Introduction |
I wish to thank the immediate Past President Dr Lee Soon Boon for his excellent achievements last year and laid a good foundation for me to take over smoothly. As I receive the baton from him, it is my duty also to ensure that I enhance the tradition and bring MDA to next level with selfless dedication. It is also my solemn duty to put in efforts in the Wisma MDA project and go on fund raising to build a home for the MDA.
To this end, we must know that:
“If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people. “
Confucius
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Shaping the Direction for the MDA Council 2010-2011 |
1. Within MDA |
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To improve the productivity and efficiency of the Secretariat, heading towards ISO standard (Administrative and Finance Committee) |
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To improve the productivity and efficiency of the MDA Committee, All MDA Committee must be functioning and Committee Chairman has to submit report for each Council meeting. Non-functioning Committee would be subjected to review (Principle Office Bearers Committee) |
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To improve the transparency and accountability of the accounting system |
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To achieve self sufficiency in each project |
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To improve the Team work spirit within the Council and within all the Committee Chairman and Deputy Chairman |
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To integrate Secretariat staff as part of the Team and inculcate friendship and mutual support for our staff |
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2. MDA at National Level |
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To improve the image of the Dental profession through community dental service project – Launched of 1Malaysia Oral Health Awareness Campaign project - a joint project to be collaborated with MOH, LPKM, MDA and various sponsors ( Community Dental Committee) |
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To find a Home for MDA – the Wisma MDA Project. A Wisma MDA Night would be organized on 15th Jan 2011 in conjunction with 18th FDI in KL |
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To improve the ties with the Affiliates (Affiliate Liaison Committee) |
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To enhance greater mutual support and collaboration between MDA, MOH (Government Liaison Committee) , Military Dental, Dental Schools (Military Dental Liaison Committee) |
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To provide greater support to the Dental Students (Student Liaison Committee) |
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To enhance better relationship with Dental Traders, as well as Traders from non-dental industry (Trade Liaison Committee) |
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3. MDA at International Level |
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To organize international Conferences |
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To bid for international Conference to Malaysia |
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To actively attend international conferences and standing for election where applicable ( FDI, APDC, IDEM, GCCD) |
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To develop Malaysia as a hub for Dental Training Centre (need the blessing from Ministry of Health and the Government of Malaysia) |
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To develop Malaysia as the choice destination for Dental Tourism (need the blessing from Ministry of Health and the Government of Malaysia) |
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To attract international dental companies to exhibit in Malaysia |
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Best Smile Policy |
Our vision is to establish a Council that represent broad interest of our Association:
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striving for excellence |
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Establish a comprehensive system in running the Association |
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Be transparent and accountable in justifying our spending |
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Bringing the best in everyone to serve the Association to the fullest potential |
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We abbreviated these as BEST |
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B (Broad representation) - To establish MDA as a professional national dental organization representing the broad interest of all dentists in Malaysia |
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E (Excellence) – To establish a dedicated Council committed to strive for excellence for our dental profession |
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S (Systematic) – To establish a systematic and efficient operation to run the Association |
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T (Transparent and Accountability) – To establish a transparent and accountable Council that justified spending and budgeted spending weighted on projects benefits members at large
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Mission |
Our Mission is to form a friendly, members oriented Council that would listen to the members’ wishes and to act on members’ needs. We would also protect our hard earned funds against unscrupulous spending, willingness to be accessible and approachable to members and work dedicatively to surpass expectations. We abbreviated it as SMILE Mission
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S (Surpass expectation) – We would form a dedicated team of Council who are willing to serve above self interest and committed to surpass expectations |
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M (Motivated to serve by fulfilling our Vision) – We come in to run as a Team and hence are all motivated to serve as a Team by our inner desire to fulfill our vision into reality |
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I (Intelligent use of fund to maximize the gain for our Association) - We would protect the hard earned reserve accumulated over the years, exploring ways for growth and guard against deflation to maximize the gain for our Association as well as membership |
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L (Listen to the wishes of members and be willing to be accommodative) – We would form a member friendly, trader friendly, patient friendly Council that serve the best interest for our Profession as well as our Association. We would form a Council that is willing to listen to the views of members and be willing to be accommodative to their wishes if it is for the best interest of our profession as well as our Association |
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E (Excellence in every aspect for our Profession) – We are committed to achieve excellence in each and every project of our undertakings for the betterment of our profession |
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We must be master of our own destiny. |
A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions – Confucius |
Let’s talk less, work more and achieve our target together!
