Medic@UMS Bulletin February 2020

MEDIC@UMS BULLETIN

You have go to get up every morning with
DETERMINATION

if you are going to go to bed with
SATISFACTION

-George Lorimer-

February 2020

eISSN: 2716-5280

Table of Contents

Editorial Notes

-Chief editor’s message

01 Academic

-National debate by Malaysian Psychiatric Association

02 Internationalization

-International Inbound Mobility Program

03 Research & Innovation

-Signing of Letter of Intent with St. Aloysius College, India

04 Clinical Service

-Medical Screening at Pulau Mantanani

05 Public Health

-Mass Circumcision Event

06 Student Affairs

-National Intervarsity Medical Debate Competition

07 Administration & Managerial

-Appointment of AP Dr. Paspuleti Visweswara Rao + New staff

MEDIC@UMS BULLETIN

Volume 2 | Issue 1 | February 2020

Chief Editor Chief editor’s message

Dr Eugene Wong Hung Chih Welcome to Volume 2 Issue 1 of Medic@UMS Bulletin.
I am glad to inform everyone that the bulletin now has an
ENT Specialist & Lecturer, official eISSN number (2716-5280).
I would like to invite everyone in FPSK to submit short
Faculty of Medicine & Health articles regarding any significant and interesting events in the
Sciences, UMS faculty to be published in our upcoming issues. The author
guideline has been circulated in the FPSK email.
[email protected] Please do not hesitate to contact me for any questions
regarding article submission to this bulletin.
Editorial board I wish everyone a great year of 2020!
members
Dr. Eugene Wong Hung Chih,
AP Dr Fairrul Bin Chief Editor of Medic@UMS Bulletin
Masnah@Kadir (Academic) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences,
Universiti Malaysia Sabah
Dr Wan Salman Bin Wan Saudi
(Internationalization)

Prof Dr John Arnold Urban
D’Souza (Research &
Innovation)

Dr Constance Liew Sat Lin
(Clinical Service)

AP Dr Syed Sharizman Bin
Abdul Rahim (Public Health)

Dr Yeap Boon Tat (Student
Affairs)

Mr Hasmi Bin Hashim
(Administration & Managerial)

1

ACADEMIC February 2020

Malaysian Psychiatric
Association National Debate

Which is better: Monitoring or Mentoring for Early Career
Psychiatrist?

Dr Nicholas Pang & In conjunction with the Early Career Psychiatrist (ECP) Best
Dr Loo Jiann Lin Practice Award event, the ECP section of Malaysian
Psychiatric Association (MPA) organised a national ECP
Lecturer and psychiatrist debate in order to highlight and brainstorm on the issue of
monitoring and mentoring of ECPs.

The transition from a trainee to a specialist is considered a big
leap with significant change in the nature of work and
responsibility, which may affect the ECPs competency in
performing their job. Hence, the question of mentoring and
monitoring is constantly debated to decide on which approach
is better in facilitating the process of ensuring the ECPs are
competent in different aspects of clinical and non-clinical duty.

This national debate was held on 18 of January 2020 in
Sheraton Hotel Petaling Jaya, where the president of ECA
MPA and the chairperson of this event, Dr Abdul Rasyid
Sulaiman and the deputy chairperson, Dr Al-Zilal Abdul Wahid
invited Dr Nicholas Pang Tze Ping and Dr Loo Jiann Lin

2

ACADEMIC February 2020

(senior medical lecturers from Universiti Malaysia Sabah, UMS)
to become the judge and event recorder respectively. Dr Hazli
Zakaria, the president of MPA was the advisor of the event.
The topic selected for this debate was “The house believes that
the ECP should be monitored but not mentored”.

The participants (19 ECPs from all over the country) were
initially divided into 2 groups to discuss the topic. Three ECPs
from each group were selected for the debate session and each
debater was given 5 minutes to express their opinion. The
judging criteria were based on “Method [40 marks], Manner
[40 marks], Matter [20 marks]”. The opposition team won the
overall debate with one mark difference from the government
team.

The prize for this event was sponsored by Servier Malaysia,
which was also the main sponsor for the event of MPA Best
Practice Award.

