Ensuring the standard of medical graduates in Malaysia.

In Malaysia, the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) is assumed to be the body responsible for ensuring that medical graduates are of a sufficient standard to be safe, and competent medical practitioners. Under the Medical Act 1971, MMC is responsible for recognizing medical schools for the purpose of licensing the graduates to practice in Malaysia. This means that it should set standards and certify the achievement of the standards of Medical degree programmes awarded by all medical schools within and outside Malaysia. Unfortunately, this is akin to a final product inspection before approval and any pre-emptive remedial action prior to the finished product (ie. the process) is not possible. The teaching, training and curriculum is determined by the respective universities whereby the standards are loosely set by the Ministry of Education and since 2004, by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE). With the mushrooming of private medical colleges, the task of ensuring the standard was entrusted upon the National Accreditation Board (Lembaga Akreditasi Negara – LAN) which was setup in 1996. LAN assured the quality by accrediting the basic medical programmes of private medical schools as governed by the LAN Act. This, unfortunately, gave rise to 2 sets of standards – the public medical schools as determined by MOHE and the private medical schools as determined by LAN. This anomaly was resolved when LAN was dissolved and replaced by the Malaysian Qualifying Agency (MQA) under the MQA Act 2007 which is now authorized to accredit both public and private medical schools thus ensuring a single, uniform standard. In the accreditation process of medical programmes, the MQA is advised by a Joint Technical Committee comprising of MMC, MOHE and the Public Services Department (PSD). The PSD is involved by virtue of the fact that all medical graduates must do their compulsory service in government hospitals or clinics for 3 years and PSD is the body that appoints them in government service. The Joint Technical Committee is also responsible for approval of medical programmes, constituting the evaluation panels, studying the report of the accrediting teams and submitting the recommendations on accreditation for approval by MQA, MMC and PSD. The Committee also conduct training courses for accreditors who can be from public or private universities, Ministry of Health and members of MMC to ensure that evaluating and accrediting teams sent out to the various medical schools are trained for the tasks. Accreditation of medical …