Speaking at a conference, MMA president Dr Mohamed Namazie Ibrahim proposed that the Pakatan Harapan (PH)-led government look into including the Malaysian Medical Licensing Examination (MMLE) as a compulsory requirement for all medical doctors.
“The previous government was not in favour of having a national system in place for various reasons. One such reason is that they were giving the licences to their friends and relatives,” Namazie claimed.
“We don’t want the quality of our doctors to be affected any more. Let’s be frank. What do we want? We want safe and competent doctors now.
“We have to work on this,” he said during a panel session at the Conference on Physician Resiliency hosted at Perdana University.
The MMLE was proposed by the health ministry previously as a compulsory common licensing examination for all medical graduates prior to obtaining their registration to practise.
Its introduction as a compulsory examination has been debated from as early as 2013.
Currently, the MMLE is only required to be taken by Malaysian students who graduate from foreign medical schools. Local private and public schools have different curriculums in place as part of their medical programmes.
Namazie, an anaesthetist and newly-minted MMA president, hoped PH would make the necessary legal amendments to have the MMLE in place.
Otherwise, the practice of medicine in the country would become a sham, he said.
“This was proposed a few years ago when the previous administration wanted to revise the Medical Act 1971. However, at the last minute, due to political pressure, the section addressing national licensing was removed.
“We are now back to square one. A political consensus is not needed anymore but a political will is required at this point — not that we want it.
“But we must have a national system in place to standardise this,” he said.