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The Social Responsibility of the MDA |
Introduction |
Malaysian Dental Association was founded in 1938 with the objectives to promote the arts and science of dentistry and in turn maintain the honour and interest of the dental profession. Starting with only a few members to now about 3600 members, MDA is the largest main stream national dental organization in Malaysia and one of the largest in Southeast Asia. We are also one of the highest membership in terms of percentage of dentists being members of the national dental association. With that in mind, MDA do have an important social responsibility to our profession as well as our nation.
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| How Social Responsibility aligns with MDA’s mission |
Although we might not regularly use the term social responsibility (SR) in our strategic decision-making, but we consider SR to be part of our organization’s mission.
As former British Prime Minister Tony Blair puts in, “At the heart of my politics has always been the value of community, the belief that we are not merely individuals struggling in isolation from each other, but members of a community who depend on each other, who benefit from each other's help, who owe obligations to each other. From that everything stems: solidarity, social justice, equality, freedom.
By virtue of that statement, MDA indeed has the social responsibility towards the nation in the following areas:
1. Professional Social Responsibility
2. Educational Social Responsibility
3. Community Social Responsibility
4. Environmental Social Responsibility
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| Professional Responsibility |
Professionally MDA represents all specialties of Dentistry, namely, Oral Surgery, Orthodontics, Prosthodontics, Periodontics, Endodontics, Peadodontics, Geriodontics, Implantology etc. MDA also comprise members from private practice, government service, military service, academy. MDA also represent both the general practitioners as well as the specialists. As such, the professional social responsibility of MDA is to preserve unity and safeguard the interest of the profession by adopting a middle, non bias pathway, consistent with the National Oral Health Policy. For that reason, MDA could not bow to the selfish request of certain interest group at the expense of the greater good of the profession.
At this point, I would also like to quote another phrase of wisdom from former British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, “The only society that works today is also one founded on mutual respect, on a recognition that we have a responsibility collectively and individually, to help each other on the basis of each other's equal worth. A selfish society is a contradiction in terms.“
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| Educational Social Responsibility |
MDA has a duty to organize Continuing Professional Development educational programme at affordable rate and often heavily subsidized rate for our members. MDA also has undertaken the initiative to reach out to our members in the remote areas to ensure fair access for members who live far from KL. We have categorized our CPD activities as local level, national level and international level.
We have also made special efforts to ensure a good balance of subjects and broad base knowledge covering all specialty area to enhance the knowledge as well as clinical competence of our members. We owe the public a social responsibility to ensure that our dental surgeons are adequately trained and willing to sacrifice their weekends to upgrade skills and knowledge so as to better service the patients.
MDA is now also considering to embark on a joint collaboration project to work with the Ministry of Health to keep track of the CPD points of our members, this is preliminary preparation for the eventual compulsory CPD points linked to the renewal of Annual Practicing Certificate.
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Community Social Responsibility |
It is a well recognized fact that oral health is an integral aspect of total physical health. However, sadly speaking the general oral health awareness is not measured up to our expectations and as such, MDA has a community social responsibility to promote oral health awareness, especially to the rural areas. We hope to complement the efforts of the Ministry of Health by doing our bits for the community.
The Community Oral Health Awareness project would be best carried out with collaborations from MDA, Dental Corporate , Ministry of Health and Malaysian Health Promotion Board as well as voluntary charitable organization. It should consists :
• Oral Health Promotion
• Oral Health Education
• Oral Health Treatment
• Oral Health Rehabilitation
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Environment Social Responsibility |
As a responsible corporate citizen, MDA hopes to raise awareness in environmental concern to save our ailing Earth. We therefore have launched the “ MDA Going GREEN project”. This is an environmental conservation project aim at saving printing cost by going electronic copies for MDJ and Annual Report. Efforts have also been made to cut the power and water utilities consumption by 20% and using recycled paper for all in-house documents.
This environmental friendly project would not only translate into savings for MDA but more importantly it convey a clear and unequivocal message to the global community that MDA - the dental profession is going GREEN to save or planet Earth.
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Conclusion |
I ‘ll like to quote a phrase from Carlos Castaneda to end my article, ““Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.”
We've got a job to do, and because we've got a job to do, we've got to focus on that, so you don't have time for personal considerations.
Written by,
Dr How Kim Chuan
President
Malaysian Dental Association
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