Developing Global Public Health Links in Southeast Asia

Abstract

At the end of 2009, the number of medical schools in Malaysia had exceeded 20 and there is every indication that this number, although large for a country of 28 million people, is likely to go up. However, very few medical schools engage in postgraduate programs due to lack of qualified staff and training facilities. Only 4 medical schools have a Master of Public Health (MPH) program. These medical schools are located in the University of Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). Of these 4, only 2 (UM and UKM) have a Doctor of Public Health Program and take in international students for their postgraduate degrees. The oldest and most established public health postgraduate degree program in Malaysia is run by the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine (popularly known as the SPM Department), University of Malaya, which is also the oldest academic public health department in Malaysia. Relative to public health departments in other universities in the Southeast Asian region, the SPM Department is small, with only 12 active academic staff and a further 9 staff who were still on study leave at the end of 2009. This small department delivers 2 general public health master’s programs, 4 specialty master’s in public health, a doctor of public health (DrPH), and PhD program and is the only department in UM’s medical faculty to maintain its own department Web site (http://spm.um.edu.my) since 1999. Since 1974, the SPM Department has produced 612 Master of Public Health and 106 Master in Medical Science (Public Health) graduates, in addition to a number of PhD graduates. Many of these graduates are international and increasingly international students make up a significant number of student intake. Currently half of its master’s and a quarter of its doctoral student intake every year are of international origin.