Puncak Alam – A Forum entitled ‘Empowering Medical Imaging Profession’ had been organized by Medical Imaging Student Association (MISA) 2020, from Faculty oh Health Sciences, UiTM Selangor, Puncak Alam Campus in conjunction with World Radiography Day which is annually celebrated in November. This forum was held on Thursday, 12th November 2020 through Webex online platform with the invitation of two dedicated panels who are Mr. Sawal Marsait ; the President of Malaysian Society of Radiographers (MSR) and Mr. Mohammad Halmi Bin Shamsuddin, Chief Radiographer from Hospital Tawau in Sabah. This forum was attended by over 180 participants including students, radiographers and lecturers not only from UiTM but also from different universities.
The main objective of this forum is to give an exposure to the students about current technology related to medical imaging field together with the current global crisis which is Covid-19 pandemic. A thorough sharing was done by Mr Mohammad Halmi about Covid-19 scenario at Hospital Tawau, Sabah since he is the Chief Radiographer who handles most of Covid-19 cases. Through this sharing, students are able to see that radiographers play an important role to prepare good quality images for diagnosing the pathology.
Besides that, this forum also involved with Q&A session through the chat box. A lot of questions have been asked by the students to both panels regarding the radiographers’ job opportunities in Covid-19 pandemic, workload faced by the radiographers and also current standard for radiographers’ qualification.
Furthermore, both panels also discussed about the improvement of medical imaging field with Artificial Intelligence which help the radiographers to work more efficient. However, in other perspective views, these technologies are also could be a threat soon for radiographers’ employment as the manpower in this field might be replaced by the robotic technology.
However, Mr. Halmi countered back all those perceptions and shared about current effective workflow with the help of this technology. Overall, this forum has highlighted most current issues with wholesome information and gets a good feedback from the participants to create a positive mindset and to stay motivated especially in this pandemic of Covid 19.
