Happy New Year and a look back at 2012

The MMR wishes all readers a Happy 2013 and may you have a great year ahead

A look back on our memorable posts of 2012:

1Care: Eyes wide open – revelations about plans for 1Care created a furor and eventually the 1Care name was dropped in favour of “Healthcare transformation”. What exactly the transformation will be no one knows for sure but be assured it is still a “work in progress”. Stay tuned as we glean for more information and for more road shows by the MOH. Malaysia doctors may wish to read through the TakNak1Care thread in Dobbs (free registration in this closed forum for all Malaysian doctors). You can also view all the 1Care related posts we made

As part of the nation’s healthcare changes, the Malaysian Medical Council was corporatised, and the Medical Act was amended. There were also questions on whether the Malaysian Medical Council’s powers were being usurped. In 2013 professional indemnity will be compulsory when you renew your APC, and the Specialist Register will be compulsory as well.

In February we migrated Dobbs, the Malaysian Doctors only Bulletin Boars System, a close community for all Malaysian doctors, to a new server and indeed a new system. We did a post on Q&A about the new Dobbs. Dobbs is open to all Malaysian doctors whether working locally or abroad. Indeed there was a useful thread for doctors considering returning to their homeland.

Regarding medical schools, we were aghast when Yet another medical school was approved despite the announced moratorium on new medical schools. It is no surprise that we anticipate a Storm coming for our medical profession given the glut of junior doctors, lack of training posts and the crass commercialisation of medical education, akin to what Dr MJ Devaraj says is A licence to churn out poor quality doctors. No surprises too that we have reports of housemen who cannot cope and need retraining, and house officers who quit. These may be a reflection of those who went into medical studies but their heart was not really into medicine or perhaps their medical school training did not equip them with sufficient skills and knowledge to embark on their journey as a doctor.
In order to help new medical graduates, we posted a House officer’s survival guide and we highlighted what must be the first House Officer Survival Course in the country.
I sure hope that more courses like these will be run, and hope we don’t hear of more House office horror stories.
Whatever stresses and personal problems house officers face, it should never ever end in tragedy like when a House officer was found dead.

In March, we created a Facebook page Beware of Alternatives to Medicine in order to highlight users on health scams, frauds and suspect “medicine”. Speaking of Facebook, our Facebook Page has now over 700 likes. We would like to hit 1000 so please show us some love ;). There was a report in the NST that Sinsehs may get to issue sick leave. According to sources, the Health Minister was allegedly misquoted on this but we never saw a retraction by the NST so till this day we wonder if it will come true.

2 years ago, we saw the sprouting of 1Malaysia clinics which were staffed by medical assistants rather than doctors. In 2012, there was an apparent shift in policy and now it seems the Government wants to attract doctors to staff the 1Malaysia clinics. There are pilot projects to employ “locums” in these clinics and doctors who are interested to know more can see the discussion thread in Dobbs on 1Malaysia clinics

This year we revived our Locum postings and made it available in Dobbs and for qualified postings, as a public listing in the locum category. In future the job listings may be revamped so watch this space.

In October, we revamped the public Malaysian Medicine forums and if you Have interesting health related news items or tips – share them!

There are man more posts that may interest you so we invite you to use the Category filter in the top of the left side bar to view posts according to category or the Search form (located in the right hand side bar)

Don’t forget that the MMR is more than a blog, we have been maintaining links to Malaysian medical websites now for over 15 years. These links are available to you at the top navigation bar. If you have links to add feel free to Contact us.

If 2013 hasn’t hit you yet (depending on where in the world you are), it’s still not too late for a count down. So once again Happy New Year!