About 2,000 medical students took to the streets yesterday, urging the Legislative Yuan to amend the Physician’s Act (醫師法) by the end of the spring legislative session to require medical graduates who obtained their qualifications abroad to take exams in Taiwan.
Protesters gathered at Liberty Square in front of National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall, holding up placards that read “Stalling the bill means flunking our health” and “Medical students are not afraid of competition but afraid that tragedies may happen in hospital.”
The protesters from the College of Medicine at Chang Gung University, Taipei Medical University, China Medical University, National Taiwan University and other schools raised their hands, reciting the doctor’s oath as they urged lawmakers to push through the proposed amendment.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“I shall practice medicine with my conscience and dignity. Patients’ health should be my first priority,” they chanted.
The chairman of the Federation of Medical Students in Taiwan Chien Yu-chuan (簡佑全) urged the government to take the proposed amendment seriously and require all medical students graduating from schools overseas to pass qualification examinations in Taiwan.
“The government should also require that all overseas graduates complete an internship at hospitals in Taiwan in a bid to safeguard the health of our people,” Chien said.
The demonstration came in the wake of a recent controversy involving Taiwanese students attending medical schools in Poland when medical students launched an online campaign questioning the quality of medical education there.
In response, Minister of Health Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川) expressed his support for the introduction of qualification examinations and internships in Taiwan for graduates who attend medical school abroad.
However, the move drew criticism from Taiwanese medical students in Poland and their parents, who feared the impact of such a proposed amendment on their careers in Taiwan, while authorities of the Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland traveled to Taiwan to defend the school’s curriculum and the competence of its graduates.
Yeh, along with officials from the Ministry of Education, stood by their proposed amendment during a public hearing on May 6.
“As Taiwanese medical students, we are afraid that the health of the public will be compromised as a result of the poor quality of medical education [in Eastern Europe],” Chien told reporters yesterday.
“We all know that the quality of medical education abroad is uneven and there is also a language barrier. It is impossible for us to have confidence in the quality of medical training and education in every country,” Chien said.
Lin Chin-yi (林親怡), a representative from the School of Traditional Chinese Medicine at Chang Gung University, stressed the importance for overseas medical graduates to completing internships in Taiwan, even though some might have already completed an internship abroad.
She said the graduates would learn from Taiwanese patients during their internship at hospitals, which would help them understand and treat illnesses that were more prominent among people in Taiwan.
A press release by the Taiwan Medical Association said the organization had resolved to support the proposed qualification examinations and internship.
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