” MMC president Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said the examination would remove the problem of varying standards as a result of graduates coming from different universities.”

In the U.S law degrees, like medical degrees, are post-graduate degrees. This should not be interpreted as U.S. first degrees being inferior than say U.K. degrees where law is studied at first degree level.

There is a lot to be said about law and medical degrees being studies available only at post-graduate level. A certain level of maturity is needed if students are to perform at all at these exams. The average age when Americans enter colleges or universities is just over 17 or 18 and when they graduate they would be about 21 years of age – too young.

In the U.S. you need to have a first degree in another field to qualify to study law which is available only at post-graduate level. I suppose the same applies for medicine. In the case of law, you need three years at first degree level in any field followed by another three years of law school and then another year at professional level i.e. state Bar before you could practice law.

Overseas graduates in law wishing to practice law in Malaysia would need to sit for their Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP) to qualify for practice. The reason for it is to ensure that lawyers practicing law in Malaysia after the three year period of foreign undergraduate study is conversant in Malaysian law and Malaysian legal system. Although Malaysian law, like American law, is rooted in English common law, it has taken an independent path. We no longer follow English common law cases if there is Malaysian case law available. We have followed India in having our law codified.

The purpose is not to discriminate for discrimination sake. The purpose is certainly not to discriminate against private students who are of a different race as alleged by the writer. As for the pass rate for the CLP being 30% the Board would appear to be following the pass rate for the London Bar Examinations. But it is true that local law graduates have it easier with their four year degree program instead of having to prove themselves before they could sit for the professional exam. To sit for the London Bar once upon a time, you would need to have a second class honors degree in Law. Today this avenue is long closed. There is just the CLP.

In the case of medicine, it would appear that the only reason for requiring returning foreign graduates in medicine to sit for a ‘unifying’ exam could only be to ensure that there is one standard among them. We do not want to have one for those with Indian medical degrees, another for those with degrees from Russia etc. There is a valid and genuine desire at unifying degrees obtained overseas due to their diversity. The purpose is not to discriminate against holders of foreign medical degrees as alleged and certainly not against any particular race.

I do not see anything wrong with MMC wanting to protect its standards.

In the U.S. in most of the states, foreign law degrees are not recognized including those from the U.K. The reason is obvious. It has nothing to do with standards but everything to do with adopting a closed door policy. In any case you will still need to sit for the state Bar exam to qualify for practice in that state.

Reading this article I am tempted to ask myself if we are not living in a period of such heightened paranoia that every move to protect standards in any profession is suspect.

OBSERVER:

“I am a medical student currently studying in Oz in my late clinical years, with my final barrier exam due end of this year. To have a unifying exam is not necessarily a bad thing…”
“…I think the unifying exam should not be a problem with medical graduates who are from well recognized universities. CSL is not without his point..”

WFH:

“On the face of what CSL Health Minister says, it is not totally incorrect…there is nothing but good to be gained for the nation and its people.”

HORNBILL:

“Grads from Indonesia, Ukraine, Bangladesh etc. perhaps have no choice but to return because many would not be accepted in the first-world …”

The sound of reason seems to drown the rest.

The country is in a mess. That is not in dispute. We have “falling academic standards” (and falling roofs as one reader “Dawsheng’ rightly claims) and a “rising number of colleges and universities” It does not matter what your political affiliations are, we can all agree on that.

Allow me to share my own thoughts and experiences with doctors – foreign qualified doctors and dentists from a certain developing country. There was this patient who died because the doctor failed to test his allergy to a certain drug – a standard procedure among practitioners since the turn of the last century. A case of simple negligence no doubt but try telling that to the family of the unfortunate victim of this gross, negligent criminal negligence. Indeed in developed countries this would fit the definition of ‘homicide’ rather than ‘negligence’.

One doctor who prescribed medication to a relative appeared at my door in the middle of the night, looking very worried (not for the health and safety of her patient but at the thought her own incarceration for criminal negligence) to retrieve the medication she had earlier prescribed. Other readers are likely to have worse experiences.

Whatever the case may be, given the choice of going under the scalpel of a doctor with qualifications from the U.K., Australia, N.Z. and that of someone with local qualifications or with qualifications from ‘exotic’ sounding places, I would choose the former. Can you blame me for wanting to err on the side of caution?

It is unfair to both doctor and patient, because some of the best brains could come from local universities and bad ones from ‘exotic’ sounding places overseas. The reason is simple. Some of our local graduates, be it in medicine or law, have not been given the opportunity to go abroad and have had to make do with whatever opportunity thrown at them and that means a four or six year program at one of the local universities. They top the graduating class every year and some would go on to do specialist courses abroad.

How many times have we heard about the best talent being sent overseas for further education? This is not true for everybody. It would seem true only if you fit a certain profile and sadly, this also means a racial profile and not just any profile. It is this aspect of the problem that politicians may want to seek to politicize. Who can blame them?

But the rest of us may want to sift through the chaff and get to the wheat so to speak. It is obvious that when everything has been said and done, it is the BN run government that is left standing with the ball in its hands. They have a lot of explaining to do – and not just to dead patients.

It may be somewhat futile at this late stage to cry out loud that education should never have been politicized in the first place. It has been for years. It has remained so. So where do we go from here?

A unifying exam is a step in the right direction in view of the situation. It is a bipartisan issue and should remain a bipartisan issue if we are serious about wanting to solve the problem.

Like I wrote earlier: “Reading this article I am tempted to ask myself if we are not living in a period of such heightened paranoia that every move to protect standards in any profession is suspect.”