By Niza Shimi
It’s sad that Dr Leonard Goh felt compelled to leave for greener pastures abroad. It was his “I’m sorry, I’m leaving” heartfelt message published in the local media that caught my attention. Why did he have to feel sorry about leaving Malaysia, I wondered?
Dr Goh’s letter came in the midst of a heated discussion about the brain drain of doctors to Singapore that was raised by Universiti Malaya (UM) dean of medicine Professor Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman. Hers is a plea for the government to find ways to stop the outflow.
Dr Adeeba, herself a medical graduate from Monash University, Australia, was also responding to reports that Malaysia would be sending doctors to ease the National Health Service (NHS) shortage in the United Kingdom (UK). She reminded that “it costs us almost RM1 million per student to train.”
I find this situation most interesting because it shows the quality of medical graduates from Malaysian local universities are good enough to work anywhere, including the UK.
Unlike the time when bright young students like Dr Adeeba who were sent abroad to study medicine, Malaysia now has the enviable situation (or not, depending on how you look at it), of having an oversupply of doctors and other medical professionals.
Gone are the days when we had to import contract doctors from Thailand and Myanmar, among other neighbouring countries, to work in Malaysian public clinics. I remember a GP at my panel clinic was from Nepal.
Malaysians who used to frequent government clinics would have encountered these well-meaning foreign doctors who spoke a little English, a little Malay and mostly spoke a mixture of sign language and kind gestures.
Even lecturers in the then newly established medical colleges back in the day were from India, Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia who were lured by the attractive Malaysian salary compared to their own. Fortunately, now we have Malaysian lecturers such as Dr Adeeba.
Somewhere along the line, Malaysia now has more medical colleges than they know what to do with. I know I’m making light of a very complicated situation. The education of doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals seems to have exceeded the posts available to absorb them into public service.
There was once a time when brain drain meant that students who were sent abroad for medical studies never returned. But the situation in Dr Goh's case is the reverse. He did serve in the Malaysian government's health system and it broke him.
He decided to take up a job offer as a clinical research fellow at Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, Australia. I say, good for him. He shouldn’t be apologetic about it. But I think he is writing not for himself but for his friends and colleagues who are staying behind. He is pleading for them.
Medicine is truly a profession that requires a life time commitment to learning and to service. It is not for the faint hearted. For Dr Goh to go abroad is a good professional move. He can always return later with his specialist skills if he wanted to.
What’s important is that Dr Goh is registered with the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC), has served all the mandatory requirements of practice, and has a medical degree that is recognised in Australia. (He doesn’t say where he graduated from.)
Sadly, medical degrees from Malaysia are no longer recognised by the General Medical Council of the UK. I assume doctors intending to practice in the UK, or elsewhere, will have to apply for recognition in order to obtain a license to practice.
But young doctors interested in medical research, such as Dr Nur Amalina Che Bakri in the UK, can’t be blamed for not returning to Malaysia. There’s a time in your life when you need to seize the opportunity when it comes. Medical research is a once in a lifetime thing.
Can you really stop young doctors from going abroad if that is what lures them? In the case of medical doctors, nurses and allied health professionals, there will always be better job offers abroad. There are shortages of these professionals in many countries.
I would say let them go when they are young enough to handle the challenges. But make it easy for those who want to return. The experience of working abroad will benefit them and improve their professionalism. Medicine will benefit in the long term.
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