Ultimately, both monitoring and mentoring are essential as part
of the continuous quality improvement for ECPs. The ECP
section of MPA will also look into the possibility of
establishing a mentoring system in the future.

To find out more about this event, please contact Dr. Loo Jiann
Lin at [email protected]

3

INTERNATIONALIZATION February 2020

International Inbound Mobility
Program

From the Great Wall to the Land Below the Wind

Dr Wan Salman Bin Wan Saudi The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences recently
welcomed eleven students for the International Medical
International Elective and Mobility Program and three students for the International
Mobility Program Coordinator Nursing Mobility Program in 2019. These students were second
year medical students from Zunyi Medical University and
Xiangnan University in China.

The program kicked off with the tour of the faculty’s Vimedix
Simulation Lab by Dr May Zaw Soe, the Public Health Lab by
AP Dr Sahipudin Saupin, the Surgery Laparoscopic Lab by Mr
Mohd. Hamshah Lali and the Anatomy Museum by Ms Bibot
Juma.

During their three months stay (one semester course program),
the students had the opportunity to learn medicine in different
environment and culture. They also acquired various skills
including leadership, teamwork, communication, problem-

4

INTERNATIONALIZATION February 2020

The students enjoying the amazing solving, work ethic, flexibility or adaptability as well as
interpersonal skills.
view at Kundasang during their time
here The students also made life-long friends by establishing early
experience in international networking. Besides the robust
medical courses, they had visited and experienced one of the
most beautiful places in the world with diversified flora and
fauna, richness in unique cultures, beautiful sandy beaches and
delicious cuisines. They also had the chance to see and
experience the largest flower in the world (Rafflesia), the
highest mountain in South East Asia (Mount Kinabalu) and one
of the world’s top diving site (Sipadan Island).

To find out more about our faculty’s international program,
please email us at [email protected]

5

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION February 2020

Signing of Letter of Intent

Future collaborations with St Aloysius College, Mangalore,
India

Prof Dr Urban Arnold D’Souza The UMS Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences recently
signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with St Aloysius College,
Professor at Department of Biomedical Mangalore, India for a joint research and academic pursuits as
Sciences and Therapeutics, UMS well as student and staff exchange between the two
institutions.

Possible future collaborations discussed included joint
conferences and online lectures in the areas of Biotechnology,
Bioinformatics, joint research projects on metabolic disorders,
leptin, ghrelin and insulin in obesity among different
ethnicities from both countries as well as joint publications of
our research data.

In addition, we have also discussed possibilities of developing
community service with rural exposure and social extension
programs for students between both institutions, as well as
unique geographical based research collaborations between

6

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION February 2020

UMS (at Borneo Island) and St Aloysius College (near the
Arabian Sea).

To find out more about the LOI, please contact Prof D’Souza
at [email protected]

Signing of LOI at St Aloysius College

7

CLINICAL SERVICE February 2020

Medical Screening at Pulau
Mantanani

Program Mutiara Kasih, UMS

Dr Constance Liew A medical screening event organized by the Faculty of
Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah
Lecturer and anaesthetist (UMS) and Pulau Mantanani community was held from the 28th
of February 2019 to 3rd March 2019 at Pulau Mantanani. The
objective of this event was to raise awareness and encourage
healthy lifestyle among the community through the Program
Mutiara Kasih, UMS.

To support the local community, we set up a team consisting of
UMS medical students, nutritionists, paediatricians, dentists,
public health specialists and health professionals from various
medical fields (orthopaedic surgeons, anaesthesiologists,
general physicians, pharmacists etc) in the primary and
secondary schools (SK Pulau Mantanani) for a 3-day event of
medical screening, health awareness talks, nutrition interviews
and counselling.

In addition to that, medical screenings including the screening
of blood pressure, blood glucose, body mass index (BMI) and
body fat analysis using body composition analyser were also
performed and a basic consultation based on the screening
results were given to the participants by the medical team.

