Third Wu Lien-Teh Society award ceremony

Day well spent in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, although it took some effort to wake up at 3.30 in the morning to prepare myself for a day trip down south. But by five o'clock, I was at Dr Hor Chee Peng's house to join him and Anwar Fazal for a drive down to the University Malaya to attend the third Dr Wu Lien-Teh award ceremony for the best student in their Doctor of Public Health post-graduate programme, organised by the University's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine. 

The winner of this year's award was Dr Vivek Jason Jayaraj who gave an interesting and inspirational acceptance speech at the ceremony. Turned out that in his younger days, he had even attended the Methodist Boys' School in Penang when his father was posted to the island briefly. Both Anwar Fazal and Hor Chee Peng are the president and secretary-general of The Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society respectively. Together with Ronald Quay who also attended the ceremony, we're only committee members of the Society.

I was hard put to say anything about the awardee but woke up this morning to learn of an informative handout to the Press that had been prepared overnight by our enthusiastic and hardworking secretary-general. So this description below about the winner basically comes from his pen:

Dr Vivek Jason Jayaraj is a Public Health Physician, currently serving at the National Institutes of Health Malaysia. He has previously served in rural Sabah for several years prior to his enrolment into postgraduate study. He is a professional with a keen interest in the confluence of data analytics, epidemiology, infectious disease and health systems. His portfolio includes key projects on the epidemiology of COVID-19, the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions and the comparative impact of health systems on COVID-19 transmission. With a penchant for data-driven solutions, Dr Vivek has been involved in developing and implementing mathematical, time-series, and machine-learning models to forecast the spread of infectious diseases, including dengue, COVID-19 and HFMD (hand, foot and mouth disease). He strongly advocates the integration of data and compassion to create a promising future in healthcare. He relentlessly strives to reduce the time gaps in data-driven solutions within the realm of infectious disease and health systems, working to shape a world where technology and humanity meet to improve health outcomes. Dr Vivek dedicates himself to community outreach with great passion. He led his team to set up pour flush pit latrines at an Orang Asli village at Bukit Manchung with sanitary education programme. He also conducted risk assessment activities at Angelcare Nursing Home and Persatuan Pengasih Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The selection process for the award is conducted by an independent panel of academicians set up by the Faculty of Medicine and approved by the Senate of University Malaya, with four domains of evaluation: leadership, community engagement, academic standing and professionalism. The awardee receives a medal, RM1,000 cash prize and a certificate from The Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society.

Among all the pictures I took at the ceremony, this was the only picture that mattered. Standing left to right: Dr Victor Hoe Chee Wai bin Abdullah (Head, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine), Anwar Fazal, Dr Vivek Jason Jayaraj and Dr Yang Faridah binti Abdul Aziz (Dean, Faculty of Medicine)