GMOA and SAITM

Thursday, 9 February 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Here is a win-win solution: With today’s advancements in teaching and learning, there is no reason why a Math/Dancing Major should not be allowed to attend medical school if they are willing to commit to study, gain experience and sincerely wish to serve the public as a productive medical officer.

There will always be a few who choose to become specialists and surgeons but the majority of the doctors will merely prescribe medicine as per the instructions given by an O/L qualified pharmaceutical rep. What the market needs today are GPs so we can ensure there will be at least 1 doctor for 100 people, placed in proximity to every habitat in the country. Just because these students attend government medical schools, I am yet to see anyone able to give life to a dead person and very often they are baffled why a patient suddenly died during their watch.

So, we need to bring these medical practitioners back to earth as they are highly overrated due to the dearth of doctors in the market. Therefore, what we need to do is to remove barriers to entry, remove barriers to learning by making the subject matter as simple to learn as possible and conduct exams to evaluate what they have learnt rather than designed to fail students and graduate a restricted quota, to manipulate pricing like the petroleum cartel.

With more graduates from private/government/online medical schools, they can learn on the job as apprentices working under experienced doctors and gradually learn the skills of the trade until they can serve the public independently. As we cannot continue to produce a few handfulof doctors every year, the need of the hour is to produce many GPs, as good as many of our very effective AMP doctors performing a yeoman service in rural villages.

If doctors are paid peanuts or their working conditions are terrible like for some AMPs in rural locations, that is what the GMOA should be fighting for. A national policy to produce more General Practitioners should be the focus and objective of any government. This win-win solution will consist of experienced doctors volunteering to teach and train new graduates before getting in to private practice, the nation will have a doctor at every street corner and we would have brought down all these egotistical people to earth so they can truly serve what they were trained for.

Anura De Silva

Dublin