A Great Honour

It certainly is an honour to be invited back to your school. I have been back to Terendak on a few occasions before, giving career talks and the likes, but this time it would be something different. I was invited to give a pep talk for the coming exams, and to officiate a program there.

I would be given a couple of hours to talk, answer questions as well as officiate the event. Talking is never a problem and being a lecturer to 8 years certainly helps. The only problem would be the medium. It seemed like it would be in Malay. A potential disaster. I was also asked to prepare some slides.

When it come to slides, those who had been in the audience at my talks soon learned that I am a minimalist when it comes to slides and lectures. The maximum number of works on the projector at any given time was 10. And I would be sticking to that. Hopefully I could keep the audience enthralled as I would be relying on anecdotes most of the time. And there would be plenty of those in store.

There would also be a serious part to my talk, and in the end there would be three parts - the past, the present and the future. The past would mostly be about me, and how I got to where I am today - which is not very much …….

The present would be some exam tips - mainly the importance of studying in group and to strategies. And thirdly, what I would have hoped to have known if I was back in their shoes. It should be interesting.

So, the slides are done, though I could do with a few more pics. I have a long drive tomorrow, leaving KL at 6.30. I would have to be there by 9 am. Hopefully, it would be a day to remember …..

A Talk with a Difference

I was invited to attend a lecture last Friday evening. it was organised by one of the Pharmaceutical company and it was a talk with a difference. The speaker was from France. And he was speaking from France. It was the first time which I attended a talk via Skype and it worked a treat. Not only that money was saved from having to fly the speaker over, it would also save everybody time.

The talk was held at KL Hilton and luckily, the hotel broadband system worked well. There were no delay, despite the audio and video of the speaker was transmitted in real time. Even more impressive, the slides were also controlled by the speaker, and it was also down the pipeline from there.

At the end, we also had the chance to ask him question, although due to a lack of a webcam - the organiser should have really used a Mac, the speaker was not able to see us. He heard us alright however.

The evening started with case presentations from three Senior Haematologists. Great cases, although it lacked balance since all three were from the private sector. In terms of geography, it was spot on however. The speakers were from Penang, Kuching and Kuala Lumpur. The French speaker were not hooked up to listen to those presentations however, as it would have interesting to hear his take on things.

So, who finished the snack?The talk came with a dinner. It was a Western affair. A three course meal, served on the table. As I arrived late, I was not able to enjoy much of the food. The talks got my attention however, and by the time I reached home, I was starving.

Kudos to the organiser for coming up with such arrangement. Personally, this was more economical in terms of time and money. Maybe they should try "Go To Meeting" next time around.

Talk at Mandarin Oriental

I had the chance to give a talk at Mandarin Oriental Hotel, near KLCC last week. I have been there a couple of times or meals, but I had never attended talks or any functions there before. I was surprised at how big the main ballroom was. It was huge.

Since it was a working day, I went to the hotel after my ward round. Parked at KLCC as I can enter the carpark very easily from Jalan Run Razak. The session was already starting when I arrived. Got my bit done, then lunch before heading back to work again.

Time for some doodling while listening to talksDr Jay Suriar talking about treatment of antiphospholipid syndrome. Right after lunch.On the way out, I noticed this nice little cafe at the main lobby. Full of the corporate-types at this time of the day.Never actually had the chance to look around, or sample the atmosphere. The food was rather good, but they only opened a couple of rows. The selection was quite good - local, Italian, Japanese and Western.

The cafe at the lobby looked rather nice ......

Saturday Teach-In

Dr Zanapiah

Yesterday, members of my Haematology team at UMMC were invited to participate in a new initiative by the Academy of Medicine. It was a teaching program for the more junior member of the Medical fraternity as well as students and non-Medical Doctors. It was held at the academy’s impressive brand-new building at Jalan Tun Razak, right opposite Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

 From chatting with the Academy staffs, I learned that this was the third of such meetings. The first couple attracted about 100 participants. The event yesterday was attended by more than 180 attendees from various backgrounds as diverse as Medical Students and General Practitioners.  I also recognised a number of our Medical Officers from UMMC attending the talks. The morning session was basically a series of didactic lectures. I kicked things off with a talk on clotting disorders. This was followed by my Boss, Prof Gan, who talked about emergency in oncology care. The morning session was finished off by my former colleague, Dr Zanapiah from Hospital Ampang, who spend about 45 minutes talking problems in blood transfusion.

My Boss, Prof GG GanYup! I was there.Dr Bee finally get to pack up. He had so many fans. I must confess that they were more participants than I anticipated. I pitched my session mainly for Medical Officers doing a Masters program. But since most of the attendees were Medical Students, I had to slow down the pace and explain a few more things in I needed to. I ended up needing to leave a big chunk of the talk out to keep to the time. At the end of the sessions I felt that a lot of people benefited from the talk. We had some lively discussion before lunch.

 The afternoon session was an even more intimate shop in smaller groups. The participants were divided into three, with me taking one and Drs Zanapiah and Bee picking the others. The group then swap around after 30 minutes. My session was on bleeding disorders - they don’t call me Bloody Doctor for nothing. Certainly I openned a few eyes on the concept of von Willebrand disease and haemophilia. The next trick was trying to upload the slights. Ending of the session I realised that I prepared around 150 slides, all in Keynote rather than PowerPoint. Converting them created a bit of an issue. The slides did not convert properly, especially the one that were heavily animated.

 For those of you who attended this session yesterday and wanting to download the slides please click on the following link that will take you to the Haematology Unit website. The file will be in PDF form. I only managed to upload a handful of slides due to bandwidth issue.

 Concerning the running of the session, I felt that the organisers did not anticipate such big turnout. We were short on food, and I ended up almost skipping lunch. Zanapiah was told off taking extra kueh during breakfast, which was amusing. We also realised that there were no members of the Academy were present apart from a couple of secretaries. Even though things ran smoothly, it could have been a lot better. Maybe a member of the Academy could end up in the morning introducing the speakers rather than us being left on our own to organise things. Nothing much, just a courtesy show of face.

 And in the future would be more than happy to participate again. Maybe I will be there a bit better knowing the demographic of the attendees. For those interested, this Saturday kitchen at the Academy runs every first Saturday of the month covering all the main topics in medicine. The next talk in February will be on the Dermatology. I am sure that you would be able to find more information from the Academy website.

A talk by a friend

During the Education and Further Studies Fair 2010 at Mid Valley the other day, I had the pleasure of attending a talk by my friend Ramesh. He is a full time web designer among other things, and I first met him during the KLickr - the KL Flickr group outing. I have only been keeping up with him through his blog and it has been a while since I seen him in the flesh.

As part of career education, Ramesh had an hour to convince the audience that there is fulfilling career to be had in the field of web design and it should not be looked at as a fall-back option if other more glamorous options were closed - Medicine for instance!

The talk started at a slow pace but soon picked up traction with audience trickling in with time. The first parts were the formalities of what should be considered for a place for training, what the training entails and what are the options on offer upon completion of training. Then came the fun part - what the job he was doing now entails. He showcased his previous projects and the inside stories of his dealing with clients. The bit about what the employers expect was very good. Some gem there.

What was refreshing was the fact he admitted that he is still trying to learn while continuing to have fun. There are a lot of people out there who felt that education stops with graduation of their first degree. Education is a life-long process. If only some of the doctors realise that, than my job at training them would be that much easier …..

All in all, well done Ramesh. His entry on the event can be found here.