Raise the bar for future doctors

By JOSHUA FOONG joshuafoong@thestar.com.my

MMA concerned about quality of local medical graduates

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PETALING JAYA: There is growing concern about the quality of doctors that the country is churning out.

This is due to the low prerequisites allowed for preparatory medical colleges, known to accept SPM-level students with the minimum requirement of Bs in sciences.

From there, the students have a high chance of getting into universities in countries like Russia and Indonesia.

“There must be some quality or level of excellence before one can realistically aspire to be a doctor,” Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president Dr David Quek told The Star.

“If one is not good enough there will be problems of quality later on when he or she becomes a doctor.

“It is not simply about getting a degree or a name. It has bearings on human life and patient safety,” he added.
“The association is unhappy that we are having so many routes to medical schools.

“We are creating an unrealistic atmosphere of easy entry for anyone who can afford to pay but whose scholastic ability may be way off the mark,” added Dr Quek.

Readers of The Star have also written in to express their concern on the many “shoplot medical schools.”

While medical universities require recognition by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) before their graduates can practise medicine, the council does not have the authority to regulate pre-university courses tied with medical degree programmes.

“We are now looking into the entry criteria for medical students, and if these are too low, then we have recommended remedial measures to limit these medical colleges from being recognised as acceptable standards,” said Dr Quek, who is a council member.

“We are also working with the Higher Education Ministry and its agencies to ensure that foundation courses be of acceptable standards and duration, and that only sufficiently qualified students are accepted,” he added.

Universiti Malaya physiology professor Dr Cheng Hwee Ming said a student also had to master the art of decision making besides having clinical skills.

Rheumatologist Dr Pagalavan Letchumanan, who has trained housemen and lectured for 13 years, said the key point should be clear standardisation for entrance requirements.

“If we regulate the intake of medical students, say through MMC-certified prerequisites, just like our medical degrees, we can be more assured of the quality of our future graduates,” he added.

Malaysians left high and dry

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WE HAD gone to Egypt for our family holiday to show our children one of the ancient wonders of the world with its rich and famous history.

Little did we expect to be part of another history that is taking part in Cairo right now.

It was most unfortunate that our holiday ended abruptly but we didn’t expect it to end with such a bad taste in our mouths – caused by our own people.

The riots started in full on Friday, Jan 28 after the afternoon prayers and we were informed by both our tour guide as well as the hotel authorities, to stay in and not go out.

All mobile phone lines and Internet services were cut by the Egyptian Government and our only contact with the outside world was watching CNN and Aljazeera.

The next morning at breakfast, the other guests of the hotel were instructed by their respective embassies on what to do.

We then tried to contact our embassy, especially when we heard all Egyptian Airlines tickets were cancelled.
‘TRIED’ is the operative word here. We finally got through in the evening (it was 1600hrs by which time the curfew was in force) - needless to say, we did not get any helpful advise or even simple information.

Instead, we were told to inform the embassy on the situation at the airport when we got there!

They didn’t ask our names, our hotel, whether we had any children with us or even if there were other Malaysians in the same hotel.

By this time, the United States, India and Turkey had already announced on TV that they were sending their own aircraft to help their respective citizens.

The next day, as soon as the curfew was lifted, our tour guide took us to the airport and helped us there among all the chaos.

We found out all Egyptian Airlines flights were indeed cancelled.


Meanwhile, since the mobile services were back, our travel agent (from Malaysia) texted us that our flights were confirmed from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur but to contact the Malaysian Embassy for help to get to Dubai.

She also gave us another number at the embassy, specially set up for this situation – needless to say, the person who was manning the phones was of NO help – he could hardly speak recognisable English and could speak NO Bahasa Malaysia at all!

My husband got fed up and just went to the Emirates counter and bought our tickets to Dubai.

There were so many Malaysian students at the airport and as a mother, my heart went out to them – especially the girls, as the Cairo airport was truly scary, no place to sit, no food and a security nightmare – so many bags just left lying around.

