Email Exchange Further To Previous Post

The blogger reproduces the email exchanges with his most-learned e-buddy Dr JB Lim further to the previous posting on “Extra curricular studies for our students” as follows:

On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 12:42 PM, Tai Onn Lau wrote:

Dear Great Sifu Dr. JB Lim,

Thanks for your compliments about my blogging again (you have already done that so many times before). I’m truly flattered. Despite that your ‘Scientific Logic’ blog is slightly plainer than my blog (e.g. http://taionn.blogspot.com/2013/07/extra-curricular-studies-for-our.html), when it comes to writing and speaking, I’m light years behind you!

I believe it really depends on the individual for his/her love of any science and/or arts subjects whether the subjects are taught or not in the university. In my case, I was equally good in Mathematics as well as Chinese Language/Chinese Literature and English Grammar during my school time because I had interest in these subjects. There were some new acquaintances after knowing that I am both a professional engineer as well as an amateur writer/columnist flattered me for being “文武双全” (wén wǔ shuāng quán), literally meaning ‘adept with both the pen and the sword’ or versed in both literature and military affairs. I would humbly reply that one is a hobby and the other to ‘cari makan’. In fact, you and many other e-buddies are all the same “wén wǔ shuāng quán”. Emails of strictly technical nature would be very very boring to read and not very welcome by us e-buddies.

Thank you.

Regards,

Lau

(a practicing engineer still struggling to make ends meet in contrast with you happy retirees)

P/s: May I reiterate that I am not a ‘Sifu’, let alone a ‘Great Sifu’ like you, a truly versatile and knowledgeable ‘Great Grand Master (borrowing OGS’s word) of all trades‘ and please don’t address me as such in the future, will you? Thank you very much.

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From: lim juboo

Sent: Monday, 29 July 2013 7:19 PM

Okay, okay, I will not call you Great Grand Sifu in so many fields, but I shall just call you an Engineering Sifu who built great walls and structures that even horrendous earthquakes cannot even vibrate.

The reason why I write is because you put a smile into my face this afternoon reading your blog containing the exchange of e-mails on the extracurricular subjects studied at universities. You literally painted the exchange of info and experiences, including university logo and emblems and posted them into your blog. I least expected this.

This Internet is very queer! All kinds of things and personal exchange of ideas and experiences are put there. Hopefully your visitors read them just for entertainment.

jb

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Mo, 29 Jul 2013 at 8:23 PM

FROM: Tai Onn Lau

Dear Great Sifu Dr. JB Lim,

What a great relief now that you finally agreed not to continue to embarrass me by addressing me a ‘Sifu’! Please also don’t call me ‘Engineering Sifu’ lah…. Just ‘Lau’ or ‘TO’ will do, like what the Chief High Priest of Evolution Temple does and I always find this simple address intimate and nice (because you guys are more senior in age than me mah).

Besides, I am not very sure if ‘the great walls and structures’ I designed that you said ‘even horrendous earthquakes cannot even vibrate’ CAN STAND your powerful ‘milo-tin violin’ because if your violin sound accidentally excite the natural frequencies of my walls and structures, they would crumble in no time.

On a more serious note, I find all the personal ideas and experiences written by you all this while, mostly earnest and sometime light-hearted, are very informative, interesting and of course also entertaining to readers because you really SPEAK THE TRUTH (that reminds me of the motto of the Chief High Priest of ET who maintains that he ‘always speaks the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth’, and when he slips up, he would argue ‘to err is human’).

Thank you for all your contributions that make my blog worthy of visiting by my readers.

Warmest regards,

Lau

Extra curricular studies for our students?

The blogger’s note: Reproduced below are a few interesting email exchanges in respect of the above subject among ‘the Great Sifu’ Dr. JB Lim, ‘the Chief High Priest of the Evolution Temple’ Ir. Tan Seng Khoon and the blogger in respect of the above subject.

From: lim juboo

When I was studying at the Muslim University of Aligrah in India in the early 1960, the university there have already implemented Moral Studies, History and Indian Civilizations, Fine Arts, Languages, and a few other arts subjects to all students pursuing Science, Medical and Engineering degrees. Although the medium of instruction was English, basic Hindi was also taught to us.

