3 Things That Puzzled Me Last Week
By: Professor Datuk Dr. A Rahman A Jamal
1. When some of our academicians are referred to internationally but not by our local fraternity.
During the past week a good friend of mine, Professor Dato’ Dr. Syed Mohd AlJunid was in Saudi Arabia with his ITCC-UKM team to conduct workshops on their MY-DRG casemix system. They were invited by the Saudi health authorities to implement the casemix system in a few hospitals there. The MY-DRG casemix is the first grouper system in the world capable of grouping acute, sub-acute and chronic long-stay cases in the hospitals. In fact, the casemix system developed by Dato’ Syed’s team is now used by many hospitals overseas including the 1700 hospitals in Indonesia. The sad thing is that Dato’ Dr. Syed AlJunid is not fully utilized by our own Ministry of Health for reasons that I cannot even fathom. Dato Syed is the first health economist Malaysia ever had. His credentials are second to none. I personally believe we should use his expertise not only in case mix but also in the steering committee to look at the development of the healthcare financing system in Malaysia which we doctors and the public have been waiting for a long time.
Ìý2. When the powers-that-be appoint those who have little credentials as leaders of key positions and important committees
 This is not an easy thing for me to highlight as it will touch on many nerves and also sensitivities. I cannot even mention which committees or even agencies as the backlash will not only affect me but also those connected to me. I just want to say that for Malaysia to move forward we must really practice meritocracy in selecting leaders for key positions or members sitting in important panels. We must stop the politicization of the selection of leaders especially in academia. The strength of an institution or a panel is centred around a strong effective leader. We are not short of outstanding leaders. It’s just that we keep on repeating the mistake of choosing the wrong leader.
3. When we invest so little in research and yet expect miracles to happen
 In the past few months all of us have been watching the trend of publications of our local universities for 2014 to see the impact of the reduction of amount of funding allocated for the research universities (RU). Last week we received news that this year (2015) the amount given to the RUs have been drastically reduced to a mere RM20 million. Each RU used to get between RM80-100 million per year previously. We have to sympathise with the Vice Chancellor and his management team who have to think of creative ways to achieve more with less amount of money. On the ground, our researchers continue to double their efforts to get the FRGS, LRGS, Science Fund and other grants, but the fact remains that we are not putting enough money into the universities. We are constantly reminded to emulate Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard but let us not kid ourselves. Those universities have large operational funding grants and pump in billions of dollars into research plus a strong endowment from their alumni members. Perhaps we should all sit down and relook at the landscape and rethink the strategies. Otherwise, the concept of the research universities is just not sustainable.