where questions are leaked out to the selected candidates. This was one of the grouses in the Malaysiakini article now. This is nothing new but has been going on all these years.



But this wasn’t all USM did, they manipulated and gave different role numbers and made the foreign trained doctors answer questions in English while the local students answered the same questions in BM. Any examiner marking the paper would know who the local candidates were so they could be marked on a lenient scale and who the foreign trained doctors were so they could nit pick on their answers and penalise them. When this was brought to court, USM replied in their submission that this was a mistake on their part and claimed it had no bearing on the exam. Really?



And there is more. They had negative marking for the foreign trained doctors for their objective questions and not for their local chaps. After all, it’s computer marked and with just a push of a button, this can be programmed in for the different role numbers as well. The foreign trained doctors were always told in trainings that there was negative marking but the locals claimed that never in their exams was there negative marking practiced for them.



Added on to this was the fact there was never marks given from course work for the foreign trained doctors but it was given to the local students. Thus, the local students could easily gather enough marks to pass the exams and even if they couldn’t, the bell-curve could be lowered to help them due to the engineered failures of the foreign trained doctors. This was done not only in USM but even in UKM and UM where the exams were previously held. Thus, all exams for unrecognised doctors were a farce to just keep to the 10% passing rate in the past and to help the weakest students in the government universities to graduate.



MMC also took nearly 2 months to release the results for the foreign trained doctors when local university students get it within a week. During those 2 months, who is to say there is no hanky panky going on and horse trading taking place for monetary rewards? Any system which is not open for scrutiny is rife with corruption.



MMC is not a bastion of democracy either. 21 of its members are appointed from the local universities. That’s two-thirds of its seats! Only about 10 seats are open for voting and the whole process is hidden from public view and the same people get put in their seats for umpteen years. It’s a total joke of a council! If other professional councils like the legal fraternity can have all seats voted in an open election, why can’t MMC do so?



All this started due to the racial engineering by BN and Mahathir in the 90’s. Previously, foreign trained doctors just had to return and do an extra year’s probation before joining housemanship. They were paid a salary of RM200 less than those in housemanship. When they complained that they were basically doing the same job for less pay, Mahathir in ’92 took it as an opportunity to put in an exam for the foreign trained doctors knowing that most were Non-Malays and thus their entrance into the medical field could be controlled.



Mahathir was not done with them. In 2002 when the cabinet chaired by the deputy PM at that time YB Badawi asked the Health Minister YB Chua Jui Meng to absorb them into the service, Mahathir the dictator returned from his overseas Egypt trip to cancel the cabinet decision as soon as his flight touched down. MMC officials met him in the MAS Golden lounge of the airport and insisted on this. Using the excuse that two-thirds of the foreign trained doctors had never attempted the exam even once, MMC made all the foreign trained doctors to go for 6 month training as eyewash before failing them in exams with their local university counterparts.



Mahathir was the master manipulator and even when PH won and the foreign trained doctors met the PH health minister, they were told that the cabinet chaired by Mahathir was not in favour of absorbing them. When shown that many of these Malaysian foreign trained doctors had sat for and passed overseas exams like the PLAB in UK, USMLE in the US, AMC in Australia and the Canadian exams, YB Dzulkefli asked them to write in personally. As usual, this was all just a guise to just cast them aside and to silence them. PH should remove the Harapan from its name as it’s a joke!



MMC has always been against the foreign trained doctors especially when two-thirds of MMC members are appointed from the local universities. MMC told the foreign trained doctors bluntly to their faces that they have no right to question what MMC does and MMC will not help them.




MMC allows foreigners who are from the same university as these Malaysian foreign trained doctors to come here to do specialist courses at our Malaysian local universities. So the foreign classmates of these Malaysian doctors can return to their country as specialists from Malaysian local universities while their pathetic Malaysian classmates are cast aside by the Malaysian Healthcare system just because they studied overseas in the same university as them. What a joke!