Likewise, all art students must study basic and natural Sciences as part of their Arts degrees. The university there wanted all their graduates to be well-balanced in their education, be articulate, knowledgeable and able to communicate in all fields of knowledge by the time they graduate or look for jobs, or pursue on for their higher degrees. The university did not want their graduates to be mono-vision and was only knowledgeable in the subjects they major in.

.

I understand from the newspapers, the National University of Singapore has only just a few years ago did the same thing as the University of Aligrah, making it compulsory for their arts students to study a bit of science, and science students read a little about moral and arts subjects, maybe about 30 % of the other half, just like they do in China for medical studies,

In China, a student who reads western medicine must learn 30 % about TCM. Likewise, a TCM student must learn 30 % on conventional medicine so that by the time they graduate as doctors, either of them must understand about 30 % of each system of medicine. They try to integrate the best components taken from each system of medicine.

.

This only shows the University of Aligrah was light years ahead of even the National University of Singapore by introducing moral and arts for science students, and natural science for arts students.

When will they implement such wide scope of education in our almost 100 universities in this country? Our graduates from public universities (500 down the line in world universities ranking) are not marketable at all. They can't even speak a sentence of proper English, let alone communicate with you in a wide variety of subjects - from music, languages, fine arts, etc, down to science, medicine and genetics. What moral studies do they learn?

.

The papers our postgraduate students here present at scientific conferences are not different from a student doing his "A-Levels" I felt very sleepy to hear them present papers where I sometimes was the Chairman for the scientific sessions, especially after my lunch in the afternoon sessions.

Their academic standards in this 21st Century are light years behind those students from British universities in the 1960s.

jb

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From: Tai Onn Lau

Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 7:40 AM

Dear Great Sifu Dr JB Lim,

(Pic 2nd from left is the blogger)

Your email reminded me of a certain courses I studied when I was an undergraduate of the bachelor's degree in engineering in the University of Singapore back in 1976/77 till 1979/80.

Among the non-science subjects I studied were: "Government & Society in Southeast Asia" in the First Year and "Applied Economics" in the Second Year. But there weren't any other moral or arts subjects.

During my time, all engineering students had to study common courses for the first two years before branching out to specialise in Civil, Mechanical or Electrical Engineering from Third Year onwards. Most Singaporeans preferred to do Mechanical or Electrical Engineering then and only Malaysians were interested in Civil (so majority of my coursemates were my countrymen).

Thank you.

Regards,

Lau

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(Pic left: Khoon, right: Dr Lim)

From: Tan Seng Khoon

Sent:   Friday,  26 Jul 2013 9:58 AM

Lau,

When I did my Engineering degree in University of Malaya in 1971 - 74, I did not study any arts subject.

Not a single one.

But plenty of more practical subjects.

Can apply in the commercial world.

Eg. 1. Management - Maaslow hierarchy of needs.

2. Law - Law of Torts, commercial law.

3. Work Study. -Critical path analysis.

Rgds

Khoon

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From: lim juboo

Sent: Friday, 26 July 2013 5:35 PM

Dear Great Sifu Lau (note: the blogger has told Dr Lim not to address him this way a thousand times before but to no avail),

It is good to know that at least you studied some non-engineering subjects during your engineering course at the University of Singapore. If you have not done that, today you will not be a Great Sifu in other fields. Your mind will just be as stiff as the concrete structure you build and nothing more. It is not necessary that it should be arts subjects like painting, music, history, civilization and culture etc, so long it is something less mechanical than engineering.

So you see now why you, as a Great Sifu, is now able to write interesting non-mechanical articles inside your great blog. But if you were just taught engineering and nothing more, then all you can write today are all about bridges, buildings, tunnels, MRT structures, roads and highways.

And I do not think anybody is going to read all that, except another engineer. So now you can see how colourful your blog is with lots of photos, graphics, pictures, diagrams, etc.

Compared this to my boring, boring boring (bogus, bogus bogus) "scientific logic" blog. After just glancing at my own bland and colourless blog, I think there is NO logic in it at all, because Confucius taught "a picture is better than a 1000 words".  

.

