Prepared by Professor Thong Meow-Keong
President, College of Paediatrics

The Chapter of Paediatrics under the Academy of Medicine was set up in 1995 to promote the professional development of the field of paediatrics and to represent the fraternity of paediatricians in Malaysia. Four years later, in concordance with the other chapters in the Academy, it was renamed the College of Paediatrics. The term AMMCOP (Academy of Medicine of Malaysia College of Paediatrics) was coined and a new logo was designed which is still in use today. One of the earlier objectives was to extend the age limit of the patient in “Paediatrics” in Malaysia from 12 years to 18 years in keeping with international guidelines.

Under the leadership of Professor Dato’ Mohd Sham Kasim, the founding president, Prof Lin Hai Peng and other past Presidents of AMMCOP which included Professor Dato Raja Khuzaiah, Emeritus Prof Boo Nem Yun, Prof Lee Way Seah and the current President, Prof Thong Meow Keong, many significant milestones were achieved over the past 20 years. The College worked closely with the local universities in the Paediatric Conjoint Board in the development of the local postgraduate paediatric education.  Together with the Ministry of Health (MOH), it also played a pivotal role in the drawing up of criteria for the credentialing and privileging of paediatricians and the 17 paediatric sub-specialities under the National Specialist Registry (NSR) launched in 2006 which saw the NSR registration of 775 paediatricians nation-wide by the beginning of 2016. Other major achievements included the development of clinical practice guidelines and organizing preparatory and training workshops for both postgraduate examinations (Masters of Paediatrics / Master of Medicine and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health UK examinations) in conjunction with University of Malaya and the national paediatric research conferences which were held in the Academies’ building, USM (2013) and University of Malaya (2015). The recently concluded 8th conference in 2016 in UKM Medical Centre was held in conjunction with the National Neonatal Transport workshop.

In addition,  AMMCOP has begun to collaborate with Malaysian Paediatric Association and Malaysian Association of Adolescent Health to co-organize the Paediatric Palliative Care workshop and “Training of the Trainers in Adolescent Health”, respectively in Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kota Bharu December 2013 and with the Perinatal Society of Malaysia and Department of Paediatrics University of Malaya in co-organizing major conferences, namely the 9th Congress of Asian Society of Pediatric Research in Kuching, Sarawak in May 2013 and the Kuala Lumpur International Neonatology Conference in November 2015.

The Academy of Medicine of Malaysia (AMM), represented by the College of Paediatrics and the main council, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health on 14th October 2014 at the Academies Building, Kuala Lumpur. This MoU sets out the principles for the conduct and administration of the MRCPCH in Malaysia and that the AMM and the RCPCH would work in partnership to offer the MRCPCH examination in Malaysia. AMMCOP was also invited by the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons (BCPS) to send external examiners for the FCPS Part II Examinations in Paediatrics held in Dhaka, Bangladesh starting from July 2014. Professor Dr Thong Meow Keong was the first external examiner followed by Professor Dr Wan Ariffin Abdullah (January 2015),  Professor Dr Zabidi Azhar Mohd. Hussin (July 2015), Professor Zilfalil Alwi (January 2016) and Dato Dr Jimmy Lee (August 2016).

Towards the end of 2015, there are 153 members in the AMMCOP, with 42 being Fellows. To enhance communication between our members and to increase the growth in the membership of the College of Paediatrics, we had already planned to launch a separate homepage for the College of Paediatrics with links to the AMM website, which will serve as a ‘hub’ to centralise membership information and on-line membership payments, on-line journals access as well as CPD and CME programmes for members, and establishing databases for various uses including research collaborations. Other current developments included the development of Continuous Medical Education (CME) as well as Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programmes for members and the academic input in the National Paediatrics curriculum.