ICOMMM 2020 was organised by the Health Information and Knowledge from Malay Medical Manuscripts (HIKAM) Flagship, Kulliyyah of Allied Health Sciences, IIUM. ICOMMM 2020 carried the momentum built after ICOMMM 2015 (IIUM Kuantan Campus) and ICOMMM 2018 (Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia) in introducing the Malay medical manuscripts to the academics and the public, expanding the research on these manuscripts beyond realm of humanities to the scientific community. The theme for ICOMMM 2020, “Discovery, Innovation and Integration” aimed to create a platform for academics and researchers, to share their knowledge and experience related to the Malay medical manuscript and its importance to the current medical and health education and profession.
Despite the unprecedented circumstances posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is prudent to rise to the current challenge to find innovative and creative ways to keep driving science and medicine forward, in pursuit of the next wave of biomedical discoveries and innovations. This time, ICOMMM 2020 embraced the new norm amidst the Covid-19 pandemic in which the conference was held online via the Google Meet platform. Information on the conference is made available at https://conference.iium.edu.my/icommm/.
This conference was aimed to:
a. Study the history, development and achievements of Malay medicine through available manuscripts.
b. Collect data on what has been done until now with regards to Malay medical manuscripts i.e. conservation, cataloguing, transliteration, digitisation, analysis and benchwork experiments based on manuscript data.
c. Improve and contextualised participants’ understanding of the subject.
d. Enable learning of the inspiration, experiences and the interpretation of the people from the past in tackling the problem and relate how it can be adopted and actualized in today’s practice.
ICOMMM 2020 was officiated by the honourable Rector, Prof. Emeritus Tan Sri Dato’ Dzulkifli Abdul Razak. This was followed by the book launching ceremony of the Manuskrip Perubatan Melayu (Warithan Kebitaraan Melayu), which compiles all the talk content during ICOMMM 2018. Thereafter, the conference continued with the presentation by the first Keynote speaker, Dr. Goh Cheng Soon, the director of Tradiotional and Complementary Medicine, Ministry of Health. The recording of the launching event and the first keynote speaker can be watch via this LINK.
A total of 96 participants had registered for the conference. The participants were mainly from the IIUM community as well as the government and private agencies and academic and research institutions.
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