KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 15 — A group of concerned members have disputed the Malaysian Association for Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery’s (MATCVS) assertion about the quality of its certification, accusing the group of implying this was possibly superior to those offered by local institutions such as Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and the National Heart Institute (IJN).

The group said the MATCVS was basing its claim on the Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS) branding attached to its diploma, which might hold true for less advanced nations with more rudimentary training.

"But compared to a more developed nation like Malaysia, which has a meticulously designed, MQA-approved Masters and Doctorate programme, there is a definite difference in the quality of training,” they said in a statement.

They said there has also been criticism about the experience of local trainers in the FRCS programme as well as its limited postings in key medical fields like general surgery, cardiology, respiratory medicine, and cardiac anaesthesiology when compared to locally-offered masters and doctorate programmes.

The group further said that UK’s General Medical Council (GMC) disallowed the use of the FRCS International diploma for work applications, which called into question both its recognition and standards compared to the diploma taught and issued in the UK.

Earlier this month, MATCVS president Datuk Dr Basheer Ahamed Abd Kareem criticised the Malaysian Medical Council’s (MMC) rejection of specialist registration applications for the National Specialist Register (NSR) by four pioneer Cardiothoracic Parallel Pathway graduates despite their years of training under the scheme.

He said the parallel pathway was launched in 2016 by the Health Ministry in collaboration with the MATCVS, Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia (AMM), with the courses approved by the IJN, among others.

Dr Basheer also insisted that the diploma was accredited in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Brunei, as well as being accepted for registration in the UK.