Dean calls for new doctors to do compulsory service before working abroad.
NST ONLINE - 2010/04/30 | KUALA LUMPUR: A university dean wants the government to prevent newly-minted doctors from working abroad - unless they completed the minimum three-year compulsory service in Malaysia.
Professor Datuk Dr Lokman Saim, the dean of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Medicine Faculty and UKM Medical Centre director, made the call in view of the rising number of new graduate doctors intending to work in Singapore this year.
"The government should only allow doctors trained at public universities to work abroad after completing the three-year compulsory public service for doctors, as stipulated by the health ministry," he said in a statement here today.
He noted that 20 out of UKM's 209 medical students who completed their final examinations on March 26, had accepted the offer to become trainee doctors in Singapore.
He said more of their counterparts at Universiti Malaya (UM) were likely to follow suit.
"It is estimated that about 80 medical graduates in Malaysia would leave the country soon to work in Singapore," added Dr Lokman.
He said that over the past five years, local doctors were lured to the republic after the Medical Council of Singapore recognised medical degrees from UKM and UM.
He said a trainee doctor in Singapore could receive basic monthly salary of S$2,690 (RM6,187), while in Malaysia, a trainee doctor received only RM3,665, with an average on-call allowance of between RM500 and RM1,000.
