THE Fiji Medical Council has approved a committee that will look at establishing medical student internship standards.
Fiji Medical Association president Dr Alipate Vakamocea told those present at the FMA 2025 Annual Scientific Conference in Nadi yesterday, emphasising that medical students who've graduated should not be giving away medical officer positions to people from outside Fiji.
"One of our main indicators over the next couple of years we discussed it multiple times in our conferences last year was looking at improving medical internship standard," Dr Vakamocea said.
"So, we sit at the Fiji Medical Council, and the Fiji Medical Council has now approved a committee that will look at establishing internships standards."
He said this would involve a proper structured medical internship training "with possible an exam either at the beginning of the internship or at the end".
"The committee will have to decide, and this is going to be used as the standard for accepting even if we get external graduates coming into Fiji who want to be practicing, they will have to go through some sort of modified internship training.
"We have been receiving a lot of requests like people from Pakistan, India, China, Southeast Asia
"They all have been messaging the Fiji Medical Association Facebook account asking how they can come and work in Fiji.
"And so, this is the space we have been protecting for quite some time, and I am going to honest with you when we hear this at the council as the FMA representative our job is to protect the medical interest of Fiji.
"We do not think that it is in the best interest of our graduated medical students to be giving away medical officer positions to people from outside Fiji."
He said overseas medical doctors can only be considered for the role of a specialist.
"Now the caveat here is unless you are a specialist
"So, if you are a specialist we know those are the areas where we are unable to provide specialist services please come to Fiji.
"It's the general practice one, where we have got two medical schools, and we are graduating almost 200 students and it's our responsibility as FMA to ensure that these students, when they finish internships, they have got medical officer positions
"So, this is one of the position we have had for quite some time.
"And it all goes to enhancing the professional standard and competence."