Everybody thinks being a doctor is a miracle and he can make big money and assume as noble career.
But, for me although I finished my study in medicine, I don’t want to be a doc anymore in Myanmar.
Seriously? Why?
I have some reasons that I don’t wanna do. Check out the following to know life of a doc in Myanmar.
Low Salary.
The official salary of a doc is about 2.5 lakh per month which is equivalent to 250 USD . If you open GP clinic by your own, maximum amount you can charge per a person is 2.5USD .I am saying about ordinary medical doctor not specialist level. Sometimes patients think 2.5 USD is too much for them and they want treatment with cheaper prices. Because of very low treatment fees, most of doctors who are not descendent from wealthy family choose other high salary jobs such as product specialists in pharmaceutical companies, project officer in NGO, medical doctor in private hospitals and so on. Although they still want to study more and want to be a consultant , there are many bars limiting them to be so. Government salaries is the lowest but it can give you an opportunity to obtain a master degree. Therefore, young doctors always want to be government servants regardless of low payment and high workload. But, they can not survive with their salary alone , their families need to support them or find an alternative incomes by opening GP clinic and some other works. In some countries , though monthly salary is not very high, other social welfare services are still supporting to ease the life of government stuffs.
High Workload
Shortage of medical professionals are countrywide crisis in current Myanmar. Former government produced large amount of doctors and nurses in previous decades. But , the government can not hire all those produced medical professions to assign in their vacant positions. Therefore, unemployed doctors nurses and doctors are queuing to answer civil service exam while few number of doctors and nurses are running the hospitals with their uttermost efforts. In a recent years, government conducted free healthcare services in hospitals . As a consequence, the more patients went to hospitals . Free services hospital can provide and quantity of patients needed to care always imbalance. As far as I know , hospitals should take responsibilities for every patients they are able to care. But now, primary and secondary centers are always referring patients to tertiary centers. Some of the patients are not even need to admit in tertiary hospitals. That’s why, hospitals in cities are always a crowded place. No matter what the government is developing more and more building , hospitals can not offer satisfactory care to that patients. So , in Myanmar to get a tender loving care from a doctor is like a miracle of a patient . That’s because of high workload of doctors ,they can not give sufficient amount of time to look after patients.
Competitive
The world is a competitive place .Yes, I understand. Doctors also want to get promotion which can make them breathable in daily struggling . There is two way to choose for doctors if you have been graduated from college. First , will you join civil service or will you answer oversea medical exams and work independently in foreign countries ?
Yes, to answer civil service exam, you need to have generage knowledge about current governments .
In my own opinion, the exam held for doctors are not quite fair. Most of the questions asked in civil service entrance exam are nonsense and nothing related to the doctor career like which bridge in Myanmar is longest ? answer the speech delivered by president in which events ? list the name of leaders in which countries? And so on. So, doctors have to attend tutions to know all these kind of questions. In my personal experience, the smartest student in medical school can even fail in that exam while the dumbest one can pass easily. That’s why I am saying the exam is not fair.
You have to pass through if you want to be a government doctor. Another step is 4 month training in central government servant training school. They have to do exercise , carry guns and practice to shoot and listen boring lectures which are just propaganda. It’s more like a soft military training.
If you successfully overcome these steps ,you officially became government doctor , that’s why you have to go to place you are being assigned. You still have to wait another year to sit entrance test of master class. Most of the doctors failed in first time because few candidates are selected from many doctors . It also depends on the subjects you choose. Some peripheral subjects are less popular and you are easy to win while popular subjects like medicine and OG have less chance to pass.
Another way apart from government staff is answering oversea medical exams like MRCP, MRCS etc.
It is also not an easy way also. You need to have sufficient amount of money to have a chance to answer these exams. Tution and exam fees are very expensive of an ordinary doctor descendent from middle class family. Total cost might even reach 5000 USD for one attempt. If you failed in that exam, all the money lost. That’s why you need to be qualified before you answer that examinations. That’s why these oversea exams are like for doctors with rich family background . Meanwhile ordinary doctors who needed to support families are opening GP or work in high salary NGOs and pharmaceutical companies .
I will continue to write this article…
Let me stop here.
Arthur Chan