DAY 526-530

Feb 8 - 12

1) Over the weekend, I made a trip to Sheffield for the Projek Amanat Negara (PAN) XV 2018 Conference, organised by UKEC and held at the University of Sheffield. As talking about my entire trip will take too long, in this blogpost I will focus on the PAN Conference itself, which took place on Saturday (10th Feb).

2) The previous night, all of us involved met up at the venue, where we were given a quick tour and assigned our roles for the big day. The event would be a whole day event - starting with registration at 8.30am, and ending at 6.00pm. After registration ended, everyone was ushered into the auditorium. After welcoming greetings and speeches from the PAN Director (Vik), UKEC Chairperson (Faizul) and officiation by H.E. Dato' Rasidi b. Hazizi (High Commissioner of Malaysia to UK and Ireland), we kickstarted with Session 1: Electoral Dynamics in Malaysia. We had three panellists - Mr Amir Fareed, Mr Shahril Hamdan, and Prof. Meredith L. Weiss - while the moderator was Ms Izza Izelan. It was an especially entertaining talk, even more so considering our General Election is approaching soon.

3) After the event, we proceeded to the Gallery Area for our next session - networking with various speakers. By this time, I had met up with Mr. Wan Fayhsal (Secretary General, Assembly of Malay Civilisation (ADAB)) who was one of the networking speakers as well as panellist for another event. For the networking session, participants were given a chance to have a conversation and Q & A with the speaker, in a very relaxed and informal environment. There was so much interest in engaging with the speakers that we decided to let the session run over lunch.

4) After having my lunch, I met up with the some of the organisers of the next session (Session 2: Breakout Session). In this session, four societies would be having their own sessions concurrently, with different target audiences in mine. We had KPUM (law), YME (engineering), MBIOS (biomed) and KALSOM (volunteer movement). As I was the session manager for MBIOS, we went to prep the room together. The event that MBIOS planned was an MUN-esque Crisis simulation - where delegates adopted the role of relevant bodies/organisations to discuss and suggest proposals to tackle "crises". In this case, we had to tackle a "PAN-demic: Nipah Virus Outbreak". Overall, the event went smoothly, with lots of active participation (which is always nice because in some crises delegates may be shy to rise and speak).

5) On to the next session - Session 3: Myth of the Lazy Native. Held at Firth Hall (the oldest and I'd wager most beautiful part of the campus), this discussion had three distinguished speakers - Prof. Maznah Mohamad, Dr. Khairudin Aljunied, and Mr. Wan Fayhsal Wan Ahamad. The topic was an eye opener for sure - based on a book written in 1966 by Syed Hussein Alatas - which addressed the question why Western colonialists had, for four centuries, thought that the natives of Maritime Southeast Asia to be generally lazy. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the various perspectives that the speakers had for this session.

6) Our final session was a Closing Keynote by Mr. Kishva Ambigapathy, the current Chairperson of the Commonwealth Youth Council. Talking about his history and his rise from humble beginnings, and how he would not let others define what he could or could not do - his speech provided the perfect ending for the event; congruent with PAN XV's theme of 'Think Again - A Paradigm Shift". At around this time, I had to catch a taxi back to Sheffield Station, as I had a train to catch. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't stick around for the post-mortem discussion that our team had. Anyway, that was the end of a proper tiring yet rewarding day. Do scroll down for just some of the pics captured during the event. Thanks so much for visiting, cheers!

Impressive view of Firth Hall, University of Sheffield

A beautiful sunrise to start the day

MBIOS token of appreciation

Sheffield University feels so vibrant and diverse

Student Union Building, Sheffield University

UKEC Background

Registration prep

The noticeboard reads "Would you rather:

1) Receive a hug from your least-liked teacher?

2) Kena rotan (receive a caning) from your favourite teacher?"

Teach For Malaysia was one of the many organisations that had set up booths for the conference

The audience standing for the National Anthem of Malaysia - Negaraku

The first session: Electoral Dynamics - proved to be highly engaging with a plethora of questions targeted at the speakers

From left to right - Ms Izza Izelan, Mr Shahril Hamdan, Mr. Amir Fareed, Prof. Meredith L Weiss

The Nelson Mandela Auditorium - location of our first session

Networking session over lunch - the food was so spicy and so good :)))

Came out of the second session to find this:

students playing tabletop games 

The expression says it all: such passion RHS and (most probably) utter denial and disgust LHS

Malaysian Accounting and Finance Society for UK and Ireland (MACFIS) with their stand

Unexpected photobomb - with Alya Sabrina

Students' Union Building

Firth Hall - with friends :)

Firth Hall

Krebs Cycle - metabolic process, 

vital in synthesis of ATP (our cell's energy "currency")

Even the door handles are this ornate... ^^

Session 3: Myth of the Lazy Native

Well preserved pipe organ!

