Dear colleagues,

Our next Annual General Meeting is during our 44th Annual Congress in October 2023. With that, my tenure as the President of MPA comes to an end.

This will be my final President’s message in Berita MPA before Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Ikram Ilias takes over the presidency.

During the 1st Exco meeting of the current MPA committee, we discussed what we needed to do for the ensuing 2 years and pledged our commitment to do our best to achieve them.

Looking back at the past 2 years…

Malaysian Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health (MJPCH)

Online publication has been on track with SCOPUS recognition. My heartfelt thanks to Prof Zilfalil Alwi, Dr Intan Juliana and team. I urge our members to submit case reports and research articles to MJPCH. Please visit our website and the link to MJPCH for the latest issue.

Nursing symposium was revived after a hiatus of 4 years (Post-COVID)

Many years ago, MPA used to organise dedicated nursing seminars. Then, we went dormant. Thanks to Dr Thiyagar Nadarajaw, it was given a new lease of life and we did three nursing symposia during his tenure, and subsequently did two more from 2017 until 2019. However, from 2019 until 2022, we could not organise any physical meeting.

This year we did our first nursing symposium post-COVID at DePalma Resort, Kuala Selangor. The last few nursing symposia (Mersing, Taiping and Kuala Selangor) was conducted by MPA, with assistance from the Malaysian Paediatric Foundation (MPF).

Media presence of MPA

During the COVID pandemic, MPA’s presence in mainstream media as well as electronic media was very prominent. Kudos to Dato’ Dr Musa Nordin, Datuk Dr Zulkifli Ismail, Prof Dr Muhammad Yazid Jalaludin for continuously writing and made presence on electronic media. We were highlighting the COVID-19 pandemic, MIS-C and also the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine. Apart from COVID-19 issues, we also addressed issues ranging from vaccine hesitancy, obesity, teenage pregnancy, smoking prevention, high risk behaviours among teenagers, inclusive education for children with special needs, bullying, and lately mental health.

We also celebrated the 10th anniversary of IMFeD, 23 years of Positive Parenting, and launched a new initiative in 2022, the Healthy Little Bloomers. And just recently in July, Positive Parenting launched the 360° Growth and Development Toolkit.

Interagency collaboration

We kept our interagency collaboration, especially with Rotary International District 3300 Malaysia on Autism and Spina Bifida awareness and advocacy.

I almost forgot, this year we launched another advocacy team with several other societies on dengue prevention, which is called Dengue Prevention Advocacy Malaysia (DPAM). This is an independent advocacy group comprising of non-governmental medical and community organisations, aiming to synergise efforts in supporting Ministry of Health Malaysia for enhanced dengue prevention, management and control.

Final appreciation

Finally, my heartfelt thank you to all the MPA members who proposed new ideas to MPA. My gratitude to all the committee members for the full support rendered to me. Thank you to Datin Saadiah and her secretariat staff who rendered excellent support and helped in getting the nitty gritty paper work done promptly. Dr Tang Swee Fong, our Honorary Secretary, has been great as usual. She made my life easy by responding to various correspondences on behalf of MPA super-efficiently.

On behalf of MPA committee, I hope members are pleased with what we have achieved in the last two years.

Moving on

I am confident the new committee will continue to achieve more under the leadership of the incoming President, Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Ikram Ilias. I wish him all the best.

Thank you!