Unfortunately although my previous University of Aligrah teaches some arts subjects to all its science, medical and engineering students to make them better and all-rounded graduates, the university did not teach me in particular, photography, painting and music (which are my non-technical pet subjects), but instead we were taught Indian history, civilization, moral, culture, Hindi, economics and sociology.

The most surprising thing was, although the University of Aligrah is a Muslim university, they did not teach us a single world about Islam. In fact that university follows the same British system of education, and was fashioned along the same line as Cambridge with English as the medium of instruction. They taught us only subjects we enrolled for, and not about Islam or about religion. This was left out completely. Thus the university was able to lure students from all over the world.

http://www.amu.ac.in/department.jsp

When I was there, there were even Thai monks from Thailand and Hindu students from Bernaras Hindu University and myself, a Christian studying there even though it was a Muslim university. The university did not force Islam into us. All it wanted was to give all its students a all-rounded university education.

Years later when I went to Queen Elizabeth College (part of King's College), University of London for my postgraduate we too have to study sociology, economics, anthropology, cultural beliefs - all arts subjects even though it was supposed to be a medical and nutrition postgraduate programme.

But this comes in very useful years later during our work when we need to deal with people and patients with all types of cultural background, religious and traditional beliefs, and their beliefs about health, medicine, and nutrition.

We couldn't escape studying a bit of arts subjects whether as a student in Aligrah or in England. Arts makes our mind beautiful, science (including engineering and medicine and food technology) make our mind stiff and mechanical. That's why we need a blend in education.

The only time arts subjects have to be left behind was when I went further to Cambridge, and onwards to the University of Reading and back again to London for my Masters and Doctorate. By then I already have to specialize on a technical-medical area, and not deal with arts anymore.

But I am so glad all these universities, both in Commonwealth India, and in England gave me an all-rounded education so that I can be articulate and be very comfortable talking with people in other fields of expertise during any social events or gatherings. I will not be shy, and feel left out.



(Pic left: High Priest of  Evolution Temple's photoshopped masterpiece)

But of course one can learn all these on their own too without having to go through formal lectures in a university. A good example is our High Priest of Evolution Temple. He taught himself. He said he was not taught art subjects in his engineering course at the University of Malaya, and yet today, he can write all kinds of non-engineering articles, ideas, thoughts, and everything that evolved through the temple of his mind (including BOGUS ones) and send them out for us to digest (which is sometimes very hard for me to digest and understand). Still, he did not write engineering stuff to bore us, which would also be very difficult for me.

I think all jobs are boring after some time. I think the best and most enjoyable "jobs" are our hobbies during our retirement. We can sleep very late, and wake up very late without any boss troubling us to do this, and to do that.

jb lim

Four Wives

A man with four wives.  Death giving Logic of Life.

He loved his fourth wife the most and took a great care of her and gave her the best.

He also loved his third wife and always wanted to show her off to his friends. However, he was always had a fear that she might runaway with some other man.

He loved his second wife too. Whenever he faced some problems, he always turned to his second wife and she would always help him out.

He did not love his first wife though she loved him deeply, was very loyal to him and took great care of him.

One day the man fell very ill and knew that he is going to die soon.

He told himself, "I have four wives with me. I will take one of them along with me when I die to keep company in my death."

 

Thus, he asked the fourth wife to die along with him and keep company. "No way!" she replied and walked away without another word.

He asked his third wife. She said "Life is so good over here. I'm going to remarry when you die".

He then asked his second wife. She said "I'm Sorry. I can't help you this time around. At the most I can only accompany you til your grave."

By now his heart sank and turned cold.

Then a voice called out: "I'll leave with you. I'll follow you no matter where you go." the man looked up and there was his first wife. She was so skinny, almost like she suffered from malnutrition. Greatly grieved, the man said, "I should have taken much better care of you while I could have!"

Actually, we all have four wives in our lives.

a. The fourth wife is our body. No matter how much time and effort we lavish in making it look good, it'll leave us when we die.

b. The third wife is our possessions, status and wealth. When we die, they go to others.

