What does it take to be an occupational therapist in Malaysia?

I often come across this question, particularly from (1) occupational therapy colleagues abroad who would be keen to experience working and living in this hot tropical country of mine. (2) Malaysians who have heard about this exciting new field and are looking at it as an alternative to medicine / dentistry / pharmacy (which everybody applies for).

The great thing is that most occupational therapy work ends at about 5-6pm, when it's less hot and you can go enjoy the pool or the beach straight after. (I spend plenty of time in the pool myself, living in Kuala Lumpur most of the time. I would like to spend more time at the beach, but that shall be my reward when I move back to Penang for good in a few years time.) No on-call time but some occupational therapists may work weekends (especially those who are self-employed like me, but I work all the time. Don't compare my work schedule to a typical Malaysian occupational therapist's.)

For occupational therapists from other countries who want to work here (or for Malaysians who studied abroad).

Here's the thing, occupational therapy in Malaysia is not (yet) a licensed profession. This means that there is a lot of freedom as far as practice is concerned. It's also how I get to work on some pretty awesome innovations to my practice that may not necessarily be allowed in developed countries (out of caution, and the fear of being sued) but which could contribute to better outcomes for clients. It also means more opportunities for accelerated professional growth as fresh graduates are often thrown into the deep end with no (or very little) supervision and they have to swim fast and well - for the sake of their clients. It is not uncommon for a fresh graduate to have to be in charge of setting up their own department here, due to the lack of experienced manpower.

There's a downside to this however, as it also means that fresh graduates who cannot meet the standards of care risk jeopardising the well-being of clients. Fortunately, I think many of our fresh graduates are aware of their responsibility and therefore are careful to proceed with caution. That's why our profession grows kind of slowly in Malaysia. :) another downside is that any body can call themselves an occupational therapist (or as is typically the case, claim that they are providing occupational therapy services) and get away with it - we can't take legal action against them, we can't do anything about it besides keep the public informed (about how to recognise good and bad practices, how to know whether their occupational therapy is working for them, etc). This too should be seen as part of the learning curve for an occupational therapist in Malaysia - public outreach, a very important skill.

Anyways, here's what you can do to qualify as an occupational therapist in Malaysia (if you are not one already).

Diploma in Occupational Therapy

Government institution courses offered by the Ministry of Health and UiTM (which takes in applicants according to race, so if you're not bumiputera your chances of qualifying for this particular course are pretty much nil). Offered in very few private colleges - maybe 2? - due to lack of manpower (not enough qualified teachers). This is typically a 3-year course.

Bachelor's degree in Occupational Therapy

Offered by only two government institutions (UiTM and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia - the National University of Malaysia, which is where I studied) and one private institution (tuition fees are about RM80K for this one,) The Bachelor's degree is a 4 year course with honours. Everybody has to do a thesis at their 4th year and everybody gets an honours.

Upgrading from diploma to bachelor's degree

Choices are very limited and I could write a whole blog post about this. However, if you're reading this and you're representing a foreign university - WE NEED YOUR HELP. An affordable top-up course for our diploma holders would be really appreciated! (I have a personal vested interest in this because Ter Fu is a DipOT by virtue of the course he got into - for his intellect and level of knowledge, I think he deserves a degree - and can't find suitable options to upgrade, so if you've got ideas, please contact us!) The Malaysian system doesn't allow for upgrading from Diploma to Masters - even though I know it's possible and that universities from abroad accept diploma students for their Masters courses, but it won't show in the pay grades which kind of negates the purpose of investing in higher education (for many people anyways) if you can't make the returns to pay for it.

My advice to Malaysian occupational therapy students is typically, make that time in your studies count (and that would be another upcoming blog post - why and how to make the time in your studies count.) It makes all the difference in terms of launching a successful career in an undeveloped market like this, i.e. when you're out working, you won't have as much access to freely available resources anymore! I was very fortunate to have the kind assistance of many occupational therapists and students worldwide who made all the difference to my studies. More on that later!

What can Malaysian occupational therapists contribute to occupational therapy knowledge internationally?

I think with our high percentage of Muslim occupational therapists, society where religion stills plays a very important role in our everyday lives, and reasonably good skills in English (we're not perfect, but we do have a higher level of English skills than many other Asian countries), Malaysian occupational therapists actually have the opportunity to play a very important role in the development of culturally relevant occupational therapy for Muslims around the world.

With Islam as the second largest world religion, but with most occupational therapy interventions more slanted towards the Western way of living, we can see that occupational therapy that is compliant with the Muslim way of life is quite under-served and there is much that Malaysian occupational therapists can contribute in the development of this area, not just in developing interventions, but also in terms of educating non-Muslim occupational therapists around the world who have Muslim clients to serve.

Personally, I am not a Muslim occupational therapist. I'm actually Buddhist. But I am spearheading some efforts to develop culturally relevant occupational therapy for Chinese communities (alongside occupational therapist colleagues from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and of course - Malaysia). With 500, 000, 000 (500 million! Wow!) overseas Chinese and 1.35 billion people living inside China itself (20% of the world's population!), all sharing a common ethnic, cultural background with daily living practices very much unique to their Confucian culture, the dominance of Western-based occupational therapy practice (and subsequent lack of culturally relevant occupational therapy for this population) means large numbers of people unable to benefit fully from what occupational therapy has to offer.

If we don't do something about this issue, who would we expect to take on the responsibility? This is the same question I ask people when they ask me why I choose to remain in this country to develop the occupational therapy profession when I could very easily get a job elsewhere - if not me, who else?

First Post!

After years of procrastination, I finally get round to setting up a blog where I actually write posts. Why have I never set up a blog all this while?

1. I didn't think I would be able to maintain the regular updates.
2. I thought too much (what if I get a more professional site later, how would I be able to maintain it? I want to be able to optimise the blog to be able to generate income from the beginning but how do I do that?, blah blah blah.)

Finally, I just decided to get around to it!



Why?

1. There are very minimal resources about occupational therapy in Asia and Malaysia. If we don't do something, who are we waiting for?
2. I keep posting things on Facebook and losing them. I need a better archive.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep this occupational therapy blog afloat long enough for it to play a significant role in online occupational therapy resources, particularly about occupational therapy practice in Malaysia and Asia in general. Onwards and upwards!