Director General of Health, Malaysia

ONLINE LAUNCHING OF MALAYSIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE – Datuk Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah, Director General of Health Malaysia

Assalamu’alaikum w.b.t, Salam Sejahtera, Salam 1Malaysia.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

dg_moh1. Let me start by thanking Dr. Dhesi BR, the founder of Malaysian Medical Gazette (MMG), the qualified team members and everyone involved for giving Malaysian medical professionals the opportunity to enhance and empower the community with accurate medical knowledge through the power of digital health.

2. The Malaysian Medical Gazette (MMG), an organization form under Malaysian Integrated Medical Professionals Association (MIMPA) is a site created for medical experts to share their opinions on current issues on health. I believe it will become another channel for young medical professionals to participate in research activities, with the aim to enhance their outlook towards recent developments in the field of medicine. I also hope to see the Malaysian Medical Gazette (MMG) become a good platform for doctors and all medical personnel working as a team to empower the community with accurate knowledge and information. I also believe the public would find interacting with physicians, surgeons in digital environment an exciting experience.

3. Public education and engagement has always been an important component in medicine. Without an effective approach to make people understand about the importance of certain issues, we as professionals would find it difficult to achieve our objectives. A simple example; we can be advanced in our treatment approach like giving the best available drugs in the market for diabetes, but if the patient doesn’t understand about the importance, the role and correct administration of the drugs, we will still see non-compliance. With the advancement of information technology especially the social media networking, public engagement has become a lot easier and faster. We as professionals should always make full use of these channels to empower the society with credible and relevant information on health. The Ministry would certainly require support from the experts on the ground to do a lot of explaining to the public or even “myth-busting” on some of current issues such as anti-vaccination, organ donation, environmental health, cigarettes, outbreak and many more. I hope MMG will always be relevant and sensitive by keeping the public informed and explained about these current issues.

4. I was made to understand, since the launching of the Malaysian Medical Gazette on the 19th September 2013, the website has accumulated 3,212 visitors in less than 72 hours. I think this is a good start.

5. With that, I am proud to officially launch the MALAYSIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE, your online source of medical news, journals and health education which is available through the web: www.mmgazette.com, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mmgazette and Twitter: @MMGazette.

Datuk Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah

Director General of Health Malaysia

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