Speech at the annual Training and Resource Development Weekend organised by the Malta Medical Students Association

Opening address by Hon Joe Cassar, Minister for Health, the Elderly and Community Care at the annual Training and Resource Development Weekend organised by the Malta Medical Students Association for its members.

Dear Students,

Thank you for inviting me to contribute to this annual weekend once again being organised by the MMSA.

I am indeed very glad to be here with you and especially because the focus of this weekend is on doctors and their development and on MMSA and its contribution to society.

Medicine, doctors and MMSA are of specific and special interest and relevance to me.  Allow me to note that I am a doctor, a psychiatrist, and I take much pride in being so,  and with similar much pride I  sought to contribute to MMSA for quite a few years when I was president of the MMSA in my own student days.

Therefore I couldn’t be more pleased to be invited by MMSA once again. I thank you for this opportunity.

Today I am here to talk to you as Minister of Health, Elderly and Community Care, and this brings me to the essence of the message I would like to share with you today.

You are on your way to be doctors. While you train, I ask you to focus on developing an understanding of the fact that once a doctor each of you will be expected to be behave, to perform, like a doctor, always and everywhere.  Thus you will be bound by the Hippocratic oath all the time, at work as doctors, but also as individuals in a society.

Wherever and whatever role you will play in your lives, even when you are not dealing directly with patients, with clients, with the users of health services, you will be doctors. 

Currently, I am fulfilling the role of Minister, within the Government, however, since I chose to remain part of the esteemed profession of medicine, and although my role obliges me to step away from the direct delivery of care to patients,  I as Minister am still fully bound to remain committed to the oath I once took when I joined the profession.

I sincerely invite you to ensure that you channel your training, and the development of your resources, towards the reality that becoming a doctor is not taking up a job.

Becoming a doctor means joining a profession characterised by specific obligations and responsibilities - encompassed in the Hippocratic oath - and such obligations and responsibilities are to be shouldered by all, always and everywhere.

You may be asking yourselves why I chose to emphasise such a message that highlights the obligations and responsibilities of doctors always and everywhere. I will briefly explain where I am coming from, in the hope that my message will be even clearer.

In my role as Minister I am privileged to meet, and work alongside many exemplary performances and contributions of doctors.

Our various hard working conscientious doctors in our community,  who are often the first port of call of members of our society, our busy committed doctors in our hospitals, our innovative inquisitive doctors engaged in research initiatives here and all over the world, our achieving doctors in the world of academia…..are all a pleasure to witness. I will take the opportunity to harp about their exemplary performance as doctors and to thank them for the inspiration they offer to all of us.

However, I have to admit that, as Minister I also do encounter various unfavourable experiences.  Each one, is simply one to many! I will not dwell on the nature of such experiences as i simply want to point out that in essence such unfavourable experiences simply stem from failings of doctors to truly understand, embrace and shoulder their responsibilities and obligations all the time, even when they are at home, when tired, when stressed, when happy and socialising, when partying.

I am not seeking to patronise you adults here.  I am sharing my experience as doctor, as an past MMSA activist, now a Minister, but still a doctor.

My message is thus clear -  I invite you to focus on developing into individuals who are fit for a profession, whose obligations and responsibilities you will “wear” consistently and constantly and not merely fit for a job as a doctor, which you will clock in and out of,  for a number of hours, 5 or 6 times a week.

Finally, I also promise you that as Minister, I will continue to support you, your training and your development into doctors in any way I can . Supporting the development of professionals within my Ministry tops my agenda.  Rest assured it will remain so.

I augur you all a fruitful experience.

Thank you.