18 April 2017
By LULWA SHALHOUB
JEDDAH: Interns of private medical schools are “tweet-campaigning” against a halt to their monthly allowances without prior notice. “This decision is arbitrary, inhumane and unfair,” Dr. Bader Al-Jumah, founder of the @InternRewards account on Twitter, told Arab News.
Hundreds of medical interns who were directly affected by the Education Ministry’s decision took to Twitter to vent and discuss their struggle.
Al-Jumah said he decided to gather all those Twitter users under one umbrella and start @InternRewards, which now has 517 followers. Active hashtags to discuss their case are regularly updated.
Dr. Hesham Al-Shehri, a 28-year-old dental intern at Al-Farabi College in Jeddah, said there were rumors about terminating their monthly allowances.
His last received lump-sum payment was in March to compensate for the delayed three-month payments from October to the end of December 2016.
Interns were officially notified by an e-mail dated March 22, a copy of which was obtained by Arab News, saying the decision was effective as of Jan. 1.
The e-mail read: “We regret to inform you that your internship reward has been stopped starting the year 2017 as per the e-mail sent from the internal scholarships administration at the Ministry of Education.”
After several visits to the ministry seeking an explanation, medical interns found a letter posted outside the employees’ affairs deputy director’s office.
The letter read: “An announcement to medical interns in private colleges. The general administration of employees affairs has nothing to do with your internship rewards.”
The decision came as a surprise in the middle of Al-Jumah’s internship year. “I am paying my car installments. Others are newly wed as they were finally receiving salaries (at the beginning of their internships),” said Al-Jumah, a 25-year-old medical intern from Qassim who wants to become a pediatric surgeon.
The decision comes halfway through the internship, which marks the final year in medical school and the first step into medical practice. “Interns are part of the medical team and must be rewarded with salaries for their work,” said Dr. Esam Murshid, a Riyadh-based consultant oncologist.
He told Arab News that this procedure might deter future generations from seeing medicine as an attractive profession. “This is not an academic year for medical students as many may think. This is the first step in the doctor’s medical practice.”
Murshid said maintaining medical knowledge at the start of the medical career requires attending conferences and symposia, in addition to paying expensive fees to the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties to be evaluated to receive a license. “This all needs money to afford all that.” This is what Dr. Noor Ahmed, who has just finished her dental internship in Riyadh without receiving allowances since the start of this year, worries about. She told Arab News: “I was planning to use my allowance to enroll in workshops and do more training, which is essential in the job market.”
Intern doctors and dentists receive a monthly allowance of SR9,200 ($2,453). Al-Shehri used to have a part-time job that paid SR1,500, as did many of his colleagues. He told Arab News that they were asked to leave their part-time jobs so as not to risk losing their monthly allowances, so they did.
“We were initially told that we need to stop working or we would be deprived from receiving the monthly allowance,” said Al-Shehri, adding that he and many others left their jobs hoping to secure the allowance. They were then faced with the reality of losing both sources of income: Their monthly internship allowances and part-time jobs.
“There’s nothing that we haven’t tried to communicate with officials,” said Al-Jumah. He said his colleague interns from public medical schools receive allowances but he does not, despite having the same duties at work.
Arab News tried to reach the Education Ministry for comment, but did not get a response until the time of print.
By LULWA SHALHOUB
JEDDAH: Interns of private medical schools are “tweet-campaigning” against a halt to their monthly allowances without prior notice. “This decision is arbitrary, inhumane and unfair,” Dr. Bader Al-Jumah, founder of the @InternRewards account on Twitter, told Arab News.
Hundreds of medical interns who were directly affected by the Education Ministry’s decision took to Twitter to vent and discuss their struggle.
Al-Jumah said he decided to gather all those Twitter users under one umbrella and start @InternRewards, which now has 517 followers. Active hashtags to discuss their case are regularly updated.
Dr. Hesham Al-Shehri, a 28-year-old dental intern at Al-Farabi College in Jeddah, said there were rumors about terminating their monthly allowances.
His last received lump-sum payment was in March to compensate for the delayed three-month payments from October to the end of December 2016.
Interns were officially notified by an e-mail dated March 22, a copy of which was obtained by Arab News, saying the decision was effective as of Jan. 1.
The e-mail read: “We regret to inform you that your internship reward has been stopped starting the year 2017 as per the e-mail sent from the internal scholarships administration at the Ministry of Education.”
After several visits to the ministry seeking an explanation, medical interns found a letter posted outside the employees’ affairs deputy director’s office.
The letter read: “An announcement to medical interns in private colleges. The general administration of employees affairs has nothing to do with your internship rewards.”
The decision came as a surprise in the middle of Al-Jumah’s internship year. “I am paying my car installments. Others are newly wed as they were finally receiving salaries (at the beginning of their internships),” said Al-Jumah, a 25-year-old medical intern from Qassim who wants to become a pediatric surgeon.
The decision comes halfway through the internship, which marks the final year in medical school and the first step into medical practice. “Interns are part of the medical team and must be rewarded with salaries for their work,” said Dr. Esam Murshid, a Riyadh-based consultant oncologist.
He told Arab News that this procedure might deter future generations from seeing medicine as an attractive profession. “This is not an academic year for medical students as many may think. This is the first step in the doctor’s medical practice.”
Murshid said maintaining medical knowledge at the start of the medical career requires attending conferences and symposia, in addition to paying expensive fees to the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties to be evaluated to receive a license. “This all needs money to afford all that.” This is what Dr. Noor Ahmed, who has just finished her dental internship in Riyadh without receiving allowances since the start of this year, worries about. She told Arab News: “I was planning to use my allowance to enroll in workshops and do more training, which is essential in the job market.”
Intern doctors and dentists receive a monthly allowance of SR9,200 ($2,453). Al-Shehri used to have a part-time job that paid SR1,500, as did many of his colleagues. He told Arab News that they were asked to leave their part-time jobs so as not to risk losing their monthly allowances, so they did.
“We were initially told that we need to stop working or we would be deprived from receiving the monthly allowance,” said Al-Shehri, adding that he and many others left their jobs hoping to secure the allowance. They were then faced with the reality of losing both sources of income: Their monthly internship allowances and part-time jobs.
“There’s nothing that we haven’t tried to communicate with officials,” said Al-Jumah. He said his colleague interns from public medical schools receive allowances but he does not, despite having the same duties at work.
Arab News tried to reach the Education Ministry for comment, but did not get a response until the time of print.
© Arab News 2017
