April, 2020 | The Health
| Issue |
MAAFIM to
encourage and
foster a new
generation of
Interdisciplinary
doctors
MAAFIM committee members and guests.
You are what you eat
To maintain good
health, it is essential to
go back to nature
T
Dr Paramjit.
O stay healthy, it’s important
that you eat right. Put it simply,
your state of health will reflect
your choice of food. Dr Paramjit
Kaur, Vice President of the
Malaysian Association for
Advancement of Functional
and Interdisciplinary Medicine
(MAAFIM) is a firm believer of this. For her,
prevention is better than cure.
“Our idea is to stress on preventive
medicine. This means our health originates
from our kitchen since our kitchen is the
basis of everything. We need to have good,
clean nutrition.
“We also need to control stuff like
alcohol and smoking since that is part of the
prevention technique. Prevention should
extend to factories where people are at
constant exposure to allergens, smoke and
hazardous materials. An example would
be people who work at tile factories. In the
long run, they tend to suffer from lung
problems,” she told The Health.
These issues were highlighted at
MAAFIM's sinaugural International
conference on Jan 10-12 at the Dorsett Grand
Subang in Selangor. MAAFIM is a national
association to facilitate the advancement
of science, research, education and further
training to support best and evidence based
medical care and to provide advice on policy
in the realm of Interdisciplinary Medicine
(the interaction between conventional and
complementary medicine based on evidence
based results).
Dr Paramjit Kaur, who was organising
chair of the conference said,”The theme of
the conference was ‘Green Medicine’ which
stands for the concept of using natural
things such as herbal medicine and Chinese
traditional medicine. It is essential to go
back to nature.”
She said the idea behind MAAFIM is to
have a system of good practice for the benefit
of patients because the conventional standard
of care is not sufficient. “We started gathering
our members last year and we decided to
form a society. We drew up a constitution
that encompassed everyone’s vision and
mission. On Aug 30, the organisation
became a registered society in Malaysia. Dr
Vijaendreh was appointed President and I
Vice President,” explained Dr Paramjit.
One of the topics discussed at the
conference was maternal health for best
pregnancy outcome which touched on how
healthy a potential mother should be before
she gets pregnant and what kind of diet
and supplements she should consume. This
ensures the mother’s body is in the right
frame to accept a child and let the child
grow well in her.
Another area which MAAFIM is
currently focusing on is diabetes.
Complications of diabetes mellitus include
problems that develop rapidly (acute) or
over time (chronic) and may affect many
organs. Managing the complications can
be difficult and the family of the diabetic
patient is also affected by it.
Aspects of life with diabetic can
definitely affect one’s quality of life.
During the conference, Dr Radha Krishnan
introduced several case studies on
the topic of managing Type 2 diabetes
with complications to educate other
practitioners.
Said Dr Paramjit,”Heart diseases is
definitely another issue we are facing
today. “We also know cancer is on the rise
and surgery is not sufficient so we will
need other things to incorporate into our
management for a better outcome rather
than having heavy doses of radiation and
people becoming more ill.There are also
heavy metals present in food and water and
again, we need to create awareness in our
society.”
MAAFIM aims to alert patients from all
angles - prevention, awareness, education
and on-going support for patients with
issues. They are hoping that more doctors
will join them and work together towards
a positive outcome for patients.
— The Health
ESTABLISHED last year, MAAFIM or the
Malaysian Association Of Advancement
of Functional & Interdisciplinary
Medicine held its inaugural international
conference on January 10. The Health
spoke to the President of MAAFIM, Dr
Vijaendreh Subramaniam.
“MAAFIM is an association formed by
doctors and the membership is exclusively
for doctors. The purpose of MAAFIM is to
encourage conventional doctors who are
already practicing complementary and
alternative therapies to help regulate such
practice,” explained Dr Vijaendreh.
“Although the association is new, we
now have almost 200 members. This is not
a novice association. The members have
practiced for almost 50 years. The reason
why we chose this platform is because we
do not have an association that is able to
represent this interest.”
He believed there was a pressing need
for doctors like him to engage with the
public health sector because they find
the current models such as the separated
Guest-of-honour Dr Idris Ahmad (left) and
Dr Vijaendreh.
healthcare systems not ideal. He added
there were strengths in healing sciences
that use complementary and alternative
therapy. Therefore, by establishing
MAAFIM, they can bring the two different
approaches together hence producing a
better outcome.
“MAAFIM was born to fulfill that
aim. It’s going to be a non profit
organisation, focusing on training and
providing opportunities for members
to be accredited in certain areas. An
example, we are having a Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) with Lincoln
University. The goal is to of offer a
certification program in integrated
medicine so members will be able to have a
well rounded certification.”
MAAFIM was built on two core
reasons, the catalytic event in 2018
when the Ministry of Health banned
several practices and existing bodies
were not adequate to stand up for the
needs of doctors. Secondly, was the fact
that Dr Vijaendreh felt they were in a
more fragmented area and wanted an
association where they could bring all
the allied integrative medicine under one
roof. — The Health
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