Aim
The creation of a four year structured post-graduate training program in Plastic Surgery.
Background
The School of Medical Sciences, USM, was established in 1979 to train undergraduate medical doctors. This evolved into developing post-graduate training in Medicine, which begun in 1987. Presently there are more than fifteen specialty post graduate training programmes being conducted by The School of Medical Sciences, USM.
In the year of 2000, there were only 33 Plastic Surgeons to provide for the Plastic Surgical care and needs of our 22 million Malaysian population. The training of Plastic Surgeons was originally based on an apprenticeship of three years after a general surgical fellowship or Masters in Surgery qualification. There has been an acute shortage and long-term deficit of trained Plastic surgeons in Malaysia. In 2000 there was a deficit of 147 plastic surgeons and by the year 2002 this increased to 340.
The School of Medical Sciences USM, in collaboration of the Ministry of Health of Malaysia, was given the task to start a training program in Plastic Surgery. A structured training programme, Masters of Surgery (Plastic Surgery), was proposed and approved. The M.S. (Plastic Surgery) programme commenced in July 2001.
Microsurgical and Flap Course
As part of our Plastic Surgical training programme, we conduct a Microsurgical course and Flap Dissection course annually for our Masters students. The courses are the result of collaboration between the various training institutes and medical devices companies. We often invite overseas Plastic Surgeons to complement our local faculty, to conduct these courses for benefit of the participants.
