Dec 11, 2016

Program Transformasi Minda


The thing about Program Transformasi Minda (PTM) is that

1. Its name is totally cliche and corny.
2. It takes a lot of days just to tell you things that you sort of know already.
3. It is compulsory before you can become the penjawat awam (civil servant).


So let me share with you my 5-day experience going to the PTM.


1. Don't be late.

Unless you love being late, and being late gives you earthly pleasure, which in this case you can skip this. Registration starts at 2.30 pm, and in the morning you can go to the LHDN to matikan setem hasil (see previous entry). I arrived at the hotel around 2 pm where my PTM course took place and queuing up registering to collect the hotel room card key. 


At the counter I met two Manipal graduates, I and S, who are super nice and also in need for the third roommate. I was all down for it, feeling glad there are friendly people who are willing to invite me instead of me awkwardly ask around to complete the trio. 


We quickly went to our room, put our luggage down, and went to the PTM registration place at the meeting rooms. Already there are people waiting. 


2. Bring ALL your prepared documents

You know how insufficient information brings out the anger in people, especially when dealing with official businesses? It seems they are quite excelled in that. Okay, it's like this. You know that there are two set of documents you need to prepare for the housemanship, right?

→ The set of documents for PTM
→ The set of documents for reporting in (lapor diri) at the designated hospital

You need to bring BOTH sets of documents to the PTM. I know in the letter it said you only need to bring 4 documents to the PTM while in the other longer list you need to bring them when you report to your hospital. But the PTM wants to see all your prepared documents as they claimed the hospital staff won't have the time to check whether you got your documents sorted out correctly or not.


I have covered on all of the required documents in my previous entry, although they are not really presented in a list. But you can read them up and have a picture of what to prepare. Anyway, before I went to the PTM, I have prepared all the documents beforehand. 


What I did was I put all my documents inside a clear plastic folder. The one that comes with clear plastic sheets and you put the documents inside those plastic sheets. Get the picture? No? Anyway, mark labels on the pages or sheets so you know how many copies of those documents you have prepared for PTM and the lapor diri. 


I was one of the earliest to register (because the PTM staff was late in setting up camp and I came prepared) and I was done by 3 pm. Please, please, please prepare your documents early and get it organized in a folder. You wouldn't want to start photocopying your documents on that registration day - it's a colossal waste of time!


3. Be prepared to get bored. A lot.

The government has A LOT to say to you before you enter their ranks as service provider. There is a number of lectures (ceramah) that you must attend. Some are of 2-hour duration (those are pure torture) and some only take an hour. I know those lectures sound so dry and didn't I mention boring as hell? - but in hindsight, they (some) are actually (a little bit) important.

I have with me a number of lectures present in the PTM (subject to change):

  • Ujian Psikologi
  • Modul Diagnosa, Morbiditi dan Mortaliti
  • Etika Perubatan dan Perundangan
  • Pengurusan Pelanggan (Budaya Korporat)
  • Pengenalan Kepada Laluan Kerjaya Dalam Perkhidmatan Awam
  • Ekspektasi Ketua Jabatan dan Peranan Kepada Masyarakat
  • Introdution to Malaysian Medical Association
  • Pengenalan kepada Organisasi KKM
  • Tatakelakuan dan Tatatertib - Aku Janji
  • Peraturan Pegawai dan Perintah-perintah Am
  • Pengurusan Integriti dan Keselamatan - Integriti (oh the irony!)
  • Pengurusan Integriti dan Keselamatan - Rasuah 
  • Pengurusan Integriti dan Keselamatan - Keselamatan
  • Kemahiran Komunikasi Berkesan
  • Hala Tuju Negara
  • Menjana Negara Sejahtera dan Bahagia
  • Overview Perkhidmatan Awam
  • Sistem Pentadbiran Negara
  • Garis Panduan Preskripsi Ubat-ubatan KKM



There are also exercises and group work to be done in the 5 days of PTM.

