Your guide to become an Doctor in Malaysia

Average Salary
3,500 - 4,500

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Who is an Doctor

A popular career choice among Malaysian students, Doctors generally provide diagnoses and treats patients who are suffering from diseases and injuries. Most of them work in private offices, clinics and hospitals.

Currently, our country is facing an oversupply of general practitioners while lacking in Specialist Doctors. Around 42 accredited training hospitals are now flooded with trainees who are doing their housemanship. Hence, the waiting time for an available slot is as long as 9 months now and is expected to be lengthened in the upcoming years unless there are new government hospitals opening up. Did you know? Due to the overwhelming demand for Specialist Doctors locally, the Malaysian Health Ministry offers numerous scholarships to address this issue, especially to Doctors specialising in anesthesiology.

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The pros and cons of being an Doctor

Pros

Improve the health condition of patients, treat injuries, helping others and save lives
Learning about medicine and the human body can be fascinating and fun

Cons

Time consuming, expensive, physically and mentally taxing
Tremendous responsibilities - the health and life of your patients are in your hands

What are all the responsibilities of an Doctor ?

Diagnosing and curing patient’s illness
Promoting health education and healthy lifestyle
Being up to date with the medical industry
Maintaining patient’s records

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What skills do you need to become an Doctor?

Ability to work in a team and communicate

As a Doctor, you will need to give out instructions to the assistants and nurses. In emergencies or surgeries, it will take a team of Doctors and nurses to save the patient’s life. Thus, it is crucial that you are a team player and possess good communication skills!

Being able to keep calm in stressful situations

A patient is being wheeled into the emergency room, his family members are surrounding you while sobbing hysterically and your colleague is trying to brief you about his condition. It is a chaotic scene but you have to keep calm and deal with everything patiently with a cool head. Likewise, it is pressuring to hear the machines beeping wildly when you are trying to save the patient yet you must be able to think rationally and take appropriate actions to save him and not panic with your hands trembling.

Patient and compassionate towards patients

This happens all the time but you need to have a genuine concern and care for your patients even when they have told you the same story for the 101st time. This is especially applicable to older patients or children as you will need more patience while treating them.

What field(s) of study should you choose to become an Doctor?

Anaesthesia
Clinical Radiology
Emergency Medicine
General Practice
Intensive Care Medicine
Obstetrics & Gynaecology
Surgery

What are the requirements to be an Doctor?

Medical practitioners require a significant amount of formal education. Currently, the minimum requirement is 4Bs in core science subjects at SPM level and a CGPA score of 3.0 at STPM/Matriculation level. However, the Malaysian Medical Council and the Education Ministry is planning to raise the bar in the hopes of solving the influx issue at the same time producing Doctors of higher quality.

A 5-year MBBS (Bachelor in Medicine, Bachelor in Surgery) programme that is approved by the Malaysian Medical Council is required in order to qualify for the medical qualifying examination. This exam will help to assess the core knowledge of the graduates and gauge if they are eligible to officially be a doctor. Passing this exam will enable you to practise medicine in Malaysia after completing the 2-year housemanship and 1-year government service.

What are the working hours of an Doctor

The work hours of a Doctor is known to be long and irregular. If you are a surgeon, it will take an even longer time since most if not all complex surgeries take hours to complete.

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