Medical sociology in the undergraduate medical curriculum in Malaysia.

Abstract

Malaysia (which includes the Malay peninsula and the states of Sarawak and Sabah in North Borneo) has a culturally diverse population of 10,439,530 (1970 census) composed of Malays (46.8 %), Chinese (34.1 %), Indians (9.0 %), Dayaks (3.7 %), Kadazans (1.8 %), and several indigenous tribes such as the Melanaus, Muruts, Bajaus, Senoi, Obians, Bindans, and Sulus. Seventy-three per cent of the population live in rural areas where they are employed in the cultivation of rice, rubber-tapping, oil-palm cultivation, and forestry. A proportion of those living on the long coastline are engaged in fishing. In such a culturally diverse society, both in terms of ethnic variety and of the urban-rural gradient, the relevance of understanding differences between the patterns of behaviour in peoples of different cultural backgrounds is obvious as tragically illustrated by the riots of 1969 (Malaysia, 1969). In fact, the relevance is so obvious that it has been taken for granted, to a degree, and has not been treated systematically in the curriculum, particularly of the technological sciences. However, in the case of the undergraduate medical curriculum of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, medical sociology has formed part of the curriculum with .gach class of students ever since the first class of 64 medical students was admitted in 1964. Up to date we have had six years of experience in the teaching of medical sociology as a formal course in the initial clinical year (year 111) of thefive-year undergraduate medicalcourse, an outline of which has been described by Danaraj (1970).