.

c. The second wife is our family and friends. No matter how close they had been there for us when we're alive, the furthest they can stay by us is up to the grave.

d. The first wife is our soul, neglected in our pursuit of material wealth and pleasure. It is actually the only thing that follows us wherever we go. 

(Courtesy of forwarded mail from Jason Gan)

12 Things About Tea Your Local Dim Sum Restaurateur Won't Tell You

Master Leung Ka-Dong has been working at Ying Kee Tea House for almost 40 years. "What type of tea do you usually order when you eat dim sum?" asks Ying Kee Tea House Master Leung Ka-Dong.

"I usually order white hair peony because my family always orders it," I reply.

"Did you know that almost all restaurants mix their white teas with black to add flavour and colour?" he says.

No, I did not know that. I did not know that it's only in the recent 50 to 60 years that white, green and pu-erh have become Hong Kong's most popular teas either. With a richer economy, Hong Kong people stirred away from simple black teas from India and Sri Lanka and began to enjoy tea for various health reasons or collect pu-erh tea like wine.

Thanks to Master Leung, who has worked at Ying Kee Tea House since the early 1970s, I now know a little more about how to appreciate Chinese tea.

Here are 12 things he told me about tea that no restaurateur would have:

1. Never drink tea on an empty stomach

Always drink tea during or after a meal. Our stomachs are acidic and tea is alkalizing. Acid and alkaline combined have a bloating effect.

2. Drink white tea if you are a smoker

White tea is really good for the lungs and throat, so it is especially beneficial for smokers. A cup of white peony tea helps clear all the phlegm in our throats and cures coughs.

3. You won’t be able to tell the quality of white tea by its colour

Most restaurants mix white peony tea with black tea to add colour and flavour because customers generally prefer tea that tastes richer and looks darker in colour. Pure white tea itself has hardly any flavour or colour compared to other teas.

4. Only fine dining Chinese restaurants serve screw shaped green tea

Genuine screw shaped green tea is the highest grade of green tea and the most expensive. At Ying Kee Tea House, it sells at HK$5,067 per kilogram (HK$380 per 75 gram bag). Produced only in Jiangsu Province Dong Ting Mountain, it’s also the rarest green tea in China, producing only about 1,000 kilograms a year. It must be consumed fresh, within a year after picking the tea leaves. Screw shaped green tea of higher quality is best consumed within six months even. If it is tasteless, solvent or extremely bitter, that means it has already gone bad. But while it is certainly expensive, screw shaped green tea has a very particular taste that not everyone may like. Even when it is fresh, it tastes more bitter than other teas. For all those reasons, screw shaped green tea is only served at fine dining Chinese restaurants, usually at hotels.

5. Treat pu-erh tea like a digestible detergent to flush all the grease away

Always pair oily food with pu-erh tea. Dim sum, no matter steamed or fried, contains lard. When you eat shrimp dumplings, there is always a piece of fatty pork in there to add flavour and fragrance. Pu-erh tea helps you rinse all the grease from the food out of your system. It aids digestion, blood circulation and lowers cholesterol levels. If you don’t have detergent at home, boil some pu-erh tea and use it to wash your dishes. It’s like a digestible detergent.

6. Sweets go best with green tea

Sweet food is best paired with tea that is more bitter. Loong cheng green tea helps moderate the sweetness of desserts. Like pu-erh tea, drinking green tea helps lower cholesterol levels and break down fat. But while most teas are best brewed in boiling hot water, green teas like screw shaped green tea and loong cheng only need to be brewed in water that is about 75 to 85 degrees. If the water is too hot, it will be difficult to maintain the same fragrance in the second brew.

7. Teh kuan yin goes best with spicy food

Spicy foods are best paired with the kuan yin because it has a bitter sweet effect. If you ever visit a Chiu Chow restaurant, they always serve the kuan yin tea with their spicy dishes. Plus, Chiu Chow city borders Shantou city and Fujian province, which is known for harvesting the kuan yin leaves.

8. Fried food goes best with white tea

Basically, any type of fried or deep fried food goes well with white tea. In Chinese medicinal terms, fried food is considered dry hot. White teas like white hair peony help release body heat.