The turnout was hugely impressive

Azzam was the moderator for the session - while Aishah and Shaun were the emcees of the day :))

Couldn't resist a photo here #sorrynotsorry

Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) Origami

Nobel Prize Winners!!

DAY 429/430

Nov 3 & 4

1) Again, a very busy weekend for me. On Thursday night, I attended the Surgical Society Event - Life of a Surgeon. We had three distinguished surgeons - RCSI's own Prof Gillen (General Surgeon), Ms Carroll (ENT Surgeon) and Mr. Barry O'Sullivan (Plastic Surgeon). It was a huge coincidence that I got to meet Mr O'Sullivan, as he was the very surgeon who had performed that DIEP flap breast reconstruction surgery in Beaumont, when I shadowed him over the summer. Anyway, each surgeon talked about their pathways, the very high "ups" and very low "downs" of their field. One could sense the great moral burden they had to shoulder when determining the outcome of a critical condition. The talk gave me newfound respect for the enormous sacrifice these surgeons make on a day-to-day basis, which included blocking off any negative emotions on the outcome of a previous case, and instead focusing all remaining energy on each subsequent one. That, more than anything else, can make or break a person.

2) On Friday night, I had been invited by MMII to present my research experience in UCD, at the Charles Institute of Dermatology. Around 50 attendees were confirmed, with student researchers from RCSI, UCD, and TCD talking about their research. Each one of us had our own "booths" set up, where we displayed our posters. At 7.40pm, everyone was ushered into the meeting room. The President of MMII (Michelle) gave a short welcoming speech, and explained the flow of events. Participants were broken into groups, and each group would have around 10 minutes for each booth. At each booth, the researchers would explain their research projects, including applications, funding, grants, and reflections. So off we went.

2) Altogether, we had four rotations i.e. four groups came to visit my stand. I only had one poster available, so the other one was in my laptop. I talked about research in both areas, and how it gave me a better appreciation of the theory work we have in medical school. It was gratifying to see the large turnout and the enthusiasm that the attendees had towards research. It is, after all, a very rewarding and beneficial experience. After the booths, we moved back to the meeting room, where one of the UCD researchers (Eunice) talked about her experience in applying for external funding. Then the event was over, and everyone went back home. An evening very well spent.

3) The whole of my Saturday was spent attending the Crisis Event, organised by the RCSI Model United Nations Society. It was an extremely thrilling event, where each participant was assigned a member of the Turkish government, and had to come up with a directive (solution) to a zombie outbreak. I was assigned the role of Prime Minister, Binali Yildrim. It was crisis after crisis, as events developed throughout the course of the day. We had to deal with internal and external crises, as various ultranationalist parties, foreign intervention, and cults ran rampant. Nevertheless, I am sure everyone learnt a great deal from the experience, and I'm personally looking forward to more events in the future. The rest of my day will be spent desperately trying to catch up with my studies, as we move ever closer to our final semester exams. That has been my day, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Thanks very much for tuning in, and have a good weekend. Cheers!

Thank you very much MMII!

It was a wonderful experience

RCSI MUNC Crisis - delegates of Turkey! 

At the UCD Charles Institute of Dermatology, with Eunice (UCD) and Wei Herng (RCSI) ^^

Albert Lecture Theatre - for the "Life of a Surgeon" talk

Prof. Gillen started the ball rolling with a frank representation of a surgeon's life

Wine and cheese reception :)

With Mr O'Sullivan, whom I had the privilege of shadowing at Beaumont

Me and Melissa, with Ms Carroll (ENT Surgeon)

With Mariss, the quintessential international RCSI student

My booth :)

Researcher for a Day...

MMII Event - welcoming speech by the President

Another take on my poster

The Charles Institute Charter, I presume

Am loving the pen too :)

On muffins and coffee/tea

Boojum FTW :)

Group photo time :)

PC Victor Yoon

A bit blurry haha

Too many photos, too many memories :^)