Author: mohdjamil

1. Accreditation is a good process in ensuring the quality of a university. In every process of accreditation, the aim is to ensure that institutions of higher education meet acceptable levels of quality in order to function effectively.  There are many types of accreditation such as institutional accreditation, professional accreditation, and programme accreditation.
2. According to the Medical Act 1971, Medicine in Malaysia is regulated by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC), a national licensing board which regulates the teaching and practice of medicine in the country.
3. In the beginning, MMC defines its core functions related to the registration and practice of medical practitioners. the period of compulsory service and the provisions related to the registration, practice and period of service provision.
4. Later, MMC has extended its role in collaboration with the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) of granting recognition to other medical schools in the country and overseas.
5. For the purpose of recognition of medical schools, the MMC/MQA endorsed a guideline on standards and procedures on accreditation developed in 1996, which was later realigned with international and regional guidelines, in 2000 and 2001. (Mahmud Mohd Nor).
6. In the Malaysia context, MQA uses accreditation as a basis for other parties including the Public Service Department (PSD)  to recognize the qualification for a variety of reasons such as employment in the public service.
7. Programme accreditation is also used for other purposes such as to apply for loans from various funding institutions, for credit transfer, and to franchise the accredited programmes from an institution to another.
8. MQA deploys Malaysia Qualifying Framework (MQF) as an instrument that qualifies qualifications based on the set of criteria that are approved nationally and benchmarked against the international best practice.
9. MQA has set up a Code of Practise for Programme Accreditation (COPPA) which comprise guidelines on the preparation of documents for programme accreditation and assists assessment process for programme accreditation.
10. The process of acquiring accreditation starts with an application, date setting, visit an institution, tabling reports to various committees including Joint Committee  MMC/MQA meeting and recommendation to the institution.
11. The time frame for the development of a quality assurance document is usually about 12 months, starting from the receipt of the task until the document is uploaded in the MQA website. The important stages of the development process are illustrated in the diagram.
12. The Impact study of Programme standards to stakeholders was conducted online from 1st to 30th Sept 2013 to obtain feedback on the impact of programme standards in curriculum development and review processes of a programme. Among the findings include five (5) years is agreed by the majority of respondents to be an appropriate duration for review of programme standards. The five years duration provides sufficient time to evaluate the content and importance of particular programme standards.
13. 

1. It is impossible to imagine the world without cities. Similarly, it is impossible too to imagine a city without people. That is how I feel when I stay in Putrajaya at night. Putrajaya offers architectural dynamism without much benefit to its function as a dynamic commercial center. Maybe it is not designed for commercial use but remembers, the city can bring people together with ideas, and experience in a new dynamic of human interaction.
2. I imagine if many people are working until the middle of the night like Tokyo city center in Putrajaya-Cyberjaya, then there will be a tremendous interaction in the state of the art building architecture with human beings, and hence put it to be a great investment worthwhile for the administrative city.
3. A city without people is very much similar to a university campus without students. Check it out during the end of semester holiday. Are we building a campus or a city?
4. I may have made a mistake here nevertheless don’t get me wrong. Sincerity is a strength; insincerity is always a weakness.
5. My suggestion for the future growth of Putrajaya is for the new government to capitalize on the new politic of Malaysia Baharu by making Putrajaya a center for political education, activism, and awakening. I am delighted at how the 61st National day was celebrated in Putrajaya.
6. Secondly, the myth of the lazy city, especially at night, has to be rebuked. Paying thousand to million of electricity bill just to brighten the city without embarking on substantial activities by the rakyat is a waste of money and resources.
7. Thirdly, perhaps the most controversial idea is to allow people to elect members of the city council.  I have seen in Tokyo the election campaign to select the Mayor of Tokyo. Lorries were used to load campaigners in simple uniforms speaking from a loudspeaker.

(Image from the internet: Campaign using a modified van)

