Interview our past immediate president, Prof Syed Hassan Almashoor The initial ideal came during Malaysian Psychiatrist Meeting in 2000 when some of the psychiatrist with interest in sleep disorders start this group to promote multidisciplinary approach to sleep medicine 2 nd President – Prof Syed Hassan Almashoor – Head of Medical Science Cluster, UiTM; previous Foundation Dean, Faculty of Medicine, UNIMAS Current president – Dr Muhsin, Consultant Psychiatrist in PPUM Original members – mainly psychiatrists, respiratory physicians, neurologist – Dato’ Dr. Rani – Ampang Putri Specialist Prof Syed reported initial experience with sleep medicine in the country in Sleep and Hypnosis in 1999 Current committe members include resp physician, paeds resp physician, psychiatrist, n ENT surgeon
Prof Syed and Dato Dr Zainuddin were the two person who developed the first sleep labs in Malaysia in UNIMAS and UKM in early 1990’s Dr Norzila, Paeds Respirologist involved with the development of first sleep lab for paeds population in Hospital Serdang
RIPAS – Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Saleha hospital, main tertiary hospital in Brunei
Sleep medicine has been in Malaysia for more than 20 years now. Patients usually either presented with excessive daytime sleepiness to the Respi physicians, or symptoms of upper airway obstruction with excessive snoring to ENT surgeon. Our psychiatrist usually see those with sleep disorders including insomnias, and sleep walking. With obesity pandemics, the demand for sleep medicine is increasing, and we are currently experiencing the same scenarios. One of the challenges in Malaysia at present is diagnosing sleep disordered breathing in less obese patient and determining the factors involved. The other challenges would be maintaining the standard of care and continuous training for the doctors and sleep technicians. We need to affiliate ourselves with the bodies such as NAPST and Board of registered polysomnographic technologist in maintaining the standard of training in sleep medicine. Certainly, the demand for trained sleep tech is very high, and we, especially in the government hospital relying heavily on the medical assistants and staff nurse which pose their own problem. At present, we are working on introducing a certificate qualification for training in sleep medicine post basic qualification to ensure the standard of training for the future sleep tech.
HSB – Sultanah Bahiyah HRPZ – Raja Perempuan Zainab II HSA – Sultanah Aminah Serving 27 million populations
MSLT – multiple sleep latency test MWT – maintenance of wakefulness test
![Outline ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)