Gerakan today reiterated its call to the government to stop issuing licences for medical schools as a step to churning out only competent medical graduates.

Gerakan’s head of central bureau on public health and social development, Datuk Dr Ng Keong Chye, said that currently, there were too many medical schools in the country and it might compromise the admission standard of medical schools.

“While the onus of choosing a good medical school is on students and parents, Gerakan feels that having too many medical schools are not beneficial as they will tend to compete to take in students with offer of lower fees and other incentives,” he said in a statement, adding that there was a danger that medical schools would lower their entry requirements.

He said no more licences for medical schools should be issued until such time when the standard of our medical graduates can be assured.

Dr Ng, who is also Pahang’s Ketari State Assemblyman, said currently there were about 10 public and 15 private medical schools and most students, being young, could be confused to choose which medical schools to go.

He proposed that one way to ensure high standard and avoid producing insufficiently trained medical doctors was to invite external examiners to jointly supervise the examinations of our local medical undergraduates.

“The government should also ensure that the entry requirements of students into local medical schools meet the required standards,” he said, adding that there was also a shortage of big hospitals to enable medical students to do their housemanship.

Malaysian Medical Association president Dr David Quek had urged students intending to take up medicine to assess their own capabilities and choose universities with good international ranking.

“They should choose a school with good international ranking and not because it is cheap and easy to enter and pass,” he said in response to news reports that quoted Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin as saying that medical courses offered by recognized foreign universities would be checked to eliminate doubts about their standard.

On Wednesday, Health Minister Datuk Seri Liong Tiong Lai warned that housemen have two years to prove their capabilities as doctors or they would be booted out of the healthcare system.