While waiting to check-in, we were approached by the various embassy personnel that were there – the US, British, Indian and even New Zealand – whether we were their citizens and whether we needed help.

I had no answer when my children asked me where were the Malaysian Embassy personnel.

Today I read in the papers that all Malaysian students are back safely – after 10 days? Hurrah!

But what about Malaysian tourists? What happened to the Malaysian Embassy personnel?

I would like answers on the service, or lack thereof, by the Malaysian Embassy to help us in our hour of need, as Malaysians.

PREMAH MUNUSAMY-PHILIP,
Malacca.

High time for a new Bar!

COMMENT BY ROGER TAN

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A common evaluation system is needed urgently to check the declining quality and standard of new lawyers in the country. 

IT is a matter of grave concern that with about 1000 law graduates entering the legal profession every year, there is no common evaluation system to ascertain and ensure their levels of competence.

The Bar Council has been advocating a Common Bar Course and Examination (CBE) since the 1980s as a single entry point to the legal profession for both local and foreign law graduates.

It is understood that the delay in implementing the CBE is partly due to objections from local universities.

But it cannot be gainsaid that the quality and standard of lawyers have also declined significantly since the 1980s. There is a common feeling among senior legal practitioners that there is an “abject absence of rudimentary legal skills” among the new entrants.

In 2008, a senior judge lamented on the poor quality of locally trained lawyers, describing their standard as ranging from the “good to the grotesque”. (However, some senior lawyers had also opined that the learned judge’s assessment applied equally to the quality of judges since the 1980s.)

For example, one senior lawyer related this incident to me involving a senior assistant registrar (SAR) and lawyers for both the plaintiff and defendant. The SAR was tasked to read the judge’s order relating to costs. Both lawyers recorded the amount of costs with interest at the rate of 80%!

When the senior lawyer asked his assistant, who was the counsel for the plaintiff, about it, the latter said he did not understand why the SAR had mentioned the interest at 80%. He added that when he checked with the counsel for the defendant; the latter said it was common for the court to grant interest at 80%, which is, of course, erroneous!

Hence, the point is, how could one have walked out of the court without even understanding the court’s order? If the parties were not able to understand the order, then they would also not be able to draft the order later. If what the plaintiff’s counsel had said about the SAR and the other counsel was true, then indeed all the three legally trained officers – SAR and the two lawyers - were indeed half-past-six professionals!

Besides the decline in lawyering quality, there is an abysmal language skill especially the command of the English language among the new entrants for practice at the Bar. I have personally received a letter from a young lawyer asking me to “ensure that (our) clients would be executed the documents!”

It follows that it is not unjustified to require the new entrants to also pass an English Language Qualifying Examination. Whilst we can blame this decline on our education system, we cannot ignore the fact that we are living in an increasingly competitive global environment where international business is transacted primarily in English.

It is also in the national interest for us to build up a pool of competent practitioners in international law so that we can put across our nation’s case in international forums and courts, which is made all the more necessary after the Pulau Batu Puteh case before the International Court of Justice.

In fact, there were 13,350 practising lawyers in Peninsular Malaysia as of Dec 31 last year, with more than half having obtained their basic law degree overseas.

The Legal Profession Act, 1976 (LPA) governs the admission of new entrants from various streams to the legal profession as an advocate and solicitor.

To be admitted to the Malaysian Bar, one has to be a “qualified person” as defined in the LPA; attain the age of 18; be of good character and not been adjudicated bankrupt or convicted of any offence; be a citizen or permanent resident of Malaysia; have served nine months of pupillage under a lawyer of at least seven years’ experience; and have passed, or be exempted from, the Bahasa Malaysia Qualifying Examination.

Three tables containing the relevant information of the legal practitioners and their qualifications have been provided, and let me expound on it a little.

Table 1 deals with the academic qualifications of a ‘qualified person’, and the following should be noted:

> The qualifications, except for graduates of Universiti Malaya, National University of Singapore and barristers of England, are determined from time to time by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (Qualifying Board) which is chaired by the Attorney-General. Any change to the status of the three aforesaid qualifications can only be made by way of a statutory amendment to the LPA.

