KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 — The Higher Education Ministry has come up with a medical specialist training strategy to train and produce more specialist doctors in Malaysia, Utusan Malaysia reported today.

Its minister Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir told the newspaper that local institutions of higher learning produced a total of 7,935 Masters of Medicine degree holders as of last year.

"Currently, there are 11 public universities that offers medical study programmes in their respective medicine faculty, eight of which offer Masters in Medicine and Masters/Doctorate in Medicine,” he was quoted as saying.

The eight public universities are Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), International Islamic University Malaysia (UIAM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).

While the other three were Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).

As of 2022, the number of medical specialists in the country is at 8,972 and the Ministry of Health aims to have 19,174 medical experts by 2030.

Zambry said the initiative will empower the management of medical specialist programmes to meet rising demand.

He said it includes improving the quality of specialist training carried out through 95 programmes, with 91 of the programmes being at public universities and the rest at private higher education institutions that are accredited by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) and recognised by the Malaysian Medical Council.

Zambry pointed out that the initiative meeting to increase the number of specialist study slots by the Ministry of Health had previously agreed to increase specialist study slots for the Master of Medicine Programme to 150 slots each year.

In this context, Zambry said as many as 28 areas of expertise (except Urology) out of a total of 29 areas of expertise are offered at public universities, including Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Neurosurgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Oncology and Orthopedics.

"In order to accommodate the shortage of medical specialists, the Ministry of Health approved the implementation of parallel pathway expertise training in 14 fields to support the plan towards increasing the country's medical experts,” he was quoted as saying.

He said there are two systems related to medical program expertise training, namely the parallel pathway (offered by the Ministry of Health) and the existing courses at public universities that go through the MQA accreditation process.

Zambry added that his ministry is always ready to facilitate matters related to the two systems.

"Previously, the Cabinet had also agreed that matters related to this parallel pathway would be coordinated by the Ministry of Health. However, the Higher Education Ministry is always ready to help.

"UiTM has also received the Temporary Accreditation Certificate for the Master of Science in Surgery (cardiothoracic) and Doctorate in Cardiothoracic Surgery programmes on August 13, 2020 by MQA.

"With this approval, UiTM is recognised as a higher education centre for cardiothoracic specialist training,” he was quoted as saying.