Generally, our basic undergraduate and specialist degrees do not train us to do
or understand this kind of research. That is why I started my efforts to highlight
the deficient way in which we specialists have been trained and the quality of our
medical research. This topic has been highlighted internationally, but in Malaysia
no one seems to have taken up this issue." — Dr Manimalar
April, 2020 | The Health
The MMC must live
up to expectations
still insist on a certain number of papers to be produced.
So what do I do? When you have no money, how can you
do quality research? People then start pinching from
here and there, and that is also when data fraud occurs.
You can’t use such papers for critical sectors. What I’m
advocating for is for all research facilities to come under
the MOH. The MREC must be an external committee
without any conflict of interest. Grants should be awarded
directly to national research committees, example for
dengue and not to individual researchers/universities.
What about the Institute of Medical Research (IMR)?
Can’t it play this role for research?
Malaysia has a National Institutes of Health (NIH)
which is the health research arm of the MOH. The IMR
and five other institutes come under that umbrella. In
fact, all medical research should only be channelled
through these institutes. What is the need to have so
many different “research institutes” like universities
in a small country like Malaysia? That will only break
up the research database giving rise to small, clinically
unhelpful studies. For example, in the case of dengue
research, everyone wishing to work on dengue research
must go through one of the NIH institutes. In that way, we
pool our resources instead of working in silos.
— The Health
THE Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) should live
up to the expectations of the people.
“It is meant to be an effective watchdog and
regulatory body. It has to act fast on complaints,”
said Dr Manimalar Selvi Naickar, who has been a
vocal critic of the MMC.
For one, she feels the composition of the council
should be more balanced. She claims that at least
19 out of the 33 council members are university-
affiliated while nine out of the 15 directly-elected
members (60 per cent) are academic physicians.
This may result in a captive vote bank for MMC-
registered doctors who are currently doing their
post-graduate training in universities and who may
be obliged to vote in their lecturers to sit on the
council. Some MMC members are government
appointees while others are voted in by the doctors
themselves.
“MMC has to have a healthy mix of councillors if
it is to act as an effective watchdog and regulatory
body. First and foremost, the MMC is supposed to
regulate the conduct between doctors and patients.
This is done well in the clinic where we take care of
patients.
“But when it comes to research, it is more
difficult to regulate. This is because the MMC itself
needs to have doctors who are properly trained to
pick out transgressions. Currently, it does not, so
this part gets neglected,” she said.
“There are some countries that have an
independent public system of training clinical
specialists, like in the United Kingdom. That training
has nothing to do with universities. So those
appointed to the council must be both independent
and qualified. They must not be afraid to speak up.”
She has also proposed that lay people and
other professionals sit on the MMC for better
representation.
“In the UK, if you look at their website, they seem
to have 50 per cent non-doctors. They comprise
social activists and people who are likely to speak
up for patient’s rights. There must be some form of
public oversight as it involves the lives of people.”
Does the MMC respond to criticisms and
complaints?
“From what I see in the newspapers, there is a
tendency to protect its members. That’s the
problem.”
She has written to the MOH several times on
various issues regarding the MMC but did not get a
reply.
“But it doesn’t matter to me if they respond
to me or not as long as the critical issues are
addressed.
She also questioned the MMC’s recent
announcement that it would carry out an
independent verification from June this year of all
medical degrees issued.
“So before June 2020 what did you do? Weren’t
all the earlier medical degrees submitted verified?”
she asked. — The Health
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