Confusions Regarding The Freezing of Medical Courses in Malaysia

I have been receiving many emails and Facebook messages asking about the freezing of medical courses until 2016. I will try to answer them here. Many have been misled to believe that Malaysia will not be taking anymore medical students from now until 2016. Fact is: the freezing if effective towards new medical courses, not new medical students. In other words, there will be no more licenses given by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) to new institutions wishing to set up a medical degree. Existing medical degree courses are unaffected and will still be taking in students according to their own quotas. So there’s no such thing as ‘no more juniors’ or ‘SPM school-leavers won’t be able to take medicine’.

This decision is subsequent to the forecasted surplus of medical housemen overwhelming public hospitals by 2015, which was highlighted November last year in The Star, which I commented in my previous note ‘’A Future of Too Many Doctors - A Grave Concern For Medical Students’’ (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=178889192122594). This move hopes to reduce the number of housemen in public hospitals. Hope this note clears up the confusion, and do share this with concerned friends.

Thank you

Lutfi Fadil Lokman
Chairman Elect 2011/12
Society of Medical Students,
Malaysian Medical Association