The evolving demands on healthcare systems worldwide have highlighted the need for direct-care physicians to adopt educational roles. A recent JAMA article by Sweigart, Watson, and Burger (2024) emphasises this trend, explaining that more physicians are being called upon to act as educators as training expands to new healthcare settings. This development is particularly relevant in Malaysia, where the demand for medical specialists continues to rise and where expanding training locations can address both capacity challenges and geographic disparities in specialist availability.
Malaysia’s medical specialist training is currently provided primarily by local universities, including both public and private institutions. These university-based programmes, while well-established, face limitations in the number of trainees they can accommodate. With the need for specialists projected to grow significantly, Malaysia must look beyond universities to scale up training opportunities. Increasing the number of Ministry of Health (MOH) hospitals involved in training offers a promising solution. By incorporating more MOH hospitals, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysia can provide specialist training opportunities close to home for doctors in these regions, reducing the need for them to relocate to Peninsular Malaysia. This decentralised approach aligns with the Ministry of Health’s objectives to improve healthcare accessibility across the country and to support equitable healthcare distribution.
Expanding training locations, however, brings forth the critical need to maintain quality and consistency across all settings. To ensure that trainees receive a high-quality, uniform education, a standardised curriculum is essential. The National Postgraduate Medical Curriculum (NPMC), developed by the Malaysian Public University Medical Deans Council under the Ministry of Higher Education, plays a pivotal role in addressing this need. The NPMC provides structured learning objectives, competency benchmarks, and assessment methods, ensuring that all trainees, regardless of training location, are prepared to meet the same rigorous standards. This curriculum, authored by experts nationwide, is designed to ensure that the training of specialists in Malaysia aligns with the country’s healthcare needs and meets the standards expected in modern medical practice (Amjad, 2024).
For this initiative to succeed, collaboration between universities and the Ministry of Health is essential. Universities bring established expertise in medical education, while MOH hospitals provide diverse clinical settings and cases essential for comprehensive training. A coordinated effort between these institutions can bridge the gap between academia and practical, patient-focused training. This collaboration can involve sharing resources, co-developing faculty development programmes to prepare MOH clinicians for teaching roles, and creating mentorship opportunities to support trainee learning in non-university settings. This integrated approach, as outlined in the JAMA article, requires that both universities and hospitals embrace the dual responsibilities of patient care and education to develop a future-ready healthcare workforce (Sweigart et al., 2024).
Through the combined efforts of universities, the MOH, and other stakeholders, Malaysia has an opportunity to create a sustainable and resilient specialist training framework. By expanding training locations to MOH hospitals, particularly in underrepresented regions, and implementing the NPMC, Malaysia can ensure that future specialists receive consistent, high-quality education across diverse settings. This strategy not only addresses the immediate need for increased specialist training capacity but also supports the broader goal of equitable healthcare distribution throughout the country.
Disclaimer: This article was generated with assistance from ChatGPT, an AI language model.
References
Amjad, N. M. (2024). Postgraduate clinical specialist training in Malaysia: At a crossroads. International Medical Journal Malaysia, 23(2), 1–3. Retrieved from https://journals.iium.edu.my/kom/index.php/imjm/article/download/2583/1483/16082
Sweigart, J. R., Watson, R., & Burger, A. (2024). The accidental teacher—Direct-care physicians increasingly placed in teaching roles. JAMA. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2024.17626