I always believe in history. The sweat and tears that I have gone through to get a scholarship to study medicine and the painful mindblasting years in medical school. I chose medicine because it is hard. It was neither my parent nor my family decision. It was my own naïve choice. If something happened to me along the course, no one would be blamed. I bear all the resposibilities and risks.
I could have either graduated as a Chemical Engineer or a Financial Engineer at the moment. Praised be to God, because of His Mercy and Grace, I am still given the strenght, courage, enthusiasm, patience and perseverance to proceed with this course. Most importantly, I believe that I have made a correct decision few years back.
This week is rather frustrating to have heard about the current ‘houseman overload’ phenomenon in Malaysia. I heard this issue on 4 different occasions, from 4 different people in just 4 days. You can imagine how torturing it is? Well, i need to get prepared to be mentally and physically tortured as my Medicine and Surgery rotations are yet to come.
The sudden bloom of medical graduates and the unexpected resurgence of medical schools have given the Ministry of Health a thunderstorm headache. The hospital settings has suddenly became chaotic.
One patient is taken care by 4 houseman? The fully registered M.O.s are not independent and still learning? What will happen to the houseman? Will they have enough patient to learn? What will happen to medical students? And what will happen to the quality of teachings? What will happen to the quality of medical graduates? Is there any enough place to further study?
Few points to ponder:
· The medical students are not guilty. It is not their fault to choose medicine. The loose government policies on the establishment on Medical Schools has created hundreds (perhaps thousands) of extra seats for them to take medicine. Other courses are becoming more competetive as well. Hence, why bother thinking of something else while there are plenty seats for medicine? Ain’t the youngsters nowadays are getting smarter? And they are much smarter to exploit the loose government policies and low entrance requirement to the Medical School.
· The parent is also being a subject to blame. Undeniably there are a number of medical students who are forced by their parent to take medicine for various reasons. Hey dude, come on la, every parent wants the best for their children. The parents are not mentally-retarded to encourage their children to do something, which in their mind, is the best for the children’s future and perhaps, their grandchildren as well. The investment in education will never turn up as a true loss. I sincerely respect those who use their own pocket money to fund their children in education.
· Some say mass production of medical graduates will affect the quality of the graduates. Yes, that’s true. Try to look at the manufacturing companies. The more they produce, the higher the likelihood for them to have defective products even if the possibilities of defectiveness remain constant. Guys, look. I used the word ‘affect’, not ‘decrease’. Why? Because I think, the current situation will produce 2 types of medical graduates. The extremely good, and the extremely poor. Only those who are independent and dilligent will excel both in exams, and her/his medical career.
· Sometimes, it is good to compare Malaysia and Ireland. Irish doctors (I mean doctors who are working in Ireland regardless of nationalities) are helpful and patient. Malaysian doctors are arrogant, fierce, hot-tempered, somehow racist and unhygienic. How can they wear their never-washed lab coat to the mamak stall in the afternoon for lunch? Rich, brilliant, but brainless. Malaysian doctors should help medical students in the wards, reponds to the questions wisely and potray a good attitude to their future colleagues. Not saying ‘I gonna kick you after this’ in front of the patient. I simply cannot accept that. Pity my friends.
· The number of qualified doctors are increasing. The Ministry of Health should take an action on how to deal with this resurgence. May be we can start thinking to channel these doctors to health education, promotion and prevention which we are still lagging behind. Malaysians trust rumors more than the doctors. They still believe in bomoh and pawang. Aqidah entah kemana, penyakit entah kemana. I believe, the MoH is tyring hard to formulate a mechanism to solve this problem. Lets keep our fingers cross.
· Unlike other courses, 99% of medical graduates will end up as a practicing medical doctor. I think, the time has come for the medical students to broaden their horizon, seeing the world from the bird-eye view. They need to sharpen their soft skills in administration, finance, economics, politics, history and perhaps, religious aspects as well. A medical graduate does not necessarily become a doctor for the whole life. Tun Dr Mahathir and Tun Dr Ismail had spend most of their lifetime as politicians. Only those who dare to take challenges will succeed.
· After all, life is shorter than most have thought (lyric from a Maher Zain’s song). On everage, a person like me will spend another 40-50 years on the world which has been described by Allah in Surah al-Hadid as only a deceiving enjoyment. Life after the Day of Judgement is eternal. The happiness, sadness, pain, wealth given to us in this world are just sample. Whats in the Jannah and Hellfire are unimaginable. So you choose, dunya or aakhirah? Why you need so struggle working and competing hard for just another 30 years? I don’t say you don’t have to strive to be the best muslim doctor. Yet, let the investment for jannah exceeds the investment for this temporary life. Everyone will die. Doctors will die too.
In conclusion, what we have gone through so far in our life was such a sequence of dots created on our own history line. Let us look back to our past for a moment and try to connect the dots and believe me, you will see a very beautiful path which Allah has laid for us. To my fellow friends, remember, there is always a lesson to be learnt, if only we have the wisdom to see it.
