From the President
Fresh Beginning
Assalamualaikum and Salam Sejahtera to esteemed members of MPA.
Happy New Year 2018, Friends and Colleagues!
A fresh new year is once again upon us. It’s the time to be thankful for the blessings of the past year and to take stock of all our achievements. At the same time, New Year 2018 is a brand new year to start afresh, to start strong, and yet another chance to do everything we want to do this year.
Active Advocacy
Towards the end of 2017, MPA continued to actively participate in childhood advocacy. For the first time, MPA celebrated Universal Children’s Day (falls on 20 November every year). This important event was more meaningful with the participation of children from the Orang Asli School in Bukit Lanjan, and was held in conjunction with the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) – MPA Advocacy on Rheumatic Heart Disease program. On 20 December, MPA together with Asian Strategic Alliance for Pneumococcal Disease Prevention (ASAP) and Pfizer (Malaysia) launched an advocacy campaign to encourage Malaysians to put their hands up in support of pneumococcal vaccination. These TWO end-of-the-year events marked the wholehearted commitment of MPA when it comes to childhood advocacy.
CPD Points
2018 started off with a bang! Almost everyone in the medical field talks about the need to accumulate 20 CPD points for APC (Annual Practising Cerificate) renewal and 100 CPD points over 5 years for NSR (National Specialist Register) renewal of certification. Many versions/ways on how to accumulate points arise, some enlightening but many confusing. Discussions between MMA, MMC and AMM is on-going and hopefully positive outcome would outweigh the difficulty and time consumed to accumulate these CPD points. Thank you to those who have emailed their suggestions on how MPA could assist by being a platform for members to accumulate CPD points through online courses and CMEs. This was deliberately discussed and the Executive Committee was made aware that MPA does not have the capacity to provide accreditation for those online courses. As an alternative, MPA would reactivate Paediatric Rendezvous for members to accumulate points. MPA would also like to encourage state representatives to use the (recently increased) allocated financial assistance, to run courses or workshops at state level, in order to provide better chance for everyone to collect their CPD points.
40th MPA Congress
Where and when is the MPA Congress 2018? The talk of the town, even among potential sponsors. After much deliberation, it was finally decided that the theme for this year’s congress is “Marginalised Children – Addressing the Needs”. This year’s congress will be held at Ipoh Convention Centre from 5-8 September 2018. Datuk Dr Zulkifli Ismail and Dato’ Dr Amar Singh were elected as co-chairs for the Scientific Programme and Dr Noor Khatijah Nurani as the chair for the local organising committee. There were few interesting and stimulating topics planned for the Pre-Congress as well. To all members, do mark the date and try your very best to attend this year’s congress, as an advocate for children. I do hope the young paediatricians would attend this year’s congress in support of MPA’s objective in strengthening the advocacy work for children.
Research Allocation
As for research, MPA Executive Committee has agreed to increase the allocation for research grants to a maximum of RM10,000 for FIVE grants per year. Here, I would like to encourage all members to submit their applications and grab these grant opportunities offered under the MPA banner. Information about grant application would be constantly updated through our MPA website.
I’m sure everyone has their New Year resolution. Just be aware of this famous quote:
Making resolutions is a cleansing
ritual of self-assessment and
repentance that demands personal
honesty and, ultimately, reinforces
humility. Breaking them is part of the
cycle. – Eric Zorn
Finally, I hope all MPA members would join hand and work towards the betterment of our children’s future.
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Muhammad Yazid Jalaludin
President 2017-2019
m.yazid.jal@gmail.com
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