Dewan Rakyat passes Medical Act amendments

 

The Medical Act 1971 Amendment Bill 2024 contains the qualification by the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, central to a suit by four graduates filed against the MMC for rejecting their applications for listing in the National Specialist Register. (Bernama pic)

KUALA LUMPUR: 

The Medical Act 1971 Amendment Bill 2024 was passed in the Dewan Rakyat today after much hue and cry over the parallel pathway programme.

Tabled for its second and third readings today, the bill is expected to affect the outcomes of suits filed by parallel pathway graduates against the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC).

The list of recognised specialist degrees in the bill contains the qualification by the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (FRCS Ed CTS), central to a suit by four graduates filed against the MMC for rejecting their applications for listing in the National Specialist Register (NSR).

Two other specialist degrees the MMC had rejected for listing in the NSR – one for medical pathology from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and the other for neurosurgery from Ireland’s Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) – have also been included in the list.

The six USM medical pathology graduates and one neurosurgeon from RCSI have filed suits against the MMC for refusing to register them in the NSR.

However, Universiti Teknologi Mara’s cardiothoracic surgeons’ programme, which is expected to produce its first batch of specialists in about two years, is not on the list. - FMT