14 – 20 of October 2019 – For 2019 World Spine Day (WSD) celebrations, students of the IMU’s Chiropractic programme under the Centre for Complimentary and Alternate Medicine, led by Dr Kamal H B Parbhoo assisted in spreading awareness to Malaysian sport youth teams as well as universities on how to protect their spine from an early age. World Spine Day is a yearly event that takes place around the world with numerous countries taking part to promote spinal healthcare. Various events took place in the form of talks given by Dr Kumaran D Pillay to the National Dodgeball Team Malaysia, Malaysian Rugby Club, University KL, Archery team and football team. A university in Bukit Jalil invited the WSD team in July to conduct Spinal Screening and a Chiropractic talk with an interview on the benefits of WSD awareness. The event was a success with Chiropractic students screening almost a hundred people and Dr Kumaran and Kamal assisting with an emergency case while the WSD event was taking place. In August, Semesters 7 and 8 Chiropractic students performed spinal screening at the International Medical College Breast Cancer Awareness Week. The WSD Executive Committee took the initiative in extending the WSD activities with the cancer awareness week to promote spinal care in relation to the breast cancer as it may spread to the spine.
The World Spine Day (WSD) executive committee with their team displayed enthusiasm in accomplishing an exhilarating opening ceremony on 14 Oct 2019 for World Spine Day. The event was attended by Profs Abdul-Aziz Baba and Peter Pook who gave a few words on their appreciation for Chiropractic and WSD. The Chiropractic lecturers and colleagues from other departments also graced the event with their presence.
Many events and talks were held leading to the opening ceremony such as spinal screenings and educational spinal awareness lectures at various universities. The executive committee and their team members were extremely active in making all the spinal screening events a success, especially the opening ceremony where they unveiled the Spine Interactive Model (SIM).
The Chiropractic team namely Charishma initiated a collaboration with an engineering company and built a 3-dimensional model that depicted the last three vertebrae of the lumbar spine. The first of its kind to be unveiled whereby the public got to view and feel a dysfunctional, pathological and normal vertebral motion model. Dr Eric Mumbauer also shared some clinical knowledge to help with spinal awareness. This opening ceremony with its SIM caught the eye of another university and thus asked WSD executive committee to manage a WSD event at their university. There was an earnest interest from another university in providing their students with the same spinal health awareness screenings and models that had improved many students’ lives all over Kuala Lumpur universities. The student committee approached the Chiropractic WSD executive committee to host a WSD event at their university on 7 and 8 November. Activities at this event will include powerlifting, fitness challenge, spinal screenings, talk and spinal models depicting different spinal conditions.
Prior to this event, the extremely caring and hard-working students of the Chiropractic cohorts joined together to form a committee to create spinal awareness in keeping with the WORLD SPINE DAY organisation. The committee consists of Mustafa (President), Siti Sara (Vice-President), Marina (2nd Vice-President) who are all Semester 6 Chiropractic students and numerous other enthusiastic, sincere and selfless t committee members who have worked tirelessly to bring events of spinal awareness to other universities and also in the preparation for the main event of WSD in October 2019. Students, namely Sarah (Secretary), Eupharsia (Treasurer), Tanessa, Karishma (PRO), Jason (ex VP), Thibenraaj (previous president), Kayathiri (logistics), Darren (Cameraman) and many more whose names are too many to mention are guided by Dr Kamal Parbhoo who has many years of clinical practice, therefore providing the very best advice on Spinal Care at these events.
