Tips on purchasing house at Malaysia

1) Purpose of buying the house
Some people buy it as part of their investment. They will rent the house to the potential tenant and may sell it in the future. Some people will purchase it and to stay at the house for long term and most likely until they retired. Depending on the purpose of purchasing the property, the type and the location of the house may differ significantly.

 2) Eligibility of the housing loan
 Most people are unable to afford to purchase a property by cash. Hence most of them will turn to the banks to apply for housing loan. The banks will look at several factors prior approving your loans. Those include;
 a) CCRIS (Central Credit Reference Information System)
- this is a centralised database in Malaysia which can be accessed by all of the financial institution - the database will display all of your credit status (loan amout, outstanding payment etc) for the past 12 months. Note that any record more than 12 months will be deleted from the system. Hence, you need to make sure to have good financial record 12 months prior to apply for loan. - if you have poor CCRIS record which means that you are at high risk of defaulting a loan, it will significantly affect your loan approval status

 In the past, you need to go to branches of Central Bank of Malaysia (BNM) to print out your CCRIS record. Now, you can view your CCRIS record online (Requires you to go to BNM branch once to get the pin number) (https://eccris.bnm.gov.my/)

b) Debt Service Ratio (DSR)
This is a ratio used to calculate the percentage of your income that can be used to pay the monthly installments. Rough calculation: Sum of all your commitments (house loan, car loan, personal loan etc) divided by your total income multiplied by 100 Each bank have different way of calculating your DSR and have different guidelines on the level of acceptable DSR Bank A may accept up to 60% of DSR and Bank B may be up to 70%. Hence, it is imperative to go to several banks to check on your eligibility criteria for housing loan

c) Margin of finance (loan to value ratio, LTV)
This means that how much the bank will give you the loan. Most banks can give loan up to 90% of the property price for the first house and the percentage will get lower as you purchase second or third house. Hence, if your loan is only 90% of the price, you need to prepare cash for the remaining 10%.

Salam Aidil Fitri

Jika jiwa sebening air,
Maka jangan keruhkan,
Jika hati seputih awan,
Jangan mendungkan.

Berakhir sudah bulan Ramadhan,
Moga bertemu semula tahun hadapan,
Raih kemenangan dengan saling bermaafan,
Salam Aidilfitri buat sahabat taulan.


* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
• ˚Selamat★* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★Hari Raya!★ 。* • ˚。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門｜ ˚

The journey of housemanship

It has been quite long since I have posted anything in this blog.

I was surfing the net and accidentally came across a blog written by my junior colleague whom recently completed the housemanship. Whilst reading the blog, it reminds me about my own journey.

The period of housemanship or internship at Malaysia will usually take up about 2 years to be completed, provided that you do not have any extensions in any of the six compulsory postings.

Nowadays, the duration of waiting to get a place in the housemanship has been getting longer and longer. This is mainly due to limited places available in the training hospital. I foresee that this problem will not be resolved in the near future and it will get more complicated as more local and overseas medical students graduated for the next few years. I personally believed the main problem is attributed to mushrooming of the local medical schools with poor governance by the relevant ministry.

The period of housemanship has been quite challenging for me. The initial transition period has been initially quite daunting for me as I graduated from non-local medical school. For the first few weeks, I was trying very hard to learn and understand the medical abbreviations used in Malaysia. There were significant differences of abbreviation used in Malaysia in comparison to my previous medical school. Apart from that, I also need to comprehend the working attitude and culture which was significantly different from what I was previously taught.

I still remember that I have to go to the hospital very early in the morning in order to take the blood samples from the patient. At the same time, I need to review the patient and present my assessment to the superior. It was tough but it gets better with time and experience. 

We are also expected to learn all the essential survival skills during the housemanship in case we were to be send to small district hospital in the future.

With the passage of time, I have managed to overcome the initial hurdle. I met many friends along the journey in which few of them I met again in the future. The learning curve during the housemanship is very steep but in retrospect, that knowledge will be quite useful in the future. It helps you to understand the way things perceived in each specialty and assist you to make a good referral to the appropriate team.

I guess that by surviving the journey of housemanship, it helps you to build your own character and assist you in deciding your future pathway.

For those people who will be entering housemanship soon, I wish you all the best. 

When you are reaching the lowest point during the housemanship, remind yourself again and again the main reason of you choosing this career.  Turn your stumbling blocks as stepping stones. 

Dont ever give up as there are always light at the end of the darkest tunnel.

Preparation for MRCP

For my non-medical readers, MRCP stands for Membership of Royal College of Physician. In Malaysia, it represents post graduate examination for those doctors who would like to specialise in the internal medicine. After successfully passed the exam, then the doctor could pursue in other sub-specialty such cardiology, endocrinology, neurology etc.

There are three components of the exam: part 1, part 2A and part 2B (PACES). I have passed both part 1 and part 2A and currently sitting for part 2B (PACES). Both part 1 and part 2A have multiple choice questions examination papers whereas the part 2B have clinical examination stations.

For part 1, I find that by answering online questions have been quite helpful for my study. I subscribed to Pastest and able to finish the entire question bank. Apart from that, I have been reading Essential Revision Notes for MRCP by Philip A. Kalra as my main textbook.

For part 2A, apart from answering online questions and using Rapid Review of Clinical Medicine for MRCP Part 2 by Shanjay Sharma for my textbook, I find that it was quite useful to create study group to pass the exam. The book by Shanjay Sharma was quite outdated (the latest edition was published in 2006!) and need to cross-check with the latest guideline. However, the algorithms published in the book was quite outstanding and help me to familiarise with the topics.

The art of medicine

Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability

 -William Osler-