We don't want top-scoring doctors

on Wednesday 16 June 2004
Yup. You read that right. We don't want doctors who are also top-scorers. That's the implied meaning I'm getting from our DPM Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Other people might interpret his statements differently I suppose. Sorry, no time to find the right links for any non-Malaysian readers (I wish!).

The government cannot continue to guarantee all top scorers a place to do medicine in public universities by itself is true. This statement I can accept. But.... when it's made in the context that top-scorers are being side-lined for near-top scorers, well... I find that difficult to accept.

True, not all top scorers make good doctors. But what other measurement do we have? Sure, those 128 top scorers might all drop out when they find they don't like medicine. But what's to guarantee that the already accepted near-top scorers won't as well? Strange logic if you ask me.

What's even stranger is when the country's facing a shortage of doctors and all current doctors are being overworked, we're still rejecting potential doctors; seemingly without any previous planning to increase student intake for medicine. Even worse, some of our "learned" academics are even trying to deter potential doctors from becoming doctors. Even stranger logic.

And logically (for me), when I need a doctor, and when I don't know them personally (which is most of the time), I'd rather see one who was a top-scorer in a difficult internationally-recognised and established examination than another who was a near-top-scorer in a locally-recognised non-standardised examination of non-uniform standards.

0 responses: