theSun | TUESDAY AUGUST 11 2009 TELLING IT AS IT IS 13

Tel (Editorial): 03-7784 6688

speak up! Managing Editor: Chong Cheng Hai
Consultant Editor: Zainon Ahmad
Executive Editor: Lee Boon Siew
General Manager, Advertising and Marketing: Charles Peters
Senior Manager, Production: Thomas Kang
Senior Manager, Distribution Channels: Joehari Abdul Jabbar
Fax: 03-7785 2624/5
Email: newsdesk@thesundaily.com
Deputy Editor: Patrick Choo (Production), Tel (Advertising): 03-7784 8888
Editor: R. Nadeswaran (Special Reporting and Investiga- Fax: 03-7784 4424
tions) Email: advertise@thesundaily.com

Intelligent US diplomacy for a change

by Eric S. Margolis
TALK about unexpected conse-
quences. Two American female
journalists foolishly entered forbid-
den North Korea last March. They
were sentenced to 12 years hard
labour.
This set off a remarkable chain
of diplomatic events, culminating
in former US President Bill Clin-
ton’s triumphant rescue mission
last week. He conducted himself
with dignity and gravitas, making
sure never to smile at the North
Koreans. After months of secret
negotiations, the North Koreans
made clear they would release
the captives if Clinton came to get
them. During his presidency, the
US and North Korea came close to
burying the hatchet and ending the
North’s nuclear programme.
But when the Bush neocons
came to power, they quickly
sabotaged Clinton’s deal with
Pyongyang and began beating the
war drums. North Korea was high
on the neocons’ hit list because
they believed it threatened Israel
by selling missile technology to Iran
and the Arabs. The neocons are
now spreading the scare story that
North Korea is selling bankrupt My-
anmar a reactor to make nuclear
weapons.
The captives are home. But was
it right to give in to North Korea’s
obvious diplomatic blackmail? What
about abducted South Koreans and
Japanese being held under horrible
conditions in North Korea?
Morality says no, but common
sense says yes. This case was
too important to ignore. Isolated,
threadbare North Korea desperately
craves recognition by the US and
an end to punishing sanctions. The
US refuses both, treating Stalinist
North Korea as a pariah state.
North Korea has at least six
nuclear weapons aimed at Japan
and South Korea, where nearly 100,000
US military personnel are based. Wash-
ington’s recent threats to stop and board
North Korean merchantmen on the high
seas brought the two nations to the
brink of hostilities.
Add to the tensions a looming suc-
cession struggle in North Korea. During
Clinton’s visit, the reclusive, ailing North
Korean “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-il looked
wizened, frail, and old. No one is certain
who will take charge after the “Beloved
Leader”.
Clinton and the Obama administra-
tion made the right move at the right
time. Clinton’s visit may thaw frozen
negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear
weapons. Kim’s nukes are not designed
to attack the US but to deter the US from
using its nuclear weapons against North
Korea.
Everyone in tense North Asia will be
relieved. North Korea is a bomb waiting
to go off. The US is the only nation that
seems capable of keeping some sort
of order in the region and even helping
North Korea achieve an orderly post-Kim
succession. The US also plays a key role
in keeping Japan and Korea from each
others throats, and modulating Japa-
nese-Chinese tensions.
Japan, South Korea and even China
mightily fear North Korea will implode
when the “Beloved Leader” is no more.
Ugly and brutal as his regime is, this devil
we know may be better than what could
come next.
North Korea’s collapse could send
millions of starving refugees into South
Korea, China, and across the narrow sea
to Japan. This column hears talk that
China has a contingency plan to send its
army into North Korea if it collapses.
South Korea is terrified by the
prospect of what it calls “unexpected
reunification”, meaning the titanic cost
of feeding 23.4 million starving North
Koreans and rebuilding that dirt-poor
nation. Japan is not anxious to see a
united Korea. China does not want to see
a US-dominated united Korea that would
threaten its sensitive northeast industrial
and military region.
Those two amateur reporters did
everyone a favour by allowing Wash-
ington to reconnect to Pyongyang. This
process must not be allowed to stop.
Washington should join South Korea,
Japan, China and Russia in preparing for
the post-Kim era by opening wider talks
with Pyongyang, discreetly assure North
Korea it will not be attacked, and relax-
ing sanctions in exchange for important
concessions from Pyongyang.
This is intelligent diplomacy. Kudos
to Bill Clinton.
Eric S. Margolis is a contributing editor
to the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers,
writing mainly about the Middle East
and South Asia. Comments: letters@
thesundaily.com

letter
letters@thesundaily.com

Limit housemanship
to one year
THE report, “Longer training
– Housemanship for medical grads
doubled to two years” (Aug 4), re-
vealed a number of rather intriguing
facts regarding the training of our
medical house officers.
First, it was surprising that about
4,000 new doctors are recruited
into the Health Ministry every year.
This is indeed a very large number,
to be adequately trained in all the
major disciplines before being sent
to hospitals. The job is a formidable
one considering the number and
the ministry must be commended.
However, despite the addition of
this many doctors every year, we are
told to be acutely short of doctors
and specialists. It takes weeks, even
months for patients to be seen by a
specialist in government hospitals.
Where do all these doctors go on
completion of their training? If they
are leaving the government service,
why are they doing so in droves?
It is alarming that the recent
study in 28 general hospitals re-
vealed that 67.8% of trainee doctors
found their training stressful, 53%
had thought of quitting due to the
stress, 21.8% required counselling,
5.8% needed specific treatment.
This is an unsatisfactory state of
affairs that needs further scrutiny
to prevent any repercussions on
our health care.
How can we expect to have
committed, dedicated and capable
doctors and specialists when more
than half of them had chosen the
wrong profession and considered
quitting in the first place?
The high “morbidity” of our
trainee doctors is an indication
that most of them have wrongly
chosen their career in medicine.
Many of them opted because of
the perceived glamour, the respect
it commanded in society and the
material gains that it could bring.
Others chose medicine due to
parental pressure although they
did not have much interest in the
job. I am surprised to know of
many medical students who don’t
like the sight of sick people let
alone deal with them. How can you
expect to become a good doctor
when you don’t like the company
of patients? Parents and students
must be truthful to themselves and
fair to the patients when choosing
medicine as their career.
It is timely for the ministry
to select medical students who
have the right aptitude. It may be
difficult but it must come up with
some guiding principles so that the
right people get selected. Although
academic credentials are important
the system of selection must give
equal importance to the overall at-
titude and aptitude of the individual
to take up medicine. The least we
could do is to avoid choosing the
wrong individual for the job.
Providing a more comprehen-
sive training to include all six major
disciplines is good but has this to
be done by doubling the duration
of housemanship? Medicine is a
rapidly developing field and we
cannot keep increasing the period
of housemanship to cope with the
increasing influx of new knowledge
and technology. What is important
is to provide the basic training in the
important disciplines to make them
caring and safe doctors.
They should be given their due
promotion after a year of houseman-
ship and may be retained slightly
longer in the major hospitals for
training in other critical disciplines
as needed. After five to six years of
strenuous undergraduate training it
would be unfair to maintain them as
house officers for another two long
years as that would only exaggerate
the already severe stress they are
being subjected to.
The director general of health,
Tan Sri Mohd Ismail Merican, should
be commended for directing his
specialists to be more professional
and train and teach their housemen
with extra care and civility. Stress
is not only inevitable but neces-
sary in medical training especially
when treating the critically ill but
it could be greatly alleviated if the
specialists training them are con-
siderate, humane and fair to those
under their care. They should not
just impart knowledge and skills
unselfishly but also instill the right
attitude towards the patients by
their own exemplary and caring
behaviour.
Dr Chris Anthony
Butterworth