GEORGE TOWN – A postgraduate medical student at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) is fuming over the attitude of his lecturers, accusing them of favouritism and bullying.
The student, who is also a medical officer, has alleged that exam questions were given to favoured students and those who are not in the lecturers’ good books are often given low grades.
He also claimed that there is a lack of transparency in grading even though the MRCS (Membership Examination of the Surgical Royal Colleges of Great Britain and Ireland) exam requires students be shown which component they failed so they can improve on it in the future.
“Marks are given based on the lecturers’ prerogative, favouritism and impression on the candidates, and wrong answers spoken confidently are accepted, but correct answers presented ‘argumentatively’ are not tolerated.
“The annual fail rates are kept between 50% and 60%. Examination results are kept as a secret in USM. Students are simply told they pass or fail without knowing why.
“If this continues, our universities can never reach international standards even though the faculty has been around for decades,” he told The Vibes.
He proposed that the Education Ministry check the examination papers to rectify the current grading system.
On bullying, he claimed that a lecturer at USM had demanded one of the first-year master’s candidates to be on-call longer as a form of retribution.
“Most medical students give up while some slip into depression. This is how USM ‘nurtures’ future surgeons. No wonder our brightest minds all leave the country. Brain drain is real because our young doctors are not appreciated but (are) being bullied, without hope to better themselves through merit.
“I have seen some of the brightest students being too scared to speak up against the system for fear of retaliation. So, there is a self-imposed gag order even though they are suffering.”
Meanwhile, USM’s dean of the School of Medical Sciences, Prof Dr Abdul Razak Sulaiman said it has been their culture to take all comments seriously and dissect them for quality control purposes.
“As an early response to these issues, I would like to say that we have 20 masters programmes for doctors. Candidates in the programmes will be assessed by examiners from different institutions (universities and the Health Ministry), including external examiners who have no prior knowledge about the candidates.
“The faculty has a committee to vet all written questions. The essay questions are graded by more than one lecturer based on a marking scheme, while the multiple choice questions were checked by a computer system.
“The syllabus is made available to the candidates. Students were given feedback on which section they have failed.”
Dr Razak told The Vibes that the university also allows candidates to request for regrading whenever suitable.
“We welcome comments through the e-aduan system https://medic.usm.my/e-aduan, whereby the identity of the person is protected.
“We also believe that there is always room for improvement.” – The Vibes, May 31, 2022