And what MMC did during the Covid crisis was atrocious. These Malaysian foreign trained doctors were never allowed to join when the healthcare field was in desperate need for doctors. Why? Because mainly they are non-Malays and the Malay first governments of PM Muhyiddin and PM Ismail Sabri don’t want them in the public health sector changing the racial ratio of doctors? Enough of these racial games!



Even the opposition has never once asked for these doctors to be taken in. Are you all sleeping on the job? Don’t you care that local doctors were overworked and burning out while there was a pool of Malaysians who were doctors but not allowed to help as they were considered “dangerous” by MMC? So much for “all hands on deck” during the pandemic. Only YB Jeffrey Kittingan voiced out in early 2020 for these doctors to be absorbed but nothing came out of it.



Many have taken the exams at different attempts. At one attempt, they will pass the theory exam and at another attempt they will pass the clinical part. But local universities insist that they must pass both parts together similar to their local candidates. Why must this rule apply to the foreign trained doctors whose studies were paid for by the sweat and tears of their parents and not the government? Any professional exam in foreign countries allows candidates to only retake the part they didn’t get through.



When all this was pointed out to MMC, MMC said they will finally conduct the exams themselves. But unlike other foreign councils, MMC still uses the same universities and lecturers for the venue and manpower of these exams. The Australian Medical Council (AMC) totally conducts its own transparent exams at its own centre in Melbourne with their own panel of examiners away from local universities and students.



Knowing MMC and the local universities are inadequate to conduct qualifying exams, this whole exam system should be thrown in the dust heap of history and all Malaysians should be treated the same and allowed to practice housemanship. After all, doctors during housemanship have pre, mid and post tests at the main departments they have to serve. Why should a qualifying exam be put in place just to join housemanship and take tests again?



If there is a qualifying exam, then those who pass should be given full registration and be allowed to forego housemanship. What a foolish system we have! You pass an exam to allow you to take more tests! In other countries, you can immediately join as a Medical Officer at a hospital or General Practitioner in private practice as soon as you pass the qualifying exams. What rational is there to make those who pass become houseman? This was just to fill up the lack of doctors in the past but since we now have too many doctors and many have to wait months to join the compulsory government service, why perpetuate this
system anymore?



It’s time to remove this exam system and accept any Malaysian foreign trained doctor as long as their university is registered in the country of origin and by WHO. This will also stop unscrupulous agents and other authorities from making a quick buck from the so-called recognition process. This is a corruption laden process where officials are just feted overseas to give glowing reports for green lighting universities not based on their quality but instead on what remunerations the officials get. One MMC official was found guilty of this corruption and made to leave.



Universities are recognised based on the criteria that they can accommodate government scholars from JPA. MMC will shop around for universities based on these un-academic criteria. The Malaysian doctors from these foreign universities which are unrecognised here in Malaysia questioned MMC and asked why no delegation was sent to their university and MMC replied that it was a costly process and it didn’t have the funds to do so. Thus, whose fault is it that they are unrecognised? Many of these universities are older than our Malaysian universities. But if their universities accepted JPA scholars, the recognition will immediately be attained.



Is the present Health Minister bold enough to make radical changes? Stop these recognition processes and MMC exams as it’s all discriminatory. Allow every Malaysian foreign trained doctor to come back and work as houseman no matter which university they are from. Those who have passed foreign qualifying exams, allow them to immediately apply to work as Medical Officers or General Practitioners under probationary supervision for a short term.



Don’t expect anything to change with MMC. Change the laws if you have to. That is your job! Don’t try to negotiate with MMC as they are bull-headed and will refuse anything that will usurp their powers. Directly change the discriminatory laws Mahathir put in place and treat every Malaysian equally. This is the 6th article about unrecognised doctors. There are more points and facts in the other articles. Will there be changes or the usual silence and business-as-usual can’t-be-bothered attitude shown by those in power?



Signed,
Disillusioned Malaysian Doctor