“Wear the white coat with dignity and pride; it is an honour and privilege to get to serve the public as a physician.”
– Bill H. Warren, American radiologist
I’LL start off by asking this question: why are we breaking our young doctors before they can heal others?
Our government hospitals are meant to be halls of healing. But behind the white coats, beneath the promise of professionalism and compassion, a silent crisis has taken root.
It is not caused by lack of medicine or equipment, nor by underfunding or bureaucracy alone, but by a culture that has gone unchallenged for far too long: the bullying, humiliation and mental torture inflicted upon our young doctors by some of their seniors and superiors.
We are speaking of young doctors, especially housemen, who enter the medical service full of hope, energy and purpose. They are supposed to learn, grow, and eventually serve as the backbone of Malaysia’s healthcare system.
Yet far too many of them are being broken instead of being built. Shouted at. Publicly humiliated. Called “paloi” (stupid), “useless”, “unreliable”. Some are demeaned in front of patients and peers, stripped of their dignity before they can even begin their careers.
One such case recently shook a government hospital in Sarawak. A young doctor, who had dreamt all her life of serving patients, was left mentally shattered by repeated verbal abuse.
Her mother’s letter to the hospital’s head of department was heart-wrenching. She wrote of her daughter being shouted at twice in one day by a specialist who called her names and ridiculed her work before others.
“If you hear her story, you will know what I mean,” the mother wrote. “Let us not forget that we are dealing with human beings who are young professionals here, and not objects.”
The daughter, who has undergone psychiatric treatment, is only one of many.
The mother’s plea that the hospital “address the root cause” and not wait for a tragedy before opening its eyes should pierce the conscience of every Malaysian.
This incident is not an isolated one. It mirrors countless stories from across the country of young doctors breaking down mentally, some quitting their profession entirely, others suffering in silence.
The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has repeatedly raised alarms. Its HelpDoc hotline has received over a hundred complaints since 2017, mostly from housemen and junior medical officers who have faced workplace bullying, harassment, and emotional abuse.
The Ministry of Health’s own data shows that between October 2022 and early 2024, there were 259 bullying complaints lodged by healthcare workers. Yet, shockingly, only six of these were confirmed as genuine cases after investigation.
If these numbers are to be believed, we must ask why so many allegations do not reach the threshold of “evidence”. Are young doctors lying? Or is the system itself designed in a way that discourages them from speaking up?
The fear of retaliation is real. Many dare not report abusive seniors for fear of being victimised in return through bad evaluations, harsh postings, or being labelled “unfit” for the profession. So they suffer in silence, some sinking into depression, others walking away from medicine altogether.
The loss is staggering. Between 2021 and 2023 alone, more than 1,000 medical graduates resigned from government service. In 2015, it was reported that one in five housemen quit annually.
The trend has worsened. The number of housemen in Malaysia has dropped almost by half since 2019, from over 6,000 to barely 3,200 by 2023.
This is happening at a time when the government is lamenting the shortage of doctors in rural and less developed states like Sarawak and Sabah. It is the height of irony: while the system cries out for more doctors, it is simultaneously driving them away.
Behind every statistic lies a personal tragedy. One father in Kuching recounted how his daughter, who had studied medicine overseas under a government scholarship worth nearly half a million ringgit, quit midway through her housemanship.
After enduring months of verbal abuse and relentless pressure, she suffered a mental breakdown and had to seek psychiatric help.
“I just couldn’t bear to see my beloved daughter go through that torture,” he said. “My child’s mental health and happiness are more important than anything else.”
He had to compensate the government for the bond, but he had no regrets. His story is not unique; it is the quiet heartbreak of many families who see their children’s passion destroyed by cruelty masquerading as “training”.
The excuses are old and tired. Some senior doctors insist that “strictness” and “harsh discipline” are part of the learning process, that they themselves were trained that way. But times have changed, and so has the generation.
Today’s young professionals are not weak; they are simply less willing to accept inhumane treatment as part of professional development.
Medicine is a vocation of healing, and to heal others, one must first not destroy oneself. Yet, the system continues to operate as though emotional and mental wellbeing are luxuries rather than necessities.
Public health expert, Datuk Dr Zainal Ariffin, once called bullying among trainee doctors an “open secret” in most hospitals, a culture tolerated and perpetuated for decades.
He proposed that each hospital set up an internal committee with representatives from administrators, specialists and junior doctors to investigate such cases fairly and effectively.
He was right. The system needs checks and balances, not just guidelines. But years later, little has changed.
Some inconsiderate seniors, who should have been mentors and guides, end up snuffing out the potential of the very people who looked up to them.
A young houseman in Penang reportedly fell to his death in 2022, triggering a national outcry. The task force later found “no strong evidence” linking the tragedy to workplace bullying, but that conclusion rang hollow for many who knew the toxic culture that pervades hospital corridors.
And then there was the case in Sabah where a female doctor, driven into severe depression by years of bullying, withdrew from society entirely, living in isolation for years. Videos of her living conditions shocked the nation.
Her tormentors, it is alleged, have since moved overseas for specialist training, while she remains scarred and broken. The injustice is plain: the bullies move on; the victims are left behind.
What makes this entire issue unforgivable is the authorities’ slow, almost casual response. The Health Minister had promised to set up a special committee to look into bullying among healthcare workers, but its progress remains unclear.
It is time to call this a moral failure. We are losing not only doctors but also the moral foundation of our healthcare system. When compassion dies within hospital walls, when young doctors are crushed instead of cultivated, the system ceases to heal.
The damage is not confined to the victims alone; it seeps into patient care, public trust, and the future of the medical profession itself. If we truly value our healthcare system, the government must act with urgency and sincerity.
We need a nationwide mechanism that protects whistle-blowers, guarantees anonymity, and ensures swift, impartial investigations. Hospitals must be required to report all complaints transparently and publish annual data on the number of cases, the outcomes, and the actions taken.
Disciplinary measures against confirmed bullies must be firm and visible. Senior doctors must undergo mandatory training in leadership, empathy and professional ethics. Above all, medical education itself must evolve to nurture resilience through mentorship, not intimidation.
We must also recognise that mental health is not weakness. A young doctor seeking help for anxiety or depression should not be stigmatised. They should be supported, guided, and given the space to heal. These are individuals who have dedicated years of study, often under extreme pressure, to serve society. The least the system can do is to serve them in return.
For every young doctor who quits, a patient somewhere loses a potential healer. For every one who suffers in silence, the entire system becomes a little less humane. For every case swept under the carpet, another tragedy looms unseen.
Malaysia cannot afford to keep losing its young medical talent to cruelty, arrogance, and bureaucratic indifference. The Health Ministry must not wait for another suicide, another viral story, another broken life before acting decisively. This is not merely a workplace issue; it is a national crisis that strikes at the very heart of our public service.
It is time for our hospitals to become places of healing again; not just for patients, but for the doctors themselves. Because when we heal the healers, we heal the nation.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at rajlira@gmail.com
