EDUCATING THROUGH SEMINARS
SUNWAY Medical Centre (SunMed) and Sunway University signed a Memorandum of Agreement with University of Cambridge and the Royal College of Physicians, London to jointly establish a series of Continuous Medical Education (CME) seminars.
The MoA, witnessed by Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, was signed during the Third Cambridge-Oxford-Sunway Biomedical Symposium titled Diabetes: Disarming the Silent Killer held on March 26 in Selangor.
Dr Dzulkefly lauded the joint collaboration between Sunway Group and esteemed institutions such as Cambridge and Oxford for bringing in forefront advances in diabetes research, techniques, therapies and patient care to help the nation tackle the alarming increase of diabetes.
The CME seminars aim to combine clinical care, research and education and will further SunMed’s ambition to become one of the few private teaching hospitals here. The inaugural Royal College of Physicians-Sunway-Cambridge CME will take place on April 29 at Sunway Medical Centre.
WHEN IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS
Malaysians’ ignorance is fuelling high blood cholesterol and it needs to stop now, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad in a media statement. While high blood cholesterol is a national public health concern, the bigger epidemic is ignorance.
The National Health and Morbidity Survey 2015 found that the overall prevalence of high blood cholesterol among adults aged 18 and above was 47.7 per cent (9.6 million Malaysians). In other words, almost one in two adult Malaysians suffer from high blood cholesterol. This is a relative increase compared to 32.6 per cent in 2011.
But what is more alarming is that a vast majority of Malaysians feel that high blood cholesterol does not affect them. The same survey also revealed that of those with high blood cholesterol, 38.6 per cent reported that they were not aware they had it (7.8 million Malaysians). In other words, for every one diagnosed or known case of high blood cholesterol, there were four cases of undiagnosed or unknown high blood cholesterol (ratio 1:4).
This situation highlights low levels of awareness, risk perception and testing uptake for blood cholesterol among Malaysians. Adding to this are myths and misconceptions surrounding high blood cholesterol and its association with age, gender, body weight and fitness level, which are commonplace. Most people with high blood cholesterol do not show any symptoms and only become aware when their high blood cholesterol levels are detected through a blood test.
Dr Dzulkefly said that early detection is critical to avoid complicated treatment requirements and high costs due to late diagnosis or disease progression to a critical stage. “Malaysians are urged to go for screening and know their status at an early stage, on top of managing their health better by taking simple everyday steps such as regular exercise, and practise balance, variety and moderation in their food intake.”