Aspiring Towards Global Health
Medical education varies throughout the world with minor variations of styles and information delivery. Globally, high income countries according to the World Bank, have a global health department as a health centre of excellence, research, education and advocacy. These centres are often used as an opportunity to expose healthcare students to global health. Currently in Malaysia, near to none of the universities offer such education formally or informally which is an opportunity lost. This have pushed healthcare students to establish their own organizations without proper resources and training to foster future leaders. Albeit this have been beneficial to many, but provides an unfair burden on the organizations. In 2015, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery 2030 was published. This paper highlights that 5 billion population of the world do not have timely access to safe and affordable surgical and anaesthesia care when needed.
InciSioN Malaysia is one of many student-led organizations, initiated by a few IMU medical students from the Clinical campus Seremban and advised by an IMU faculty member, advocating for global surgery as its main focus under global health. The establishment of this organization was driven by a deep conviction from the need of the society.
It was launched by 32 medical students from various local medical universities namely IMU, University Malaya, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Quest International Univerisity Perak, Perdana University, Monash University, UCSI University, National Defence University of Malaysia, Newcastle University, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, and Udayana University (Bali) on 21 December 2019, and the ceremony was officiated by the Director General of Health, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah. It was appropriate for the Director General to officiate this as he is also a strong advocate to provide access to safe and affordable surgical care. National campaigns have been launched from the organization and representatives were sent in multipe international conference and discussions thus far.
Executive Committee of InciSioN Malaysia
Under InciSioN international, we have a few thousand global network of medical students and young doctors doing similar global campaigns to advocate for universal health coverage. Education and research is delivered through lecture series and webinars. The intention is to publish our work through correspondence and review of the literature. This has impressed a burden on students all around the world with the intention to contribute to the medical literature and change the world by the millions.
In the coming future, Malaysia as a nation should progress to forming Global health centres in universities. We have identified the issues hence are capable of addressing them by training the younger generation of doctors. The next step is implementation to address the issue and to invest for the future of the nation. This is a rally call for all the Deans of Schools of Medicine in Malaysia to forming a global health centre.
Written by President of InciSioN Malaysia and IMU Alumnus, Dr Yuki Julius Ng.
