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Saturday Teach-In on "DERMATOLOGY" by College of Physicians, AMM

Dear fellow colleagues,

The College of Physician under the Academy of Medicine Malaysia, has been conducting "Saturday Teach-In" program regularly for MOs, HOs, GPs and also for senior medical students.

On January 2011, a one-day course on Haematology was conducted, and there were strong support from medical students (especially from Melaka-Manipal, Universiti Malaya, UKM etc). On the coming 12 March 2011, they will be conducting another Saturday Teach-In, with the topic on Dermatology.

Program:

0900 - 1000 hrs: Registration/ Coffee

1000 - 1100 hrs: Common Skin Disorders (Eczema, Psoriasis, Tinea etc)

1100 - 1200 hrs: Adverse Cutaneous Drug Reaction

1200 - 1300 hrs: Dermatological Emergencies (TEN/ Pemphigus/ Acute Erythroderma)

1300 - 1400 hrs: Lunch

1400 - 1430 hrs: Workshop on Topical Application of Creams

1430 - 1500 hrs: Workshop on Wet Dressing/ Soaks

1500 - 1530 hrs: Workshop on Scalp Treatment / Scabies Treatment

Course Fee for Medical Student: RM 20

As place are limited, for advance booking, please contact:

Secretariat, College of Physicians, AMM

G-1, Medical Academies of Malaysia,

210, Jalan Tun Razak, 50400 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: (603) 4023 4700 ; 4025 4700; 4025 3700

Fax: (603) 4023 8100 [Email: acadmed@po.jaring.my]

Website for Saturday Teach-In: http://www.acadmed.org.my/newsmaster.cfm?&action=news&menuid=80&parentid=39

AIMST University is Organizing a Pre-Clinical Medical Quiz on 8th and 9th April 2011

Dear fellow colleagues,

The Faculty of Medicine, AIMST University is organizing a Pre-clinical Medical Quiz on 8th and 9th April 2011. They are inviting medical students from other institutions to participate in this quiz.

Registration Fee is RM 200 per team. Each participating team will be composed of 4 regular members and 1 optional (staff/ spare member). Minimum of 2 students should be currently in preclinical phase of training. An early bird fee of RM150 if registration done before 14 March 2011.

Entries are accepted until the 28th March 2011.

For further information, you are welcome to contact AIMST Medical Student Association's President Mr. Naga on vostok_nbn@hotmail.com.

Last Call for Early Bird Promotion !!!

Today will be the last day for the Early Bird Promotion for the MIMSC 2011 Registration.

Due to holiday today, we have decided to extend their the payment due date for early bird registration to this Saturday (19/2/2011). However, you must register your delegates in our computer system by tonight 11.59pm to get the RM50 discount.

For more registration information, please do not hesitate to contact the Registration Director Ms. Betty San.

Official Conference Website: www.smmams.org/mimsc2011

Updates on Perdana University - Berita MMA Interview with Dean, Prof Dr Charles M. Wiener MD - Part II

1) So, when are you ready to take on your first batch of students?

Prof Dr Charles: We're ready to take on our first batch of students in September 2011. We're hoping that students will take the MCAT in spring 2011. There's a board that runs the US MCAT, they have agreed to have additional tests in Kuala Lumpur. Before that we only had one offering then we met them personally and told them about our project, they were so excited about it, they have agreed to open up additional test dates.

2) How many students can the programme accommodate in Malaysia?

Prof Dr Charles: We're planning to accommodate up to 100 students per year and there is only one intake per year which will start in Fall of 2011.

3) What are your plans in terms of faculty recruitment for the Perdana University?

Prof Dr Charles: Right from the start, we're expecting the faculty and students, in my terms, to be at Johns Hopkins standards, which are extremely high standards.

I am talking to a number of faculties in the region and trying to be very selective. I've alreadt preliminarily recruited a number of Johns Hopkins' faculty who want to come out here anywhere from six months to 2 years or even longer.

We will be utilising Hopkins' faculty to come out for 2-week periods of time to deliver specific parts of our curriculum that we don't have covered by instrinsic faculty. We've already started planning for all of these faculty positions.

Another aspect of our mission here which is also quite distinct is to establish a research presence of Johns Hopkins quality. Johns Hopkins research has a tripartite mission: patient care, teaching and research. We're planning on mimicking all three of these missions here at Perdana.

