Doctor-patient communication skills are important in family medicine and can be taught and learned. This paper summarises the salient contents and main methods of the teaching and learning of doctor-patient communication, especially those applicable to the discipline.
The state of Sarawak in Malaysia has a high prevalence of iodine deficiency disorders (IDD). This has been revealed through a review of goitre surveys that were carried out in the State from the early 1970s to the 1990s. The primary cause was low iodine intake. Contributory factors were low iodine content in the soil and water as well as high cassava consumption. Virtual elimination of IDD is one of the nutritional goals of the IDD prevention and control programs. The strategies adopted include the iodination of coarse salt, which is sold in the market by shopkeepers and also provided free from government health clinics; legislation requiring that salt sold in IDD-gazetted areas must be iodised; and the use of iodinators to iodise water supplied by the gravity-feed system to villages and boarding schools in rural areas. The indicators used in the monitoring and evaluation of the program include the availability of iodised salt in the market and households, iodine levels in water supply that had been fitted with iodinators, goitre volume measured by ultrasound, and urinary iodine excretion among school children.
Ischemic heart disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Malaysia. Management strategies for this disease have changed dramatically. This article, based on discussions of real cases, reviews current treatment methods for various patient subsets, with acute myocardial ischemia.
Academic and corporate interest in sustainable product and process development has risen considerably
in recent years. This can be seen by the number of papers published and in particular by special issued of journals. This paper reports the results of a review of published peer-reviewed literature from 1987 to 2012 to provide an up-to-date picture of sustainability and sustainable assessment. A structured methodology is followed to narrow down the search from around 3500 papers to 111. A variety of different sustainability assessment methodologies are reviewed in two classified research areas: product sustainability assessment and process sustainability assessment. In presenting a detailed taxonomy of product and process sustainability assessment methods, the paper also outlines the advantages and weaknesses of the sustainability assessment methods. The review sheds light on the weak points of current research in this area. The paper also highlights several key issues which have to be taken into account in attempting to develop a product or process sustainability assessment research paradigm for future applications in manufacturing systems.
Over 100 articles related to stroke were found in a search through a database dedicated to indexing all literature with original data involving the Malaysian population between years 2000 and 2014. Stroke is emerging as a major public health problem. The development of the National Stroke Registry in the year 2009 aims to coordinate and improve stroke care, as well as to generate more data on various aspects of stroke in the country. Studies on predictors of survival after strokes have shown potential to improve the overall management of stroke, both during acute event and long term care. Stroke units were shown to be effective locally in stroke outcomes and prevention of stroke-related complications. The limited data looking at direct cost of stroke management suggests that the health economic burden in stroke management may be even higher. Innovative rehabilitation programmes including braincomputer interface technology were studied with encouraging results. Studies in traditional complementary medicine for strokes such as acupuncture, Urut Melayu and herbal medicine were still limited.