KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 (Bernama) — To safeguard the quality of medical graduates, the government should review the issuance of new licences to set up private medical schools.

In making this call, Gerakan vice-president Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan lamented the existence of too many private medical schools in the country.

“The sudden increase in medical schools may result in fierce competitions to enroll students…and (thus) there is a danger that some of the schools may lower their admission requirement.

“We urge the government to stop issuing new licences for medical schools until such time, we are assured of training facilities and the necessary infrastructures.

“The government needs to ensure a high standard of doctors produced and seek ways to alleviate the problem of too many house officers being posted in some of our hospitals,” he told a press conference Thursday.

Dr Teng noted that to produce good quality medical graduates, the government should ensure that the entry requirements of students met the required standard.

He said the sudden mushrooming of medical schools could also mean that there was inevitably, a shortage of qualified and experienced medical teachers.

“There is also a shortage of hospitals big enough for these medical students to receive proper training and teaching.

“In most advanced countries, setting up medical schools required many years of planning to source for qualified and experienced medical teachers,” he added.

Gerakan will be carrying out a survey and gather feedback from the public and experts in the field before sending a memorandum to the higher education ministry, said Dr Teng.

– BERNAMA