So, we're already recruiting research faculty and what we're trying to do now is establish our initial research initiatives that we're going to focus on. This will most certainly include Bio-informatics which is a strength of this region already and we're going to take advantage of that and also genomics, taking advantage of the unique aspect of South East Asia.

There is a lot of commitment from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to support, collaborate and take advantage of some of the infrastructure that we've already created in Baltimore to make it easier for us to work over here.

4) What would be the criteria that you are looking for in your medical educators?

Prof Dr Charles: The key is medical educators who are experienced and are opened to a US-style of the "Genes to Society" perspective.

For instance, 3 years ago, the Johns Hopkins faculty didn't know what constitutes the "Genes to Society" perspective. It is important that people are keen to learn our curriculum; they have to be committed to student centric education and/or research that will help this country and this region.

The "Genes to Society" curriculum took us five to six years to plan and 2 years to implement. If you do a public search on my name, in a journal called Academic Medicine published in March 2010, there's an article that we wrote describing the logic and the whole process behind the whole "Genes to Society" curriculum.

5) Will Johns Hopkins or Perdana University be conferring the degree?

Prof Dr Charles: The Diploma will be conferred by the Perdana University. The logo of Perdana University has a line that reads "in collaboration with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine". Essentially, this is a Malaysian university that is meant to improve the health of Malaysia and the region. However, the curriculum and structure of the programme will be exactly the same.

6) Do you have any final words to our readers?

Prof Dr Charles: Everyone in Baltimore is tremendously excited about this project at many levels. There is great enthusiasm for this region and this country. This is a place that already vale education and excellence, and is ready to take on the challenge of having a truly integrated academic medical centre built here. We've seen nothing but positive feedback here and also in Baltimore on this project.

7) What are your channels for communication for doctors and potential students to get in touch with you regarding teaching and research prospects as well as enquiries about this programme?

Prof Dr Charles: I will be starting work in KL mid-January 2011. Enquiries can be addressed to this email (enquiries@acadmedc.com) or to The Academic Medical Centre Sdn Bhd, Suite 5.3, 5th Floor, Wisma Chase Perdana, Off Jalan Semantan, Damansara Heights, 50490 KL. You can also reach us at this telephone number 03-27183888 or fax number 03 20945984.

Updates on Perdana University - Berita MMA Interview with Dean, Prof Dr Charles M. Wiener MD - Part I

Someone had drop a message in the shoutout box, asking about the new medical school in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University. MMA Berita Editorial recently had the opportunity to interview Prof. Dr. Charles M. Wiener MD, Professor od Medicine & Physiology of JHU School od Medicine. John Hopkins is to establish the foundations of the new Perdana University, the first private graduate medical school and private teaching hospital to be setup in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The Interview with the Dean of Perdana University. [Following article is from January issue of Berita MMA]

1) Johns Hopkins has a number of facilities in this region like in China and Singapore, how are they different from the one in Malaysia?

Prof. Dr. Charles: Johns Hopkins has a clinical oncology unit and a small clinical research component. It does not have any medical education at all over in Singapore.

In China, it is mostly under graduate it's not a significant medical school. Again, this is the first Johns Hopkins' school of medicine International collaboration.......

2) What are your main objectives at this point in time in establishing the medical school in Malaysia?

Prof. Dr. Charles: The objectives right now are to finalise our application for approval from MQA and MMC; start interviewing and talking to faculty members who might be interested in coming to Perdana University; talking about where our temporary facility is going to be; setting up and administration and IT infrastructure, and planning to Master Plan the new campus.

3) What programmes are offered at the Perdana University and how different are they from what is currently offered in medical schools in Malaysia?

Prof Dr Charles:
The important distinction is that this is going to be graduate school of medicine. It is based on the American model where people first obtain their under graduate degree in whatever discipline - whether it is a BA or BSc- it doesn't have to be in science. But you have to complete a set of pre-requisities that are generally covered in the 1st 2 years of medical school e.g. physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics etc.

For instance, I was an economic major in college, not a science major. Within the course of my economic training, I took the basic science subjects that I was required to take for medical school.

