Tuesday, 13th May 2008 - 19:10CET
Post-graduate courses for doctors to start from next academic year
A curriculum has been prepared to enable newly-graduate doctors to be able to follow specialisation courses here rather than have to move abroad, Joe Cassar, Parliamentary Secretary for Health, told Parliament this evening.
He said these courses will include medicine, surgery, orthopedics, anesthesia, pediatrics, gynecology and ophthalmology, among others.
Dr Cassar said interviews were currently being held for the engagement of training coordinators who would conduct the courses in Malta as from the next academic year .
This, he said, contrasted with the claim made by the opposition yesterday that as many as 70 percent of newly graduated doctors were thinking of moving abroad.
Dr Cassar also pointed out that the system in the UK - where Maltese doctors go to follow specialisation courses - had now been changed. Whereas in the past doctors could follow a two-year housemanship in their own countries and then move to the UK to specialise, now doctors interested in following such post-graduate courses were required to undergo their housemanship in the UK itself, without any guarantee that they would then be accepted for the courses they wished to follow.
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Comments
1. We need to ensure that more Doctors qualify locally – it is here that Graduate Courses will help.
2. To retain our young medical doctors - we need to give young Doctors a good career structure – this must be accompanied by proper remuneration.
3. Postgraduate training in Malta will only be a success - if in the mind of the Maltese Public it is equivalent to postgraduate training in the UK /EU – otherwise it is doomed to fail.
Dr Frank Portelli
Let us not forget that better working conditions for doctors will reflect onto their patients, who at the end of the day depend on their doctors and other carers to get better.
This news joins a series of what can be considered good news for us medical students and young doctors. This is just what we need hopefully coupled with good career progression. I hope these courses are organized very well because they are playing with the future of many of us!
All-in-all this is good news….. but as they say, the proof is in the eating!!
The RCSI - Royal College of Surgeons Ireland has submitted proposals to start a Graduate Entry Medical Course in Malta.
The entry requirement is a basic degree. Applicants are also interviewed and assessed by a multiple choice paper ( MCAT ). The course is 4 years long.
The ball is in our court
Dr Frank Portelli MD FRCS (Ed) Fellow Royal Society of Medicine
St Philips Hospital Malta
The decision to leave is one based on a risk assessment of progression and future opportunities. It is without a doubt that larger countries such as the UK will always present us with greater chances of progression for advancement in our medical careers. It is with hope and a whole lot of scepticism that we await these training programs.
Until then Mater Dei is desperately understaffed and the doctors working there work voluminous hours which is unsafe and definitely not an optimal environment for our patients. The future looks bleak for anyone willing to hold the fort.
And the greater proportion of my colleagues would agree.