8

CLINICAL SERVICE February 2020

Health awareness talk during the medical Overall, the event was a great success with huge support from
screening event the local community and volunteers. The participants of Pulau
Mantanani were very happy with the screening service
provided and hoped for more medical screening events like this
in the future. The school’s headmaster, Yatan Binua, also
congratulated us on the success of this event and mentioned
that their pupils are looking forward to our next visit with
measurement reports on the children’s BMI and health
screening test results.

The Program Mutiara Kasih, Universiti Malaysia Sabah also
managed to engage the event with our state Assistant of
Education and Innovation Minister, YB Jenifer Lasimbang, and
her team who joined us during the closing ceremony.

To find out more about the Program Mutiara Kasih, please
contact me at [email protected]

9

PUBLIC HEALTH February 2020

Mass Circumcision Event

Collaboration between Pitas Hospital and Sabah Medical
Welfare Association (PERKIPS)

AP Dr Mohd Firdaus Bin Mohd A mass circumcision event was organised by Pitas Hospital in
Hayati collaboration with the Sabah Medical Welfare Association
(PERKIPS) at Pitas on 14th December 2019. This annual event
Deputy Dean for Postgraduate and took place at the Pitas Hospital’s Outpatient Department and
Innovation was joined by surgeons and medical officers from the Faculty of
Medicine and Health Sciences (FHMS) of UMS and the
Department of General Surgery from Queen Elizabeth
Hospital (QEH).

This event kicked off with a speech by the director of Pitas
Hospital, Dr Gerald Marcus and was officiated by the chairman
of PERKIPS (Pitas branch), Mr Awang Nasran. This
circumcision event was participated by 60 school children of
different age from the Pitas district.

Activities during the event included a continuous medical
education (CME) talk on the safety and proper technique of
circumcision by Associate Professor Dr Mohd Firdaus Bin
Mohd Hayati (from UMS) directed towards assistant medical
officers and medical officers at Pitas hospital and health clinics,
as well as a credentialing and privileging (C&P) certification
session by Dr Hilal Zahabi Binti Abdul Fattah (from QEH) on
behalf of the Ministry of Health of Malaysia.

10

PUBLIC HEALTH February 2020

“The main purpose of the CME and C&P activities
is to provide an information on proper circumcision
techniques according to the guidelines set by the
Ministry of Health Malaysia. Many complications
such as bleeding and surgical site infections are
caused by improper and unsterile techniques and
procedures that do not meet the guidelines”

-AP Dr Mohd Firdaus bin Mohd Hayati

Mass circumcision event at Pitas Last but not least, the program also aimed to bring the hospital
closer to the local community.

To find out more about the upcoming mass circumcision event,
please contact me at m_fi[email protected]

11

STUDENT AFFAIRS February 2020

National Intervarsity Medical
Debate competition

UMS emerged as first runner up with Best Overall Debater

Dr Yeap Boon Tat The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti
Malaysia Sabah (FMHS) sent a team for the first time to the
Deputy Dean for Student Affairs & National Intervarsity Medical Debate Competition , held at
Community Network Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre on the 14th of
December 2019.

This year’s debate was mental health-themed, with tantalizing
topics including (but not limited to) “Society Has Created
Mental Illness” and “This House Would Decriminalize
Suicide”. FMHS was represented by four young first year
medical students: Jivanarajahn Rajendra Kumar,
Kuhaneshvaren A/L Elanggovan, Nurul Firzanah Binti Mohd
Darwis and Siti Maisarah Binti Shamsul Bahri in this
tournament.

We were pleasantly surprised as our first-timers in this national
intervarsity medical debate beat the debaters from other
universities such as Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Monash
Medical University and even the host university (UKM) with
the highest cumulative scores for the preliminaries.

12

STUDENT AFFAIRS February 2020

UMS student Jivanarajahn Rajendra Our winning streak continued as we defeated Monash Medical
Kumar crowned the Best Overall University once again in the semi-finals. Unfortunately, we lost
Debater to the veterans of the tournament, University Malaya (UM), by
a narrow margin in the finals. We were particularly proud of
our student Jivanarajahn for being crowned the Best Overall
Debater, with the highest accumulated scores over many
rounds, showcasing an impressive consistency throughout the
competition.

