ACMS boost for aspiring doctors
2010/12/18
By Adie Suri Zulkefli
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KEPALA BATAS: Some five or six decades ago, when there were only a handful of universities locally, it was a common practice for the government to send bright young Malaysians to pursue medical studies at renowned universities abroad.
The competition was fierce and only the cream of the crop was lucky enough to secure a government scholarship or loan to pursue their ambition in becoming a physician.
Fast forward and there has been a huge leap in the capacity and the quality of medical degree programmes in the country in recent years, supported by the increase in the number of private colleges.
Statistics showed that about 10 years back, Malaysia trained only 700 doctors annually but the number has since soared by more than four-fold.
As a result, 3,300 doctors are now being trained annually.
In response to the need for more doctors, Allianze College of Medical Sciences (ACMS) is offering four medical degree programmes with a combined student quota of 300.
The college will be adding another 200 places early next year once its university college status is made official.
ACMS' medical degree programmes are offered in collaboration with four renowned local and foreign universities, namely Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) of Indonesia, the University College Cork of Ireland and the National University of Ireland Galway.
Both the Irish twinning programmes offer a bachelor's degree in medicine, surgery and obstetrics.
Each course is partially conducted at ACMS main campus, with completion at the respective university campuses.
ACMS executive chairman Datuk Dr Zainuddin Wazir said what made the college's medical degree special compared with those offered at other institutions was that the two clinical years were conducted in Malaysia.
"As for the medical degrees from USU and the two Irish universities, the pre-clinical years are conducted in their respective campuses in Indonesia and Ireland, while for UKM's medical degree, the students are based at ACMS campus at Bertam, Penang.
The clinical years or the internship programme are done at government hospitals in the northern states."
Dr Zainuddin said ACMS havdtailored all its twinning programmes to suit its undergraduates.
He said for example, the UKM programme might allow interested students to undergo training at foreign hospitals as part of their experience enrichment initiative.
"We have formulated the programme with a clear objective, which is to produce medical practitioners who can perform well not only in Malaysia but also any part of the world."
Read more: ACMS boost for aspiring doctors http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/m18acmss/Article#ixzz18QMBOlrp
