The letter Gomez and medical graduates abroad unfair comparison prompts me to ask why the Malaysian government sponsors students - almost always bumiputeras - overseas for medical courses.

Is it because they wanted to create a well-rounded bumiputera medical practitioner who will be able to serve and lead the nation? Or is it because the government wanted a good balance of Western-educated doctors to complement what the local universities can produce?

And why are 'bonded' students unhappy to return? Are conditions in government medical practice so poor? And why are internationally recognised experts in their field reluctant to return despite the exemption (another recent government 'carrot' offered) from compulsory service?

Are conditions overseas so rosy and fair? Or has one's life's medical journey become more meaningful overseas, outside Malaysia?

Some years ago, when then Australian visa rules prevented me from writing up my research for a doctoral degree as a non-fee paying trainee, a mentor in Sydney wisely reassured me that no period of medical exposure anywhere in the world, is ever wasted.

It is always an enriching experience in one's life journey. This had been earlier asserted by a wise senior consultant in London nearly 15 years earlier when I completed some training in paediatrics and decided not to pursue this as a specialty.

The fundamental question which needs to be asked is why government-sponsored medical students have chosen not to return and should the gates be closed to them now? Policy makers should search for their own answers in order to address this challenge and arrive at a balanced perspective.

Towards this, the past several weeks of hot debate on the Edmund Terence Gomez should give them some clear clues and insights. It is my view that the gates should never ever be closed as some students will return eventually.