Speaking to FMT, MMA president Mohamed Namazie Ibrahim said the number of complaints received through Helpdoc was at odds with the finding in a recent poll that harassment of junior doctors at the hands of their seniors was a serious problem.

The poll was conducted by Doctors Only Bulletin Board System (DOBBS), an online forum for Malaysian physicians. Nearly 80% of the respondents said they had experienced bullying. Of these, 71% said their experiences were serious enough to be categorised as “symptomatic bullying” and 17% said they had considered suicide.

Namazie said MMA was concerned over the news and had told junior doctors to call the hotline to report cases of bullying.

He assured callers that their identities would not be revealed and that their grouses would be dealt with by representatives at training hospitals in the country.

“We have put up a hotline but the uptake has not been great,” he said. “And we’ve only seen one police report about a senior manhandling a junior doctor, which was widely reported a month ago.”

Police are probing a report by a houseman at a government hospital in Kuala Lumpur against a senior doctor who had allegedly “screamed and shouted profanities” at him because he had wrongly presented a patient’s case.

“It seems there is an unhealthy work culture in the training of junior doctors in Malaysia,” said DOBBS spokesman Alan Teh.

“While some amount of admonishment is to be expected during the training period, it should not reach a level of bullying.”

DOBBS has more than 16,000 members.

Namazie urged troubled doctors to ring MMA’s Helpdoc at 03-4041-1140 so that their problems could be attended to.