By Mohd Amin
Singapore PH Support Group Leader
January 2008 marked a milestone for PH Patients in Singapore as they got together to enrich themselves with an educational and informative support group session featuring lectures from 2 PH specialists: Dr. James Yip, Senior Consultant Cardiologist of the National University Hospital (NUH) & Dr. Tan Ju Le, Consultant Cardiologist from the National Heart Centre (NHC).
The meeting was held in a location outside of the two hospitals in order to allow merging two patient populations thus marking a new stepping-stone to many future developments for the Singapore PH Support Group. The event was held at the YMCA (Tan Chin Tuan Room) on January 12, 2008.
Mr. Mohd Amin the event organizer & support group leader opened the meeting with a simple explanation of his purpose in bringing together the two patient populations (from NUH and NHC), he also spoke of the necessity of new volunteers to help the growth of the support group and to achieve his goals for PH patients in Singapore.
He then handed the floor over to Dr. James Yip who presented an informative session on the recent advancements in the treatment in PH. Dr. Yip spoke about novel treatment areas such as using cholesterol-lowering medication, combination therapies and leukemia treating drugs (currently being studied as possible PH treatments).
Following this Dr. Tan Ju Le gave patients insight and understanding of Eisenmengers Syndrome: what it is, how the term came about and its causes. Precautionary measures and dangers were also highlighted. Dr. Tan ended her presentation with advice to patients suffering from this condition to stay as healthy as possible, as Eisenmengers may lead to many other complications.
The presentations were followed with a question and answer period, proceeded by a dinner and raffle, where Drs. Tan and Yip were invited to draw the names of the winners.
Throughout the meeting many patients had a chance to interact with one another and discuss their condition.
The organizers would like to thank BAYER SCHERING, PHARMALINK, ROCHE PHARMACEAUTICAL & PHA for their kind gifts & contributions towards making this event a success.
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