Events Calendar
23-24 April 2018 - Together with a team from the faculty that consist of AP Dr Asri Said, Dr Ayu Akida, Dr Isabel, Dr Rekaya and Dr Paul, we visited the Fakultas Kedokteran (Faculty of Medicine) Universitas Tanjung Pura in search of the opportunities to collaborate in research and medical education. The faculty of medicine is the only medical faculty in West Kalimantan (KALBAR). They have a teaching hospital.
There are many reasons that we chose UNTAN as our potential partner. For one, they are the nearest foreign university that has a medical faculty on the island of borneo. It only takes about 35 minutes by flight to reach Pontianak from Kuching.
“Know thy neighbour”. Regional cooperation in this part of the world is equally important. Partnership with a neighbouring university allow us to complement each other in terms of research and students’ participation in teaching and experiential learning. So much is known about the distribution of the subtypes of plasmodium knowlesii and their link to the longtail and pigtail macaques in Sarawak and Sabah. What about Kalimantan? With UNIMAS’s laboratory capabilities and the eagerness of our potential Indonesian Borneo counterpart, there are so many low hanging fruits waiting to be harvested. And it is all behind our own backyard!
We also presented our interest in the medicinal properties of local plants since borneans like us has a compendium of plants for various ailments. This is so relevant at this time when we are concern with antibiotic resistance and cancer treatment. Plants in Borneo might just hold a key to new discoveries.
For students’ learning, we hope to get our undergrad and postgrad students the opportunity for elective attachments. For the MPH and DrPH students, this could be an opportunity to facilitate their learning on international health issues. In relation, interestingly, the Indonesians have already embarked on their own national health insurance scheme (acronym: BPJS) that has a 70% uptake. Their target is a 100% coverage by 2019. In their low resource setting, it is interesting to see how they overcome certain barriers on the ground in managing outbreaks, infectious disease surveillance, reducing maternal death and the uptake of vaccination. Quite a lot of eye opening experience that will benefit students of public health medicine.
We hope for a positive outcome from this working trip.
A big thank you to the dean, Dr Arif Wicaksono for hosting us despite his busy schedule. Also to the hospital director of UNTAN university hospital, Dr Muhammad Asroruddin to give us a tour in their teaching hospital. To Dr Diana Natalia as our liaison officer from day one of our arrival.
