MyMedR

Displaying all 4 publications

Abstract:

Sort:

The Vulnerability of Migrant Workers in Global COVID-19 Pandemic: Highlights from Malaysia and Hong Kong

Ngan OMY, Sanip S

Asia Pac J Public Health, 2021 11;33(8):983-984.
PMID: 34243675 DOI: 10.1177/10105395211031367
Fulltext Bioethics Education in the Medical Programme among Malaysian Medical Schools: Where Are We Now?

Sim JH, Ngan OMY, Ng HK

J Med Educ Curric Dev, 2019 12 02;6:2382120519883887.
PMID: 31832540 DOI: 10.1177/2382120519883887

Introduction: A global trend in medical education is the inclusion of bioethics teaching in medical programme. The objective of this article is to describe the current state of bioethics education in the medical programme among Malaysian medical schools.
Method: A national survey was conducted among Malaysian medical schools between January and March 2019. One representative from each medical school was invited to respond to the survey. Respondents were faculty members involved in teaching and assessment of bioethics in their medical schools, or/and in developing and coordinating bioethics curriculum. Descriptive statistics were reported.
Findings: Out of 30 medical schools, 11 completed and returned the survey (overall response rate = 36.7%). Of these 11 schools, 6/10 (60%) were from public institutions while 5/20 (25%) were from private institutions. All except 1 school implemented a formal bioethics curriculum. A wide range of bioethics topics are currently taught in the medical programme. The majority involved in teaching bioethics were health care professionals (mainly clinicians), followed by lawyers. Lecture and attendance, respectively, are the most common teaching and assessment method. Major barriers to the implementation of bioethics education included limited qualified teaching staff (6/11 = 54.5%), no established curriculum to follow (5/11 = 45.5%), limited financial resources to hire qualified staff (4/11 = 36.4%), and no consensus among faculty members (4/11 = 36.4%).
Conclusion: Bioethics education in Malaysia is relatively new and mostly limited by a shortage of scholars in bioethics. National support and institutional collaboration in providing bioethics training is the key to enhance the quality of bioethics education.
Cultural considerations in forgoing enteral feeding: A comparison between the Hong Kong Chinese, North American, and Malaysian Islamic patients with advanced dementia at the end-of-life

Ngan OMY, Bergstresser SM, Sanip S, Emdadul Haque ATM, Chan HYL, Au DKS

Dev World Bioeth, 2020 06;20(2):105-114.
PMID: 31241234 DOI: 10.1111/dewb.12239

Cultural competence, a clinical skill to recognise patients' cultural and religious beliefs, is an integral element in patient-centred medical practice. In the area of death and dying, physicians' understanding of patients' and families' values is essential for the delivery of culturally appropriate care. Dementia is a neurodegenerative condition marked by the decline of cognitive functions. When the condition progresses and deteriorates, patients with advanced dementia often have eating and swallowing problems and are at high risk of developing malnutrition. Enteral tube feeding is a conventional means of providing artificial nutrition and hydration to meet nutritional needs, but its benefits to the frail population are limitedly shown in the clinical evidence. Forgoing tube feeding is ethically challenging when patients are mentally incompetent and in the absence of an advance directive. Unlike some developed countries, like the United States of America, death and dying is a sensitive issue or even a taboo in some cultures in developing countries that forgoing enteral tube feeding is clinically and ethically challenging, such as China and Malaysia. This article in three parts 1) discusses the clinical and ethical issues related to forgoing tube feeding among patients with advanced dementia, 2) describes how Hong Kong Chinese, North American, and Malaysian Islamic cultures respond differently in the decision-making patterns of forgoing tube feeding for patients with advanced dementia, and 3) reiterates the clinical implications of cultural competence in end-of-life care.
Fulltext What Does It Mean for a Case to be 'Local'?: the Importance of Local Relevance and Resonance for Bioethics Education in the Asia-Pacific Region

Bergstresser SM, Ghias K, Lane S, Lau WM, Hwang ISS, Ngan OMY, et al.

Asian Bioeth Rev, 2020 Jun;12(2):173-194.
PMID: 33717336 DOI: 10.1007/s41649-020-00120-8

Contemporary bioethics education has been developed predominately within Euro-American contexts, and now, other global regions are increasingly joining the field, leading to a richer global understanding. Nevertheless, many standard bioethics curriculum materials retain a narrow geographic focus. The purpose of this article is to use local cases from the Asia-Pacific region as examples for exploring questions such as 'what makes a case or example truly local, and why?', 'what topics have we found to be best explained through local cases or examples?', and 'how does one identify a relevant local case?' Furthermore, we consider the global application of local cases to help extend the possible scope of the discussion, opening new avenues for the development of practical bioethics educational materials. We begin with a background description and discussion of why local cases enhance bioethics education, move to an overview of what is currently available and what is not for the region, and then outline a discussion of what it means to be local using example cases drawn from Hong Kong, Australia, Pakistan, and Malaysia. We are not creating a casebook but rather constructing by example a toolbox for designing active and dynamic learning cases using regional diversity as contextualised cases with generalised principles.