UNIMAS News

Sarawak Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) Day for 2016 was held on 24th September. This event was carried out in Auditorium A of University Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) City Campus. Altogether 28 participants involved including 6 participants/caretakers from Miri and Bintulu, who were sponsored flight and accommodation. Participants were not charged for any fees as it could be a barrier to participation.

This was the first time Faculty Medicine & Health Science (FMHS), UNIMAS organized this event. This year's CML Day aimed to provide CML knowledge to CML patients and caretakers. At the same time, the event aimed to bring them together and form a support group that at least will have annual gathering to do some outdoors activities together and to know new information regarding the disease and drugs.

One month prior to this program, volunteers from Year 5 Medical Students 2016/2017 were gathered and each of committees were assigned a task such as Master of Ceremony(MC), audio video team, kids team, interviewer and reporter team, IT team, reception and gifts team and many more. Draft schedule, which was done two weeks later, consisted of timeline, details of activities and descriptions of tasks that need to be completed by each committee. Several meeting sessions and rehearsals were done to ensure this program run smoothly on that particular day.

On the day of program, it was originally scheduled to start at 8.30 a.m. but the event only took place at 9 a.m. due to some technical problems i.e. we waited for participants to arrive. After arrival, they were ought to register themselves and were provided with a goody bag containing of file, pen, snacks and souvenir.

Program was started with opening speech from Dean of FMHS, Professor Dr. Ahamd Hata b. Rasit. It was continued with ice breaking activities between the participants and students. Then, it was followed by bone strengthening exercise by a UNIMAS FMHS physiotherapist, Mr Ziko ak Ripin and lecture on The Importance of Compliance and Long Term Effect of TKI by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kuan Jew Win, who is also the chairperson of the organizing committee. There was also group discussion session, when they were divided into five groups, given different questions for each group and presented the answer of each questions, in order to form an organizing committee for CML Day 2017. Then, it was proceed with Healthy Nutrition and Healthy Bone lecture by a nutritionist from Sarawak General Hospital, Mr. Mohd Hilmi b Ya’kub. There was also presentation from the final year medical student of FMHS, Pang Hoy Yan and Nor Adilah Binti Sabeni with the topics of Bone Marrow Procedure and Frequently Ask Questions by CML Patients respectively.

The event, overall, run smoothly. Generally, participants had gained a lot of benefits from this program. These are feedbacks from the participants:

1) They have gained knowledge about the side effects of the medication such as osteoporosis.
2) They want to practice bone strengthening exercise more often so that they can reduce the risk of getting osteoporosis.
3) They learnt about the food that they should take and should not eat.
4) They learnt about the complications of bone marrow procedure and need to go to the hospital as soon as possible if the complications occur.
5) The flow of program was well-organized, venue and food were good.

However, it is clear that there are still rooms for improvement for this event. These are few recommendations from participants:

1) This program should be done for longer duration, from morning till evening, where we need to add more activities and information for the patients such as:
a. The latest update about the medications they take.
b. Presentation about research regarding their disease (with this kind of medication, how long the patient can survive).
c. How to live a better life where they suggest of a motivational talk so they can lift up their spirit to be a motivated person and live happily.
d. Make a sharing session to exchange experiences between one patient and caretakers members with other patient with the caretakers.
e. This program will be better with more participants.
f. Lecture on the cause of the disease
g. Add on exercise session such as poco-poco or aerobic dance before starting the presentations.

There were also feedbacks and recommendations from students which are:

1) This program really benefits them as they got a lot of information about CML disease which they can apply it for examinations and during clerking CML patient in the ward.
2) It will be better if the duration of program should be extended until evening with lot more activities.
3) The more participants the merrier.

In a nutshell, this program was a success. All the recommendations will be taken into account for a better event next year.

Thank you to our sponsors of the event:
1) Mr Ting Ing Soon
2) Datuk Prof Dr Sim Kui Hian

Thank you to all the UNIMAS FMHS staffs involved.

 To view the video for this event, please click here.

 Prepared by: Interviewer and Reporter Team