Young Malay Ladies

Forget about this picture, I am not writing about it. I am using it only to beautify my posting.

(Anyway it is a picture of a myomectomy operation - removing a uterine fibroid - done by a gynecologist friend of mine; Dr. Ang Koh Seng)

Last week I attended our Annual Scientific Meeting & AGM, College of Surgeon, Academy of Medicine of Malaysia in Langkawi.

College of Surgeon bukannya sebuah kolej tetapi lebih kepada kesatuan profesional (seperti Bar Council) yang dianggotai oleh pakar-pakar bedah seluruh Malaysia.

A lot of important things presented and discussed; new technologies demonstrated and things that had happened reviewed and learned.

One thing that is relevent to this blog is a presentation from University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) on breast cancer survival. They presented a paper: The Impact of Defaulting Breast Cancer Treatment; Halving The Survival Time For 1466 Breast Cancer Patients.

They studied the outcome of all their breast cancer patients from 1993 to 2002. Out of those, about 100 defaulted treatment. What they found was;

1. These defaulters succumbed to their cancers much earlier; their 5-year survival rate was only 47 %. Maknanya selepas 5 tahun hanya tinggal 47%, yang lainnya telah berpindah ke alam barzakh

2. Majority of the defaulters were Malays

3. Many of these poeples were younger than 40 years old.

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Their findings and the messages are easy to understand. Pertama: You ada kanser payudara, tak rawat you mati (of-course semua orang mati, tapi you mati menderita kanser). Kedua: Orang Melayu, kita ada bomoh yang memang kita tak percaya pun, tapi bila kita kena kanser bomoh inilah yang kita cari. Ketiga: Yang ini yang saya tak faham; kenapa yang muda banyak yang jadi defaulter.

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I have seen young, well educated, some are extremely rich and of course yang berpangkat ladies when told about about the cancer, they say thank you, I am off to my bomoh. In my personal experience, teachers are the worst. If you have a Malay teacher with breast cancer; I can bet; she presents early (kena paksa oleh kawan-kawan), when I told her it is cancer, she disappears, and a months or two before she dies, she comes back to you crying as if you are the Archangel Izrael. I tak cakaplah off you go, but at that stage nothing much could I do.

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I hope my message is loud and clear .................................