Education and Further Studies Fair

The above fair was held over the weekend at the Mid Valley Exhibition Center and I had the pleasure of attending it. It was certainly an eye opening affair and just confirmed the nation obsession of their children graduating with a Medical Degree. The reason I attended it was because my friend Ramesh was invited to be a guest speaker for the segment on career in digital media. The exhibition occupied a couple of halls at the huge venue and I must say 70% of the exhibit were all things healthcare - both Medical and Nursing, with a smaller segment on hospitality and engineering courses. I remember attending a similar fair around 20 years back, and 70% of the exhibit was on computer courses. Things had certainly came full circle.

I was in T-shirts and unshaven, and a few of the exhibitors asked me if I was interested in signing up for courses as they were doing “discounts” for those attending the fair.

Let me start with the obvious one. It was a private exhibition, and the booths were mainly by private colleges and universities. Some actually offer their own degree while others via a twinning initiatives. Certainly, the machinery was on hyperdrive in justifying the cost of doing the degree locally rather than going abroad. None of the public colleges were featured. All together, there were at least 50 participants. The usual suspects were there - IMU, Monash, Masterskills, Segi and Mahsa. I knew these centers, so I did not spend much time there. Instead, I spent a good hour chatting around with the ‘agencies’. These are local company, specialising in facilitating students finding places at Medical School abroad, mainly in the cheap. Cheap as in, in Indonesia, Russia and Ukraine. There were a few in India as well, but according to them, the Indian colleges have prefer to send their own representatives to Malaysia, and handle the enrollment and acceptance process in house. The pricing were certainly an eye opener. The Royal Perak College of Medicine (under Universiti Kuala Lumpur, which was in turn under MARA), offer the full Medical Degree - previously as MBBS(Mal) for over RM200K. These colleges in Russia would only set you back RM150K.

Check out the prices on offerThis certainly created a lot of excitement, not to mention the looser admission criteria. During my conversation with one of the agent, I spent 60% of the conversation about justifying that the degree will be ‘legal’. I was more interested in the admission criteria, ratio of staff to students, the medium - not all of these were in English, whether the clinical years include interaction with human beings.He then got suspicious and I had to come clean that I was an academician. He then asked for a more senior agent to deal with me. Off the record, the textbook will be in Russian, so you can guess what the medium will be in. The students will be required to do a ‘foundation’ year - in Russia, in order to familiarise themselves with the language. As far as the agent can tell, a credit in the Science subjects at SPM was enough for consideration! I think I shall keep the rest of the conversation off the record as clearly the agent was not comfortable discussing these matters with me.

An example of such 'agency'. This was not the one I talked to.On the subject of what will happen once they graduate, he was a bit more certain. He claimed that currently the degrees were accepted locally by the Malaysian Medical Council. He however conceded that the Ministry has the habit of moving the goalposts, and there will always be a small possibility that the students upon return might need further scrutiny. At the moment, these student were required to sit for the final year exams at a local university - we had a group of about 30 who took the final year exams with us on the last seating at UM. Of these, there were a few very good students, while some, especially from China was not as good. They were allowed to spend a six months period at the university for clinical attachment - at a cost. Some of the student were these degrees were exempted - we have currently a few of these at UMMC.

My advice to those interested in considering these colleges, please check the credentials with the MMC. I tried looking up at their website but I could not find such list. Maybe a quick phone call should do the trick. There were a few good Medical Schools in Russia, but I prefer not to mention them for fear of endorsement. The clue would be in the admission requirements. The easier it was to get in, the more suspect you should be. Good Luck! 

International Healthcare Exhibition

At the MaxFamily exhibition booth, toying around with the staffs. The gent doing the drawing is the very talented Fan.Last Sunday, upon return from Port Dickson, I decided to head out to PWTC as one of the patient support group which I participated opened a booth at the above events. I thought why not. As we only arrived in KL just after 4, I only arrived there after 5. As that was the final day of the exhibit, the vendors were doing their last minute calls and sales as well as some of them already gulung tikar - closing down. Little that I realised that the exhibition were mainly selling health supplements. It was a pleasant surprise as I was always curious as to what these vendors - or at least those who were left - have to say.

Climbing up to the exhibition hallMany choicesTrue to form, there were plenty of health product on offer, some of them misguided than others, such as cure for cancer, complete with patient testimonials. Apparently, the more expensive they were, the more potent they become Some of them were quite interesting, such as special cooking vessels which can reverse diabetes - with a testimonial from a patient who was partially blind due to effect of diabetes to the eye, and after using the product for 6 weeks, she was able to see without glasses. Ah! Bless!

Acupuncture anyone?Another company did a filter-cum-water container which can cure high blood pressure. The testimonials - which featured prominently when you enter these booth - claimed that after drinking water from this vessel, a particular old lady ravaged by stroke unable to move the right side of her body was able to walk after that. It was nothing to do with physiotherapy or control of her other health issues. There were no mention of that. But one thing was really clear. None of the product were claiming - at least in the open - that it can cure cancer. Thank goodness!

Moving on, a chat with a Chinese practitioner was enlightening. He suffers from prostate cancer - limited stage. He had to undergo surgery and radiotherapy, resulting in him being impotent. He had acupuncture and walla! I won’t describe what happen next. Suffice to say that his wife was happy. I also had a test on my foot arch. Failed, and an insole was suggested. I may take them on on that. There were also slimming products and health-related devices - machines for measuring blood pressure, blood sugar, as well as free health screening.

Offering my service at the DiGi counter as one of the DiGi yellow monsterThe healthcare exhibition was not the only exhibition at PWTC that day. Downstairs there was a Careers Fair, ironically while the convocation of The Open University being on in the next hall. I dropped by the careers fair and the gentleman at the door stopped me to ask if I have filled in a questionnaire mainly asking the kind of jobs I was looking for and my qualifications. He also politely asked if I had my CV along. I told him that I was interested in heading towards the DiGi booth to ask if there was an opening for a guy in bright yellow chubby suit. Apparently there was none! Darn!

On my way out, I stumbled across a list of all the graduates during the convocation. There were maybe 5 Indians and 3 Chinese names. The rest were all Malays and almost all were matured students. I spend the rest of the evening figuring out why that was so with Puan Anita? Was it a race thing?  

This poster made my day!

While walking back to my ward after a quick bite for lunch, I walked past the main foyer. Yes the one past the main Pharmacy underneath the tunnel walking along in front of Secret Recipe - previously Delifrance. There was an exhibition there about rare diseases with poster educating people about them. However, the translation of Rare Disease into Malay was rather too literal. Read it yourself .......