This case study of medical schools in Malaysia addresses their role in meeting the demands of a young nation. Throughout the growth and development of these medical schools, there have been efforts to coordinate and cooperate with providers of health care. The treatment of illness must mesh with the changing paradigm of health and wellness as an achievable and indeed desirable goal, not only for the individual but also for society. The scientific basis of medicine is being emphasized with the advent of evidence-based medicine and outcome measures. Innovations have been made to bring the schools in closer contact with the service providers. Malaysia has prepared farsighted plans to become a developed nation by the year 2020. Accordingly, its health services will use advances in information technology and will introduce telemedicine in various strategic applications to extend the reach of the health care team. It is incumbent on the medical schools to move in concert with the Ministry of Health to realize goals of the nation and the society.
The learning objectives, curriculum content, and assessment standards for distributed medical education programs must be aligned across the health care systems and community contexts in which their students train. In this article, the authors describe their experiences at Monash University implementing a distributed medical education program at metropolitan, regional, and rural Australian sites and an offshore Malaysian site, using four different implementation models. Standardizing learning objectives, curriculum content, and assessment standards across all sites while allowing for site-specific implementation models created challenges for educational alignment. At the same time, this diversity created opportunities to customize the curriculum to fit a variety of settings and for innovations that have enriched the educational system as a whole.Developing these distributed medical education programs required a detailed review of Monash's learning objectives and curriculum content and their relevance to the four different sites. It also required a review of assessment methods to ensure an identical and equitable system of assessment for students at all sites. It additionally demanded changes to the systems of governance and the management of the educational program away from a centrally constructed and mandated curriculum to more collaborative approaches to curriculum design and implementation involving discipline leaders at multiple sites.Distributed medical education programs, like that at Monash, in which cohorts of students undertake the same curriculum in different contexts, provide potentially powerful research platforms to compare different pedagogical approaches to medical education and the impact of context on learning outcomes.
Medical schools have existed in Malaysia for a very long time. The majority of practicing doctors has trained locally. From the early nineteen sixties when the first medical school was established to the current 7 public medical faculties, the standards of local trained doctors have always been exemplary. Now with more need for doctors to serve the country and the mushrooming of medical schools, the question of needs and wants of future medical schools and medical education need to be addressed. In this paper I will try to highlight what we in Universiti Putra Malaysia have been working on to improve the Medical and Health Sciences faculty to achieve greater heights to reach the future in the shortest possible time.
The Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) operates under the Medical Act of 1971, which defines its core functions related to (a) the registration and practice of medical practitioners (b) the period of compulsory service (c) provisions to be enacted for purposes of (a) and (b). In the early years the MMC used the list of recognised colleges or Universities that appeared in the list of degrees recognised by the General Medical Council of United Kingdom (GMC). Over the years the MMC has undertaken the role of granting recognition to other medical schools in the country and overseas, and added the name of these schools to the existing register of recognised medical degrees in the second schedule of the Act. For the purpose of recognition of medical schools the MMC endorsed a guideline on standards and procedures on accreditation developed in 1996, which was later realigned with international and regional guidelines, in 2000 and 2001. It is recommended that the MMC establishes an active functional 'Education Committee' and that the role of MMC in medical education should be clearly and explicitly stated in the Act. An amendment to the Act would require the MMC to be responsible not only for undergraduate medical education but medical education in its entire phase.
The curriculum of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) is designed particularly to cater for the health needs of the State of Sarawak, Malaysia. The framework of the curriculum is built on four strands: biological knowledge, clinical skills, behavioural and population aspects. The training is community based and a graduate of FMHS is expected to possess the ability to deal with many ethnic groups with different cultures and beliefs; expertise in tropical infectious diseases; skills to deal with emergencies such as snakebite and near drowning; qualities of an administrator, problem-solver and community leader; and proficiency in information and communication technology. The content of the curriculum strives for commitment to lifelong learning and professional values. The FMHS has adopted a 'mixed economy' of education strategies and a 'mixed menu approach' to test a wide range of curriculum outcomes. The FMHS fosters intellectual and academic pursuits, encourages friendliness and a sense of social responsibility and businesslike efficiency.
Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine (PUGSOM), the first graduate-entry medical school in Malaysia, was established in 2011 in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM), an American medical school. This study compared learning environments (LE) at these two schools, which shared the same overarching curriculum, along with a comparator Malaysian medical school, Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences (CUCMS). As a secondary aim, we compared 2 LE assessment tools - the widely-used Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) and the newer Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale (JHLES).
OBJECTIVE: To assess whether favourable perceptions of the learning environment (LE) were associated with better quality of life, less burnout and more empathy across three undergraduate medical education programmes in Israel, Malaysia and China.
METHODS: Cross-sectional surveys were administered at the end of the 2013-2014 academic year at three medical schools: Technion American Medical Students Program (TAMS) in Israel, Perdana University-Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland School of Medicine (PURCSI) in Malaysia and Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) in China. LE perceptions were assessed using the Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale (JHLES). Well-being was assessed using validated items for quality of life and the depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion domains of burnout. The 20-item Jefferson Empathy Scale assessed empathy. Statistical analyses included bivariate regressions and multivariate regressions that adjusted for gender, school, class year and perceived academic rank.
RESULTS: Overall, 400/622 (64.3%) students responded, with the following rates by site: TAMS 92/121 (76.0%), PURCSI 160/198 (80.1%) and PUMC 148/303 (48.8%). In multivariate models, favourable overall LE perceptions were associated with higher odds of good quality of life (odds ratio [OR], 3.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.8-5.8; p < 0.001) and lower odds of emotional exhaustion (OR, 0.34; 95% CI, 0.24-0.50; p < 0.001) and depersonaliation (OR, 0.30; 95% CI, 0.24-0.37; p = 0.001). 'Community of Peers', one of seven factors in the JHLES, was the only one to be independently associated with better quality of life and less emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. After adjusting for covariates, there was not a statistically significant association between overall LE and empathy (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 0.91-2.2; p = 0.12).
CONCLUSIONS: Students' LE perceptions are closely associated with their well-being, and fostering peer community may hold promise for enhancing quality of life and protecting against burnout. Across these three settings, LE and empathy were not closely related, suggesting that any influence of learning environment on empathy would be modest.
Anatomy education forms the foundation of a successful medical education. This has necessitated the development of innovative ideas to meet up with current realities. Despite these innovative ideas, there are challenges facing anatomy education, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Problems such as inadequate teaching experts and outdated curricula have made anatomy education in sub-Saharan Africa uninviting and disinteresting. Several interventions have been suggested, such as the procurement of teaching tools and upgrading of teaching infrastructure. However, in this age of information technology; anatomy education, especially in sub-Saharan Africa could benefit from the integration of electronic tools and resources. This article explores the electronic tools and resources such as three-dimensional printing, educational games, and short videos that are readily available for the teaching of anatomy in sub-Saharan Africa. The author concludes by discussing how these electronic tools and resources can be used to address many of the challenges facing anatomy education in sub-Saharan Africa.