Malaysiakini quoted Ibrahim Shah Abu Shah as saying that UiTM was currently the only university offering a cardiothoracic surgery programme in collaboration with the National Heart Institute.
He added that it was crucial to temporarily allow the enrolment of non-Bumiputera students to the programme in view of the severe lack of cardiothoracic surgeons.
“Therefore, UiTM should admit them while waiting for Universiti Malaya to set up its own programme,” he said.
There are reportedly only 14 cardiothoracic surgeons at public hospitals nationwide.
Last Thursday, UiTM’s student representative council launched a protest against calls for the admission of non-Bumiputera students to its cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme by urging students to dress in black.
The Malaysian Medical Association had earlier urged UiTM to prioritise public health by temporarily opening its cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme to non-Bumiputera students amid a shortage of specialists and surgeons in the field.
Health news portal CodeBlue meanwhile recently reported that UiTM was willing to “temporarily” accept non-Bumiputera trainees into its cardiothoracic surgery programme.
The suggestion was made by Dr Raja Amin Raja Mokhtar of UiTM’s medical faculty to resolve the impasse that arose after the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) refused to recognise qualifications secured under the health ministry’s parallel pathway programme.
However, Ibrahim repeated his opposition to the health ministry’s parallel pathway programme, which sees doctors trained at high-volume accredited health ministry facilities and hospitals under the guidance of royal colleges in the UK.
Ibrahim, who leads the Malay Consultation Council’s education bureau, previously claimed that the programme was of no use and that many countries did not have such an initiative.
He reiterated that that these surgeons and doctors should be trained “according to the right syllabus”.
Senior doctors have claimed that MMC rejected the applications of eight cardiothoracic surgeons and 100 family medicine specialists trained under the programme for listing on the National Specialist Register, despite repeated requests from the health ministry.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) has also criticised MMC’s non-recognition of its cardiothoracic surgery parallel pathway programme, with RCSEd president Rowan Parks saying it had put excellent surgeons in an untenable and unfair position.