9. Smell quality

Aside from pu-erh tea which is almost odourless, quality tea should always give off a fragrant smell. If you can’t smell the tea or see that it is very solvent, then it has probably expired.

10. You won’t be able to find good pu-erh tea at dim sum restaurants

It is simply not cost-efficient. Pu-erh tea is like wine. The longer you store it, the richer it becomes. Storage for at least three to six years is optimal. Regular pu-erh teas served at restaurants have generally been modified during the fermentation process to reduce storage time. By doing this, they lose whatever fragrance and flavour they originally had. Good pu-erh tea should look very smooth and deep red in colour, not black like regular pu-erh tea. You can also test the quality of your pu-erh tea by the stain it leaves on your cup after drinking it. If you see a stain surrounding the rim of your cup, that means you are drinking regular or low quality pu-erh tea. If your cup is left with no stain after consumption, you are drinking pu-erh tea of high quality.

11. Teh kuan yin, daffodil and oolong are all the same at dim sum restaurants

No matter which of the three you order, dim sum restaurants will serve you low grade daffodil tea. All three teas come under the same oolong tea category, yet they are very different in flavour. Teh kuan yin tastes more clear and fragrant. Oolong is stronger and more solvent. And daffodil is the purest of them all.

12. The best moments of tea enjoyment are when you have time

Drinking tea is a matter of mood. And when I talk about mood, it mainly has to do with the condition of time. You’ve probably heard many rules about tea, from water temperature to colour. But at the end of the day, drinking tea is a very personal experience. Some people like their tea boiling hot while others like theirs lukewarm. Some may like theirs stronger than others. So it’s all about time. We need time to brew that perfect cup of tea.

(Courtesy of forwarded mail from Khor Kean Kar)

Dr JB Lim Talks About His Examinations

The blogger wishes to share the following interesting recollection of the examinations faced by the Great Sifu Dr JB Lim in the 1960’s.

Sent: Tuesday, 9 July 2013 12:19 AM

If you were to ask me who set my professional exam papers, I really do not know. All I know is the papers were all sealed when brought into the Examination Hall at the Senate House, University of London.

Four student candidates were taken randomly from the Hall to examine the seal. When they were satisfied the seal was not broken or tampered with, it was then opened in front of all of us and the examination papers distributed upside down (so we cannot yet see the questions) to each candidate. When all were distributed, we were asked turn the question papers over, and the countdown (time / clock) started.

That was the theory papers. As for the viva (oral exams) naturally we all have to face the External Examiners. At the University of London where I did my clinical part, the University appointed two External Examiners who were internationally renowned Professors from the Dept of Medicine, University of Cambridge. Both of them were Jews - highly learned, and highly qualified. But they were extremely nice to us. They calmed our fears, and told us (me) this:

"perhaps you know who we are, but it is better you introduce yourself to us" (with a smile). They then told me that I did very well with the theory part of my final exam, "so now if you feel you have made some mistakes in the answer papers a week ago, we now give you a chance to retrieve your mistakes."

Naturally I smiled at their great generosity. It was just a relief to be given such a rare chance at the oral exams to correct my own mistakes in the written papers.

But I was so stressed out that I could not recall of any mistakes (maybe too much of them) before they proceed to give me coloured slides of cases to diagnose, and asked me to give reasons for my diagnosis. But my two External Examiners from Cambridge were very helpful, and were smiling all the time as I tried hard to answer their questions.

They kept encouraging me, and at times even gave me hints to answer correctly. Some parts of the oral exam were done in the Examination Hall, some at the hospital the next day where examination cases were selected out. But frankly I was very nervous.

That was all I know who my examiners were (only for the oral examination where I have to meet face-to-face with them). But for the theory papers I just do not know who set the questions. My duty was to go to the main Examination Hall, Senate House, University of London from 8 am. - 5 p.m. every day for nearly one week answering new set of questions each day.

That's the very strict and very high standard of examination in this world class University of London. I also went to so many other Indian and British universities, and sat for so many, many other examinations. But I cannot remember all the countless examinations I had to go through. All I know is, I have not failed in any of them, not even once. They were all very, very stressful to me.

