MALAYSIA: YOUNG PHYSICIANS ENCOURAGED TO SPECIALISE IN NEPHROLOGY

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian Society of Nephrology (MSN)
has been urged to work with the Health Ministry and local universities to
encourage more young physicians to specialise in nephrology.

Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai said this was to meet the
ministry's target to have at least 10 nephrologists per million population by
the year 2020.

"Assuming that we have a population of 34.9 million by 2020 and there is no
attrition of nephrologists from the country, we will have to produce another 245
nephrologists by 2020.

"This means that we will need to train at least 22 nephrologists per year
from this year onwards in order to meet this target," he at MSN's 25th
Anniversary Dinner and launching a book entitled "Nephrology in
Malaysia-Celebrating 50 Years of Progress" here Thursday night.

Liow said the present ratio of about 3.5 nephrologists per million
population in this country was inadequate to sustain the current services and
the number of trained nephrologists in the country had increased only by 10-fold
from 10 in 1990 to the current 104 trained nephrologists.


"This country certainly needs to produce more nephrologists and related
allied health staff because in the more developed countries, including our
neighbour Singapore, the nephrologists to population ratio is 10 to 15 per
million population," he said.

He said currently, the ministry had 49 nephrologists including eight
paediatric nephrologists.

"I am pleased to note that almost half of the nephrologists in the country
have chosen to remain in service with the ministry. These numbers, although
still not enough, are more than any other medical specialty in the ministry.

"I sincerely hope that this trend will continue in the future," he said.

Liow said nephrologists must also take greater interest in health promotion
as well as primary and secondary prevention to combat the epidemic of
lifestyle-associated diseases.

"They will have to work closely with the primary care physicians to control
diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity and other risk factors to
prevent chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and strokes," he added.

Nephrology is a branch of internal medicine and pediatrics dealing with the
study of the function and diseases of the kidney.

-- BERNAMA