4) In the traditional system, a graduate would have to clock in a number of years before one is qualified as a specialist. So, how is this programme different to the model at Johns Hopkins?

Prof Dr Charles: Our system is definitely different, when you graduate from a medical school as MD after four years you immediately start your specialty training whether it is in paediatrics, internal medicine and graudates spend their 3 - 5 years immediately after medical school obtaining their specialty certificates and specialty training. After that they can further do training to sub-specialise in cardiology or an area of their interest.

In our programme, the students are more matured at the beginning. They generally come to an informed decision about what they want to spend their lives doing and allowed to go directly to do that ar our medical school.

In America, the 4th year of medical school is very much similar to the house officer training in the British system.

Another point of difference is our system is that in the "Genes to Society" curriculum, students start clinical exposure on day one of classes. So, interviewing, history note taking begins from day one. In this sense, it is a fairly matured curriculum.

5) Is there an opportunity for students in Malaysia to do practical cross training, say in America under this program?

Prof Dr Charles: The Perdana University will be in collaboration with Johns Hopkins and since Johns Hopkins knows this is a school of high comparable quality to Johns Hopkins, we anticipate no problems for students to do rotations in Johns Hopkins.

In fact, I have already had countless inquiries from Johns Hopkins students asking, can they come to Perdana University for rotations. This applies to Malaysian students as well in terms of rotations as well as postgraduate training in Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore, America.

6) What are your criteria for student selection into this program?

Prof Dr Charles: The curriculum will be delivered in English and we're expecting all students to take the US Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), take the test of English (TOFEL), or the English language equivalent and have either an under graduate or its equivalent including all pre-medical requirements we expect. Essentially, the pre-medical requirements are the same as what we have for Johns Hopkins. Finally, there will be a personal interview.

Broadly speaking, there are a number of science requirements that are the same in most US medical schools. What we have done in Johns Hopkins, which we are going to mimic here, is that we're asking students that they show they are capable to communicating both in the oral and written form based on the curriculum that they have done and some kind of original research of some sort. Finally, they have to demonstrate they have the team work skills. So, our criteria highlight most of these characteristics.

1st National Symposium on the Art of History Taking

Dear fellow colleagues,

History taking, an important skill acquired during our medical school training. Professors in med school always emphasize to us that with good history taking, in 80% of cases you will arrive at the diagnosis. The cornerstone of good clinical practice continues to be history-taking and skills in clinical examination. Good doctors will continue to be admired for their ability to distill the important information from the history, for their clinical skills and of course not to forget, for their attitude towards patients, and for their knowledge of diseases, disorders and behaviour problems.

I am not sure whether you wonder History taking is actually an art? Just like Medicine!!! It is like an art, not something fixed like a guideline. Many friends I know take history taking like a template you can use universally for all patients, for which I feel it is wrong. Every patient has their own story to tell; they have their history to tell us, to arrive at the diagnosis.

USM Medical Students make the initiative, to organize the 1st National Symposium on the Art of History Taking.

Further information can be downloaded here: [Accommodation], [Registration Instructions], [Registration Form], [Invitation Letter], [Pre-symposium booklet], [Travelling Information].

On behalf of the organizing committee, I would like to call upon all dedicated and passionate good future doctors, to participate in this symposium. Kelantan, where USM is located at, is a very nice place to visit too. Take this opportunity to learn the art of medicine and history taking, and also take your time to visit around Kelantan, which will be organized by USM colleagues.

Organizing a good and meaningful activities as medical students are not easy. I really hope that all of us can show our full support towards these motivated and passionate colleagues from USM.

*Apologies to the organizing committee for putting up the notice late, as I was very busy with my assignments and exams this few weeks. Please kindly allows more participants even after the deadline, so that we can all benefited from the above program. ~SMMAMS Webmaster, Vincent.

Notice to MMA Student Member

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO MMA STUDENT MEMBERS:

Due to some technical problems occur in MMA recently, members will not be receiving Berita MMA until further notice. The office and committee members are currently working on this issues. We are so sorry for the late notice to all members. We hope to have your understandings on this matter. Thank you.

In the meantime, you can assess the following link to view the December Issue of Berita MMA.

SMMAMS Committee 2010-2011

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR 2011! 祝大家兔年新春愉快！

Best wishes from SMMAMS President Justin Lee and Committee Members