Leading hepatologist and Director-General of Health in Malaysia Tan Sri Datuk Dr Ismail Merican, was conferred with an Honorary Fellowship of RCSI at the College’s Postgraduate Conferring Ceremony today.

Born in Penang, Tan Sri Datuk Dr Ismail Merican graduated from the University of Malaya in 1975. He was appointed Consultant Physician to the Penang General Hospital and was awarded a Commonwealth Fellowship to pursue specialist training in hepatology at the Royal Free Hospital in London. On his return to Malaysia in 1992 he set up the first specialised Hepatology Unit which now, at the Hospital Selayang, serves as the National Tertiary Referral Centre for liver and pancreato-biliary diseases.

As Director-General of the Ministry of Health, he has helped to improve health delivery systems, while also enhancing working conditions for healthcare professionals. While still personally involved in patient care, he has charge of all aspects of policy and medical economics including research. He set up a network of clinical research centres in 1997 and personally directed over 20 international multi-centre studies, many related to chronic hepatitis.

As well as holding the position of President of the Malaysian Medical Council, Tan Sri Datuk Dr Ismail Merican has played an important role in the success of Penang Medical College, which this summer saw the total number of graduates exceed 460.

Reading his citation, Professor Tom Gorey said: “Tan Sri Datuk Dr Ismail Merican is a beacon of service and commitment, while keeping the perspective of health issues as a community and national imperative that in the end can significantly influence the future direction and progress of that nation. For Dr Merican, medicine is a profession that requires not only a large body of knowledge and clinical skills, but also high standards of behaviour and appropriate attitudes. Competence, knowledge, judgement, commitment, vocation, altruism, and a moral contract with society, remain at the heart of what it means to him to be a caring health provider.” 

Approximately 150 people were conferred with postgraduate awards at today’s ceremony including Intercollegiate Board Speciality diplomas in general surgery, neurosurgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, Plastic Surgery and Paediatric surgery and both Intercollegiate Memberships and Memberships of the RCSI. New Members and Fellows of the Faculties of Radiology, Dentistry and Sports and Exercise Medicine were also conferred.