  • 50 essay questions revolving the topics of the lectures - click here for the answers to those 50 soalan esei PTM.
  • PTM exam - 20 questions with the 20% weightage in order to pass your PTM course. The questions are taken from 60 bank questions. Click here for those questions and answers to those Soalan dan Jawapan Ujian PTM.
  • Sketch show - this is a group work where you need to perform an act scene that covers the theme required
  • Presentation - also a group work where you draw something on the majong paper and answer the questions required


4. PTM is the place to calm down.

Imagine being the only person from your university, coming to the PTM course where people there came in groups. There are UITM grads, the Manipals, Ireland peeps, Egypt universities, etc. And there's me, who was facing 111  people and not knowing any of them.


I am a self-acclaimed insecure person when it comes to my education and skills. I feel very inferior when talking or seeing other people. It gets worse when I don't have a clue what the hell they were talking about. But coming to PTM, seeing different people studying medicine under different systems and environments made me realised something:

We are all scared shitless about entering housemanship.


This is something new and totally alien to us. This is no mere memorizing or understanding concepts or practicing examinations on people. No more skipping classes or going back early from hospital.


And the system would be different. Different terminology and abbreviation used. Different working hours and different type of pressure. But the most important thing to remember is that every single of us will experience the same thing. We now are in the same boat. So take comfort in sharing your experience and concerns with each other during PTM - it would do you a world of good and it would take some worries off your head. So chillax and take a breather!

WE ALL IN THIS TOGETHERRRR 🎢🎡




But oh boy, I do have something to rant about before I end this entry:

As you guys probably aware of, my batch is the first batch of houseman under lantikan kontrak, which took 3 long years for the ministry to plan and in haste, made into action when the PM announced about it during 2017 budget. There is a few differences between lantikan tetap and lantikan kontrak.


For instance, under lantikan kontrak, being MIA (missing in action) for 14 consecutive days will result in your termination of service for good. This is to curb the existing problem of problematic HOs who went down under the stress - the stories that I've heard included HOs coming in to the hospital only to clock in the attendance and disappeared, only to return at night for clocking out. Those people apparently cannot be fired from service as they are protected under the Labour law or something. These people are wasting money and their place are well suited to other people who are waiting to be HOs. I condone these MIA people, but I cannot say I don't understand their trouble. Everyone has their own plight, and without proper and enough support everyone can crack under pressure.


Lantikan kontrak HOs have fewer type of cuti. But the most important cuti, the annual 25 Hari Cuti Rehat is the same. We cannot take more than 10 days of Cuti Rehat in ONE posting, so it's like this: 8 days for the 1st posting, another 8 days for the 2nd one, and 9 days for the third one. Note that Cuti Rehat is not the same as the off days we get every week.


Lantikan kontrak HOs have the same salary and allowances as those under lantikan tetap. These two topics, cuti and gaji, are the most important topics we wanted to know. In fact, those two are the ONLY things that we care about LOL.


But the difference between gaji and cuti is that, gaji is our hak. Our rights to be paid. On the other hand, cuti is our privilege. To be given when it's available to be given away. So be prepared about not getting leave or having to work during public holidays.


Depending on your performance, some of us will get to do their housemanship under 18 months only. These are the excellent HOs. The ministry recognizes these talents and are willing to cut down their training period (yeah right. Actually they want to free up the HO placement as quickly and as many as they could). The maximum duration of our contract is 3 years, meaning there are roughly 12 months of extension period (for those who got extended). After finishing the housemanship, we will be offered either

  1. Medical Officer lantikan tetap - in which case, congratulations, you made it.
  2. Medical Officer lantikan kontrak - boohoo to you, either because of your not-so-stellar performance during housemanship or there is no more placement for lantikan tetap, you are thrown to do MO under contract based. As of now, there is NO plan made by the ministry yet regarding this MO lantikan kontrak issue. The way they are as of now, once you get the MO lantikan kontrak, you have to do 2-year compulsory service before being terminated from the service. 

This irritates me to no end. But what to do? Just hope my housemanship won't be as bad as I thought. Sabar je la.

17 comments:

  1. Hello. I would like to know how kkm place you for PTM? I decided to apply hospital in Sabah for this May 2017 HO intake. I'm from semenanjung, will my PTM in Sabah, Or in Semenanjung? This new HO contract is so confusing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, congratulations for making this far! Well, when you get the hospital of your choosing, they will tell you where the PTM will take place. Usually, the PTM will be done in the same state that you'll go, except maybe those in Malacca and N9 where they'll share one PTM place (as N9 only has 2 hosp and Malacca has 1 hosp)

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  2. Hi, do we have few days break after PTM , before we lapor diri in hospital?

