a talk by Tun Dr Mahathir

We had a dialogue session with Dr Mahathir early this morning in IMU. as expected, the hall was packed, the most of seats were occupied by the time i arrived. After a looong talk by the Directors of IMU finally its time for D Mahathir to talk. Dr Mahathir, i would say is a man with wisdom, and good sense of humour. He talked about many things, which i would write down 4 us to ponder upon.

1.Looking at the global economic crisis nowadays, it is likely that we are NOT able to achieve vision 2020 ON year 2020. But he thinks Malaysia has been developing so fast(as compared to the other Asian counterparts and regardless of the 4 mighty and long occupations by British, Japanese etc etc) that we are so close to become developed country one day. Malaysia used to concentrate so much on Agriculture, but now the Industrial, education, tourism also have been growing so well.

2.He highlighted that loyalty to the country is the utmost importance once we graduate as medical doctors. We grow up in Malaysia, educated in Malaysia, and were given privileges in education so much that we could study anywhere in the world sponsored by the Malaysian government. The government is investing a lot in the search of the 'doctors' that can serve the country. How can some students fly off to America or UK just because they offer higher salary. Some are even willing to pay back the government just to turn their backs from serving the country. Like Tun mentioned, they offer u high salary, but the living expenses are also high..apela sgt.. We have to have a sense of patriotisme, to finish medical degree in time, and serve the nation as we are expected to.

3.A person asked about his recipe of making Malaysia prosper. He replied, peace among the races that makes Malaysia prosper.

4.Dr Mahathir told us the story about how he first jumped into politics. He was concsious about politics in Tanah Melayu when he was only a school boy. However, he was just a young schoolboy, nobodys going to take him seriously.So he decided to go to medical school to be a doctor, with the hope that with that qualification , he would be able to be looked up, and to be heard. Then after a while he practised medicine, he became Malaysia's 4th PM, who then changed this country for good.

5.The next question sounds like this.."How do you think being in medical field helped u to become a good politician?"

he answered.."political problems are the same as medical cases.The way to approach them is not very diffrent either. Take history, do physical examination, do lab investigations, n prescribe solution to it. Way to approach medical cases is very methodical, and it should be the same when we approach any other problems we face.And thats how being a medical student is an advantage!=)

I dont quite understand some part of the talk when he started to calculate national profit.all i remembered hearing were 'million' and 'billion'.

Anyhow, he makes me think a lot today.n surely it was a good talk by him. I managed to snap a picture of him and Dr Siti Hasmah, however as there were a lot of ppl swarming him when i snaped the photo, the photo was not of a very good quality.so i decided to put a nicer picture of him here=)