They said this would cause further delays to the already long waits faced by heart patients, many of whom take up to a year to receive appointments due to the lack of cardiothoracic surgeons in the country.
There are only 14 cardiothoracic surgeons in public hospitals at the moment.
The health and higher education ministries have met with stakeholders and representatives from the Attorney-General’s Chambers to discuss possible amendments to the Medical Act 1971 with a view to enabling these specialists to be recognised by the MMC.
But a spokesman for the doctors said this route would also be superfluous as all trainees who complete the programme have at least six years of supervised practice in cardiac centres at health ministry hospitals, the National Heart Institute (IJN), and universities.
He added that the training adheres to the standards required by the national curriculum and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) in the UK.
“And with the UK General Medical Council officially accepting our application to be registered as specialists there, we urge the MMC to reconsider their stand not to recognise our qualification for the purpose of listing in the National Specialist Register,” he said.
“Pushing for a credit transfer to another university does not solve the root cause of the problem. It merely diverts responsibility to another party. It also disrupts efforts that are already in progress to recognise the existing qualifications,” he told FMT.
Last month, Dr Raja Amin Raja Mokhtar, who is on the board of studies of the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)-IJN cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme, said he was agreeable to “temporarily” opening up the course to non-Bumiputera parallel pathway trainees and graduates by way of credit transfer.
Raja Amin said this would be a way of getting MMC to recognise their qualifications for registration as specialists.
UiTM’s cardiothoracic surgery specialist programme has yet to be recognised by the MMC. However, the Malaysian Qualifications Agency has given the programme a provisional nod to train cardiothoracic surgeons. Its first batch of specialists are due to graduate in two years’ time.
The spokesman, who requested anonymity as he is a civil servant, said the Cabinet – which is set to discuss the matter – had to consider the fact that there are currently 14 parallel pathway specialist programmes in urgent need of MMC recognition given the serious shortage at public hospitals.
Besides cardiothoracic surgery, he said there are almost 3,000 young doctors in key specialties like family medicine, urology, plastic surgery, internal medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology.
He said most of the existing senior cardiothoracic surgeons were trained using a similar framework, which had improved with better coordination assessment to become a more structured pathway.
“The exit (final) exams are accredited by the RCSEd. We have taken the same exam together with our colleagues from Singapore and Hong Kong,” he said.
“They have no problems being credentialed and registered in their countries without any endorsement of other parties.
“Baseless allegations from certain quarters questioning our competency and the legitimacy of our training is very insulting not only to us, but also to our trainers, patients and the health ministry which has endorsed our training.”