Thank God! They are now all long over.

jb lim

On Professional Practice Registration & Others (by Dr JB Lim)

Dr JB Lim

The blogger’s note: In response to Ir. Tan Seng Khoon’s query on medical doctors’ registration to practice as reproduced below, Dr JB Lim wrote another lengthy albeit interesting email.

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On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Tan Seng KhOOn wrote:

Ju Boo,

You are absolutely LIngam.

I earlier had the wrong impression that a doctor needs to sit for a professional exam so as to qualify to register with MMC and then TO PRACTICE MEDICINE.

So registering with MMC is AUTOMATIC for all doctors graduating from RECOGNIZED medical university.

Not so for Engineers.

Graduating engineers must be from recognized University to register with Board of Engineers (BEM).

The IR title is not automatic.

Graduating engineers MUST PASS A PROFESSIONAL EXAM to qualify for registration with BEM, before he is awarded the IR title.

Only then can he be called a PROFESSIONAL ENGINEER and can PRACTICE ENGINEERING.

It is more strict.

Rgds,

Khoon

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Th, 11 Jul 2013 at 0:0112:01 AM

FROM: lim juboo

Dear Learned Ir. Khoon,

I think you cannot apply your engineering rules and regulations and expect all other professions to follow the same. Each profession sets their own laws according to their needs and requirements

As for the medical profession they take the university as the qualifying body, and the MMC is just a regulatory and licensing board to allow medical graduates to practice medicine. The MMC has now power to train, educate or to graduate a medical student. MMC is not a training school for students to become doctors. This power is only given to a university or a medical college.

MMC is still under the Ministry of Health (MOH) and all matters pertaining to any health practices in this country as required by recently enacted laws, be it the practice of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nutrition, dietetics, alternative and complementary medicine, traditional medicine (Chinese, Malay or Indian) comes under the MOH and not the MMC.

All medical and allied-health practitioners MUST be registered and licensed before they can practice in this country. It used to be "free for all" but not now because of unqualified people around like beauticians, bomohs, and fortune tellers who may jeopardize public health when they are not even educated let only holds a degree in medicine or in any of the allied health sciences.

So the government has no choice but to regulate all the allied-health professions (medicine is just one of them) to ensure that all the practitioners are qualified, their degrees recognized, and they can be registered for practice.

We had countless meetings after meetings for years, and even long after I retired over this issue when I was still working at the Institute for Medical Research (IMR). I was then one of the members of this special regulatory committee, a joint WHO / MOH Select Committee to oversee how best we can implement these regulations (which has recently been passed by Parliament to become Law).

We had a lot of difficulties over these, as there are now so many allied-health sciences besides medicine offered by universities all over the world, including those in Britain, US, Australia, Canada, Europe, China, India, etc. All these universities do offer well meaningful 4-6 year degree courses in health and medical sciences, from clinical nutrition and dietetics to speech therapy, down to alternative medicine of various systems. And they are recognized in their own countries for practice after graduation, but they too must be registered to get a license.

So it took us in the government to sort all these problems out, which of course was a very mammoth task. We had representations in the committee from the MMA, MMC, Nutrition Society, Malaysian Dietetics Association, local universities, university hospitals, various professional bodies in health sciences, etc, etc.etc.

It was very difficult for us to come to some kind of agreement how to regulate all these health and medical professions. It was no more like 60 years ago where only the medical doctor treats a patient. Now you have even well qualified clinical psychologist who holds a 3-4 year degree from a recognized university treating mental patients taking over the place of psychiatrist, or a qualified doctor in Traditional Chinese Medicine holding a university degree after 5-6 years training from China who are as good if not even better than a doctor trained in mainstream medicine in treating difficult cases which western trained doctors cannot handle.

These doctors of alternative systems of medicine are good, really good, and we cannot ignore them anymore. I know of many doctors even using alternative medicine to treat their patients. At least 5 of my medically trained colleagues use alternative systems of medicine to treat their patients after they left Government Service. Some even went for courses in alternative medicine as well.

Hence the World Health Organization has recommended governments all over the world (including Malaysia) to integrate all these health care systems into the mainstream health system in the country. It was a very, very difficult task because of existing medical laws, educational standards (we follow the British system of education), medical facilities available in government and teaching hospitals, teaching facilities, clinical experience, dialogue with mainstream doctors, etc, etc, etc...endless list of problems.