> The law degree of the new Singapore Management University has still not been recognised by the Qualifying Board. (Singapore only recognises the law degree of University of Malaya for admission to the Singapore Bar.)

> The two-year exemption from Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) examination given to law graduates of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and Multimedia University (MMU) in 2009 will expire on April 15, unless extended indefinitely or for a further period by the Qualifying Board.

Table 2 particularises the qualifications of the 13,350 lawyers as at Dec 31 last year. It is interesting to note that the International Islamic University is the single university which has produced the largest number of lawyers in Malaysia.

Also, as of Jan 28, 2011:

> There were 13,346 lawyers; of whom 6,992 and 6,354 are respectively men and women.

> In terms of ethnicity, there were 5,190 Malays; 5,025 Chinese; 2,517 Indians; 485 Punjabis and 129 Eurasians and others.

> In terms of number of years of practice, there were 1972 lawyers with one to three years of practice; 2,037 (three to seven years); 2,983 (seven to 12 years); 4,244 (12 to 20 years) and 2,110 lawyers have 20 years of practice or more.

> In terms of age, 2,384 lawyers were under 30; 4847 (31-40); 3,537 (41-50); 1,648 (51-60) and 930 lawyers were aged 60 and above.

As regards Table 3 which shows the number of lawyers admitted in 2009 and 2010, it is obvious that women have been busy becoming lawyers in the last two years!

It follows that as Malaysian lawyers are coming from so many diverse educational streams, there is an urgent need for uniformity by undertaking a critical review of the entire legal education especially when we are producing a surfeit of lawyers annually.

Need to be professional

It is for this reason that there have been constant calls for many decades now for the CBE to be implemented as the ultimate sieve in the admission of new practitioners in order to ensure lawyering quality and competency.

Further, the CLP course has to be replaced by the CBE because it is too examination oriented, and not practical skills oriented. This is understandable as the CLP was originally designed in 1984 only as a temporary stop-gap measure to assist those Malaysians who were not able to sit for the English Bar Finals Examinations because they failed to obtain at least a Second Class (Lower Division) Honours in their British university law degree.

To my mind, law schools should just concentrate on the academic aspect of legal education, and leave the professional training in the form of CBE to the Qualifying Board, Bar Council and the Judicial and Legal Services. Passing the CBE should not just be the pre-requisite for new entrants to the legal profession, but also for new recruits for the Judicial and Legal Services.

Pending the implementation of the CBE, the Qualifying Board should also periodically review the teaching and training of law graduates from our local universities. If the standard is not maintained, then the exemption from the CLP examination currently granted to their law graduates should be removed.

As regards foreign law graduates, the Qualifying Board has already reduced the number of approved British universities from 66 to just 30, and Australian and New Zealand law graduates are now required to sit and pass the CLP examination even if they have been admitted as barristers or solicitors in New Zealand or any state of Australia.

In this regard, the Qualifying Board should be commended for setting up in 2008 an evaluation team headed by the Chief Registrar of the Federal Court which comprised judges, officers from the Attorney General’s Chambers and senior members of the Malaysian Bar to determine if UUM and MMU law graduates should be exempted from the CLP examination. As a result, law graduates from the two universities are now required to undergo a training course on practical skills before they can become “qualified persons” under the LPA even though they are exempted from the CLP exam. This exemption will expire on April 15, and the team would return soon to the universities to undertake a review.

In fact, so much has already been said and written in the last 20 years about the urgent need of reforming our decrepit legal education, and we are already sorely lagging behind many Commonwealth countries in this respect. But regrettably, there appears to be a total lack of a sense of urgency on the part of the various stakeholders to come to grips with this unsatisfactory state of affairs which is certainly not in the public interest.

The writer is the head of the Bar Council’s evaluation team appointed by the Qualifying Board to assess the Bachelor of Law degree of UUM and MMU to determine if their graduates should be exempted from the CLP examination. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/rogertankm.