Sunway, Cambridge, Royal College of Physicians to Collaborate on Local CME
The University of Cambridge, the Royal College of Physicians, London (RCP) and the Sunway Group have launched a collaborative continuing medical education (CME) seminar series for Malaysian healthcare professionals.
The first session of the RCP-Sunway-Cambridge Medical Seminars series took place on 28 April, bringing in experienced specialists from other countries to discuss the latest trends and developments in a range of fields including infectious disease, geriatrics, dermatology, and respiratory medicine.
Formalized in a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed between the RCP, Cambridge, Sunway University, and Sunway Medical Centre (SunMed) in late March 2019, the series will aim to combine clinical care, research and education by internationally recognized specialists through plenary lectures and breakout workshops. The seminars will be open to all GPs, specialists, medical students as well as other allied healthcare professionals.
Representative signatories for each of the organizations were Professor Stephen O’Rahilly, co-director of the Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge; Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr Jeffrey Cheah, founder and chairman of Sunway Group; Professor Graeme Wilkinson, vice-chancellor of Sunway University; Lau Beng Long, managing director of Sunway Group Healthcare Services; and Professor Jarlath Ronayne, Cambridge-Sunway collaboration coordinator.
The MoA signing was officiated and witnessed by Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, Minister of Health, at the opening ceremony of the 3rd Cambridge-Oxford-Sunway Biomedical Symposium ‘Diabetes: Disarming the Silent Killer’ in Petaling Jaya. The symposium highlighted current and emerging healthcare issues in Malaysia and Southeast Asia, recent advances in diabetes research and its relation to sustainable patient care.
“It is timely and welcome that the Sunway Group is collaborating with esteemed institutions such as Cambridge and Oxford to bring to the forefront advances in diabetes research, techniques and therapies, and how these are being extended to patient care,” said Dzulkefly. “This is exactly the kind of partnership and knowledge sharing that will help Malaysia tackle the alarming increase of diabetes.”
Dzulkefly added that in the light of rising costs of treating the national diabetes epidemic, the public sector was highly encouraged to engage in similar public-private partnerships which would help the medical fraternity carry out their professional responsibilities more effectively.
Speaking at the same event, Cheah said that in line with its objective to become a leading private teaching hospital in the country, SunMed was engaged with multiple overseas healthcare institutions in the UK including the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, the Royal Papsworth Hospital and Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
“Our efforts in this sphere reflect [our] commitment to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, SDG 3: the universal goal of good health and well-being for all,” said Cheah. “Realising the SDGs is not the sole responsibility of governments. It requires the commitment of all sectors of society—the private sector, academia, civil society, and individuals.”