1. A 65-year-old lady, Mak Cik, comes to see me. She is perplexed, not sure how to start. I ask her about her family. Her husband, Pak Cik, is retired, in his 70s, still actively doing a property broker job.
2. Mak Cik is a housewife but not so active now. She keeps herself occupied doing house chores. For most of her time, she learns religion at madrassah and spends most of her time praying and fasting.
3. She is annoyed with the Pak Cik for not behaving like an elderly man. To her imagination, an elderly man should spend most of his time preparing for his afterlife. To her, the property broker has its own risk of bankruptcy and is seen as a risky business.
4. She is offended toward her eldest daughter who is marrying a Swiss and not obeying strict religious obligations and fails to educate her Muslim’s reverted husband on the proper conduct of a Muslim.
5. She is also preoccupied with another son who is a transgender and suffered from Bipolar Mood disorder.
6. Managing different perspectives in life is a difficult task. It seems that Pak Cik and Mak Cik do not share the same values and assumptions. For Mak Cik elderly period is a time to ponder, reflect and prepare for the afterlife (akhirat). To Mak Cik, work has its own limit but to Pak Cik works has no time limit.
7. Mak Cik is depressed and that makes her mind wander timelessly. Multiple family stressors added up to precipitate her depressive illness. The differential life perspective contributes relatively to a poor understanding of the illness. This eventually resulted in poor social support from the spouse that tend to perpetuate the depression.  In the end, she may develop isolation and loneliness.
8. Life has to continue despite adversities. When time is perceived as limited, the social network provides a meaningful interaction and assistance.
9. To manage the problem, this couple has to adopt three successful separate processes, namely:

• Selection: which refers to the patient focusing attention on fewer, more important goals e.g. rescaling/reconstructing goals. In fact, the couple has to focus their attention on narrowing the gap in life perspective.
• Optimization. This involves engaging in goal-directed actions and means; such as investing time and energy into the acquisition, refinement, and application of goal-relevant means, seizing the right moment, persistence, acquisition of new skills/resources, and practice of skills. The couples have to invest their time in doing common tasks and hobbies.
• Compensation. The last process maintains a given level of functioning in the face of loss and decline in goal-relevant means by the patient investing in compensatory means. In some cases, when the couple arrives at some mutual understanding, life continues, business as usual.

1. She is a 14-year-old adopted daughter. She came to me because she demanded to move in, to a new school in KL. But her demand was unpredicted. She demanded the whole family to move in and get her a new school.
2. What’s wrong with that? The problem is: the place she suggested is totally new to the family, where and when, the adopted parents have to start a new life.
3. More often than not, the unrealistic demand originated from grudges and animosities dated back from the childhood days. These feelings displaced the fact that the parents have done a tremendous amount of works to raise her up.
4. The parents’ willingness to sacrifice was amazing but they were indecisive about it. That was the reason why they wanted to seek my opinion.
5. How could this happen? I believe as an adopted child, at some point in his development, the disagreements with the adopted parents have made her feel deprived of the primitive relationship with her own biological parents. This ‘trauma’ and the ‘severing of the ties’ have in a way affect the ego; that made her exploring to all the unrealistic demands made upon the adopted parents, in order to compensate for the wound left by the loss of the biological parents.
6. These early relational traumas may lead to a disorder of attachment that may affect the quality of emotional relationship with the caregiver. The disturbed behaviors place great demands on the parenting capacities of the adoptive parents.
7. There is no easy solution. First and foremost, there is a need for a wider degree of adoption openness. Studies have shown that openness is significantly related to satisfaction with adoption process among adoptive parents and birth mothers. Similarly, openness was associated with their greater satisfaction with the adoption process and better post-adoption adjustment (1). In short, it affects the mental wellness of the adoptive parents and later adjustment in raising the child.
8. Parents have to create conditions of security and trustworthiness for the child. They have to foster attachment by nurturing the trust,  securing place safe for the child. It has to to be a home-based.
9. Since there is no way parents can avoid disagreement, they must know how to set limits in order to initiates repair as soon as the child indicates a desire for reconnection. This has to be done without trying to jeopardize the effort to strengthens the child’s feeling of safety within the relationship. If the child is angry or pouting, the caretaker must show that they understand their feelings, but remains firm. Relatively soon the child will give up because they need to reconnect. Attuned foster parents will then respond positively and immediately.
10. Dr. Daniel Siegel in his book Mindsight explained that in order to repair our attachment ability and develop more inner security as adults, parents must be willing to create a “coherent narrative” of our experience. It is to discover how we made sense of our past i.e. how our minds have shaped our memories of the past to explain who we are in the present. He believes if we can face our history and make sense of our narrative, we can actually change the course of our lives, our relationships, and the attachment patterns we pass on to our kids (2).
11. It is also important to have a partner with a secure attachment style. Latest in line is a development of psychotherapy called The Adult Attachment Repair Model (AARM) which simulates reparative childhood attachment experience, desensitizes distinct-event trauma and creates deeply embedded feelings of security (3).

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2638763/

2. m.drdansiegel.com/about/mindsight/

3. https://www.attachmentrepairmodel.com/