Talk on Diabetes Education at IMU

8 July 2014 – About 90 participants attended the talk entitled ‘Diabetes Education – a Practical Approach’ in the Senate Room of International Medical University (IMU), Bukit Jalil. This talk is organised by the IMU School of Pharmacy, IMU Alumni and Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society-Young Pharmacist Chapter (MPS-YPC) in conjunction with the 10^th anniversary of IMU’s BPharm programme. The invited speaker, Wong Yoke Lian is a registered diabetic care nurse who has vast experience in providing diabetic care education. She is currently working with the Johnson and Johnson (ASEAN), having worked with various other corporations like Bristol Myers Squibbs company, Quintiles, Assunta Hospital (Malaysia) and Hammersmith Hospital (United Kingdom). Being a vibrant and lively person, she started off her talk by presenting a case and invited the participants to partake a role play. By doing this, she tried to elucidate the obstacles that may hinder communication between the healthcare professional and diabetic patients. She further explained the challenges in educating patients with proper knowledge as most of them would have had some prior misconceptions about diabetes care. Furthermore, she shared some tips on how to motivate patients to follow the lifestyle changes that they need after being diagnosed with diabetes. She even demonstrated ways to measure serving sizes which can be easily understood as it is done using hands only, ensuring that patients would have no trouble controlling their food portions. Ms Wong placed high importance in quality diabetes management as proper supportive care from the healthcare team and active self-care has been proven to reduce the risks of diabetic complications. Towards the end of her talk, she gave participants the opportunity to ask any questions that may be lingering in their minds. Some participants enquired further about the diabetic care products that are available in the market. One of the participants, Lynn who is currently an IMU Semester 5 pharmacy student commented that the talk was really informative and helped to supplement the learning for the pharmacy programme . She is definitely looking forward to such talks again.