But they are almost all over with laws now passed to recognize a lot of them officially as health-care professions. The traditional medical profession is just one of them.

So in this 21st Century "professions" are now more confined only to medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, engineering, law, architect, chemistry (Chemist Act 1975), but much, much more than that...the practice of nutrition, dietetics, optometry, speech therapy, hypnotherapy, genetic counselling, physiotherapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, psychology, mind-body medicine, etc, etc, etc....All these practices are now recognized as part of the health-care system of this country as the government has passed laws to make them as gazetted professions.

At the moment graduates of some systems of medical practice like Traditional Chinese Medicine, Clinical Psychology, Dietetics, etc can practice in government hospitals, or on their own. They get the same pay and allowances, and same professional status as medical doctors in government service because they are now officially recognized by law as a health-care provider, and as a profession.

But they MUST all undergo recognized training in a recognized university, and they all MUST register with the Ministry of Health to get a license to practice which MUST be renewed every year. There is no escape, because the aim of the government is to upgrade the standard of health care in the country, and to weed out unqualified and BOGUS ones.

I have come across a few cases of BOGUS "nutritionists" who went for a 2 day course in a hotel somewhere in town, organized by some direct-selling health food companies to work for them, and in their calling cards they gave me it was printed there "Chief Nutritionist" and others called themselves "Consultant Nutritionist"

A real qualified professional nutritionist spends a minimum of 4 years after A Levels or HSC in an accredited university to qualify as one (medicine takes 5 years) and not just 2 days in a hotel after LCE to listen to some "training" on how to sell "nutritional products" like "alkaline water" and "reverse osmosis water" (I have no ideas what they are?)

So you can see why the Ministry of Health has to take steps to clamp down on all these BOGUS people, put laws there to regulate the practice of nutrition as a recognized profession like your engineering

You can see the complexities of medical and health-care practices the world over, not just in Malaysia. Now you can also see the new term "health-care professions" or "health-care providers" which was never there before. It used to be just the doctors providing health care. Not now anymore. This world is getting more and more complex, and even we as doctors, physicians, and health-care professionals are slowly being left out and ignored.

It is high time we retire from the scene, and let youngsters take over. But they keep sending me by e-mail, health, medical and nutritional claims I have never studied, researched or even heard before. I felt even more left out than ever by these young BOGUS-ES!

I hope you do now have this sort of problems in engineering, except I heard that developers wants to cut cost by asking the engineers to put in sub-standard products or mix more sand than cement, and force the engineers to quickly sign the building or structural plan before the date line is up.

The other problem I hear is that there are now so many types of engineers (like doctors) - hydro-engineers, genetic engineers, medical engineers, food engineers, automobile engineers, Argo-engineers, electronic engineers, horticultural engineers, paint engineers, computer engineers, system engineers, paper-production engineers, air-con engineers, water-pipe engineers, drainage engineers, water-pump engineers, contract engineers, engineers, engineers, engineers...etc

Don't you too get left out like me at old age? In school I know of only mechanical, civil and electrical engineers. Now evolved all these other engineers above? Are they really engineers? Do they have a license to practice engineering or they too must have own regulatory bodies like health-care professions?

One thing for sure. I almost became an engineer after one of my sister's friend told my sister that I will one day be an engineer because managed to get our old radio in my shop "working again" after I just shook some loose wire connection at the back of our radio.

She visited my sister one day in our shop, and the only entertainment for visitors at that time in the 1950's was just a radio to "sing" out some old songs, and some F& N orange crush for drinks, maybe some cakes and "quachee" (pumpkin / sunflower seeds) or groundnuts. But the radio was not working. So this small boy "engineer" came to help. I just shook the wire at the back and there you are - Mario Lanza was singing old favourites once again.

But before I got married, I was neither an engineer nor a BOGUS engineer. But after I got married, the Female Speaker in my house made me more and more a BOGUS engineer to fix up this, and that for her without any license to practice or license of approval from the town council.

But my sister's friend never expected that I will be a BOGUS one one day after marriage.

jb lim