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    Replies
    1. It all depends on your hospital, really. Different hospitals have their own lapor diri date. Some might have, some might have not. Good luck!

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  3. Hey Safuan, thanks for this informative post! About the 18 month program, do you know how it works? Is it something we decide at the start of our hos?

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    Replies
    1. Hey May,

      Unfortunately we all are still left in the dark about this. From what some of us gather, to be eligible for this you must never be extended, to have the performance score of 85% and above, and that you must finish the O&G, medical and one surgical-based (either Surgical or Ortho).

      All these are not verified, tho. I cannot claim to say this is how it works. Suffice to say a lot of us are not even thinking about it anymore. We are still focusing on how to survive day to day basis LOL

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  4. i know that this is rude to ask of you, but do you have a referral to a blog about the busiest hospital in the most southern state of our country? (yeah, it's to prevent tagging from brother g ><). i enjoy your posts but i was hoping i'd be able to dig up some information since i'm posting there soon. many apologies for the unreasonable request, once again mentioning that i really do enjoy reading your updates!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have a number of friends working there,actually, since my university uses that hospital as one of the training hospitals. I don't know any blog that's coming from a HO working there,tho. If you do find one please let me know! I would love to read it as well.


      That said hospital is actually one of the busiest in the nation. Housemanship there is gonna be brutal, but most people survive it, and hopefully so will you. Good luck!!

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    2. Thanks Safuan!

      I hope you don't mind me taking the opportunity to ask you this. Are there any regulations on whether short sleeved baju kemeja being enforced onto the male staff in hospitals? That seems to be the only peep I have left unsolved since nobody has opened this topic before. Aside from being the most insistent rule stated that no short sleeved formalwear are allowed during PTM, what are your thoughts about essential ward attire, in both your hospital and perhaps in that said hospital?

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    3. Well, I do find people wearing short sleeved shirt to work, even MOs, but not many of them do so. I personally found wearing short sleeved shirt is weird, especially when we have to wear the white coat over it. It doesn't look nice to me. But it's just me, LOL.


      You will find within the hospital, between the departments themselves, that different attire exist. For instance, in my hospital there are two departments that enforced male staff to wear a tie to work, whereas in other departments you don't have to do so. On weekends you can even wear t-shirts to work, providing they have collars. But again, confirm first with the rules of your department in your hospital. Each department is like it's own country with their own set of rules and arrangements, so sometimes you will wonder why must everything be different from one another when they are all actually under one umbrella hospital.


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  5. hi, first of all, u r doing a great job by writing this blog..zillion of thanks for all the info and may god bless u for that..i have a doubt regarding the 8days 'cuti rehat' each posting..can we apply direct 8 days off in case if we wanna travel out of country? and how early shud we apply for it?

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    Replies
    1. Hi, thank you for your compliment! Regarding the cuti rehat 8 days, I would say it is near impossible to apply for a leave that is more than 3 days long. It is just not doable.

      First, I doubt it that there's a lot of housemen working in whatever dept you will be in to let you be on leave for a week.

      2, no one will approve of your 1-week leave because then a lot of people will want that as well and you can't approve for everyone to have leave that long.

      3. You have to apply to the admin if you want to leave the country. Being a civil servant is like that. You cannot just simply book a flight ticket and leave. And a houseman applying for a travel overseas? Likely to be rejected.

      4. Let say you want to go to Bangkok, so let say you took a three day leave (4 days, if your leader is generous), most of the long leave you can apply as an EOP (end-of-posting) leave, meaning as your are nearing the end of one dept post, you take leave on the last week you are in the posting. It depends on the dept posting but to be safe try to apply a week in advance.

      Hope this helps!

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    2. *correction*
      ...try to apply A MONTH in advance.

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    3. thanks for the clarification..

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  6. Hai..if nk apply for cuti kawin? How long selalunya dorang bagi? Thanks

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    Replies
    1. Kena ikut department.. if they are generous, paling lama they'll give you up to 5 days. If not, 3 days.

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