Dr RA Lingeshwaran said the health ministry also had a six-month “gazettement” process, to vet the quality of the “budding” specialists before they are registered.
Lingeshwaran, a former director of the Sungai Bakap Hospital in Penang, told FMT this process ensures that all graduates, regardless of whether they are from local master’s programmes or foreign fellowships, meet a certain set of standards.
He said the parallel pathway programme has been around for decades, and had only become more structured and given its current name in recent years.
He pointed out that prominent specialists in Malaysia had gone through similar routes, including former health director-general Dr Ismail Merican.
“A scrutiny of the certificates that graduates obtain following the completion of their parallel pathway programme will reveal that they are from reputable international medical education institutions like the Royal Colleges in the UK or Australia.
“Do you think these institutions will compromise on quality?” he said, in response to claims made by Perikatan Nasional’s Arau MP Shahidan Kassim.
On Wednesday, Shahidan claimed that amendments to the Medical Act 1971 would see an increase in the number of medical specialists in Malaysia, but also less consistency in their overall quality.
The PAS MP said the Malaysian Medical Council should not have the ultimate power to recognise specialists, calling instead for prospective specialists to go through the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) before the MMC.
Meanwhile, former deputy health minister Dr Lee Boon Chye said the MQA’s recognition can be part of the requirement, but maintained that it should not be mandatory.
Lee said this is because some specialist training is done through apprenticeships, and not master’s or doctorate programmes.
The cardiologist said the additional MQA requirement would be counter-intuitive since Malaysia was still facing a serious shortage of specialists.
“MMC members who are mostly senior doctors and specialists (both private and public) are best positioned to ensure that the registered specialists are qualified,” he said.
Lee also said that medicine was an ever expanding and advancing field, with new specialties guaranteed to emerge in the future.
“MQA alone will not be able to keep up with the rapid pace of medical advances,” he said.