The UMS team won a total of RM 500 prize money as the first
runner up, although more importantly, we achieved a few
important milestones. We qualified ourselves for the final
rounds of the tournament and finished second out of 18 other
medical varsities as well as winning the Best Overall Debater
prize.

“The entire faculty and most importantly, UMS, is
very happy for the outstanding achievements of our
medical students. We hope this tremendous feat wi!
encourage more students to participate in regional
and international events so as to improve visibility
of UMS”

-Professor Dr Mohammad Saffree Jeffree, Dean of FMHS,

UMS

To find out more about the next debate, please contact me at
[email protected]

13

ADMINISTRATION & MANAGERIAL February 2020

Appointment of Associate
Professor Dr Pasupuleti
Visweswara Rao

PhD, FMSA, FAPAS, FIANN

Dr Eugene Wong The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences recently
Lecturer and clinical specialist in ENT appointed Dr. Pasupuleti Visweswara Rao as an associate
professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciencesand
Therapeutics in UMS.

AP Dr Rao has contributed more than a decade of work on
research, focused on complementary and herbal medicine,
specifically on their application in metabolic diseases where his
main area of research is in diabetes. Another area of his
research interest is the biogenic synthesis of nano-particles
using plants and natural products.

He had published more than 60 peer-reviewed international
journals with the cumulative impact factor of more than 120.
He had also edited 4 books and 4 book chapters published by
highly reputable publishers such as Elsevier and Springer
nature publishers. AP Dr Rao has also secured multiple
research grants with cumulative worth of more than RM1.3
million. He was also a co-contributor for the bulletin

14

ADMINISTRATION & MANAGERIAL February 2020

Why did you decide to join the TECHIES with YB Datuk Seri Panglima Wildred Madius
Faculty of Medicine and Health Tangau, Minister of Science and Technology Malaysia in 2017.
Sciences in UMS?
AP Dr Rao had also help multiple prominent roles such as the
"To explore more research in the Director (founding Deputy Director before that) for the
area of complementary Institute of Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture (IFSSA),
medicine towards non the founding Chairman of Animal Ethics Committee at
communicable diseases and Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK), Assistant Professor at
wish to contribute in setting up a Sikkim Manipal University (India) and Research Professor at
Centre for the focused core and Dongguk University (South Korea). He was also appointed as a
niche areas of research”. visiting researcher to different universities in Japan, Macao,
Indonesia and Thailand.
How do you find working in the
faculty so far? He has also won several awards including the Young Scientist
Award, Young Researcher Award, Best Faculty in Biotechnology
“The journey to UMS has been Award as well as Excellence Service Award at national and
an amazing part of my academic international levels.
and research career and I hope
the journey continues the same AP Dr Rao is also an editorial member for various journals such
as it ages”. as the Oxidative medicine and Cellular Longevity and Evidence
based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which are
ranked as Q1 and Q2 category journals. He is also the reviewer
for numerous high impact factor journals (more than 60) with
international reputation including Nature Publishing Group
(SCIENTIFIC REPORTS). AP Dr. Rao had also delivered 39
keynote speeches and plenary talks at various international
conferences and had also been appointed as a judge for various
national competitions including Pecipta and international
Science Odysseys.

He is also currently the Faculty Research Coordinator and the
Head for Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) research. We
welcome AP Dr Rao to our family in UMS and hope his
expertise will help continue to bring our faculty to the next
level.

To c o n t a c t A P D r Ra o , y o u c a n e m a i l h i m a t
[email protected]

15

ADMINISTRATION & MANAGERIAL February 2020

New Staff Welcome

1. Dr Shuaibah Binti AB Ghani
• (2nd Jan 2020)

2. Zulhelmie Mohd Hassan
• (9th Dec 2019)

3. Datu Agasi Bin Mohd Kamal
• (21st Nov 2019)

4. Dr Sylves Bin Patrick
• (2nd Dec 2019)

5. Siti Fatimah Sa’AT
• (2nd Jan 2020)

6. Sukhbeer Kaur A/P Darsin Singh
• (2nd Jan 2020)

7. Dr Alvin Oliver Payus
• (20th Jan 2020)

16

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