Academy for Silent Mentor forges partnership with UTAR

The Academy for Silent Mentor (AFSM) and UTAR signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on 3 July 2022.  UTAR has been a close partner of AFSM since AFSM’s launch at Xiao En Centre in 2017. This MoU is a renewal of the partnership between AFSM and UTAR to focus on humane practices for donors who offer their cadaver for anatomical research and advancement, medical education and training.

“AFSM will provide facilities for cadaveric simulative surgeries for training. UTAR will complement with a series of training workshops and seminars using the facilities, including the donors’ cadavers to improve anatomical teaching and surgical training,” said Prof Dr Chin Kin Fah, chairman and founding director of AFSM. The partnership will promote future development in medical research and the training of medical students.

UTAR President Ir Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat said, “Our MBBS and Health Science students will benefit from this collaboration with AFSM. It is important for them to understand the importance of the Silent Mentor programme in medical science, and to learn the ethical practices and the due respect to be given to donors’ cadavers. We would like to thank AFSM for this partnership in mutual training and education for medical students.”

The MoU will enable AFSM and UTAR to co-operate and benefit in the advancement of medical research, education and training. This signifies a new beginning for AFSM and UTAR working to serve for the good of the public. This will help future clinicians to recognise and treat each cadaver with the utmost respect, with a thorough understanding of the background of the cadaver, fostering empathy and compassion.

About the Academy for Silent Mentors

The Academy for Silent Mentor (AFSM), founded by Prof Dr Chin Kin Fah on 29 March 2017, is a self-sustaining and not-for-profit educational institution, with a broad vision to make a positive change in healthcare and in the values of healthcare professionals and society beyond.

The mission of AFSM includes:
•             To promote the social trend of body donation for medical teaching and research in a multi-
               cultural and multi-faith society in Malaysia.
•             To enhance the standards of medical education, training and research.
•             To raise the standard of skill set among healthcare professionals through liberal arts.
•             To facilitate the development of excellent bio-ethics and medical humanity among health care
               and other professionals.

These aims are supported by the acts of i-Silent Mentors, an umbrella term used to describe AFSM’s body pledgers, fund donors, volunteers, or anyone who believes wholeheartedly in AFSM’s core values. AFSM is a multifaceted organisation with multiple educational initiatives in partnership with a broader group of learning institutions. AFSM runs workshops such as body dissection, medical procedures, surgical and radiological based training on a regular basis; many of these in collaboration with international and regional professional bodies. ASFM also has a research arm which allows for research students and fellows to carry out research activities in relation to the Silent Mentor Program and other areas of needed research in health. They run a regular fellowship programme whereby fellows from other countries, especially third world countries, will be accepted for surgical training.

Furthermore, AFSM enables the 'Giving Beyond' medical outreach programme as a medium for its students and volunteers to give back to those most in need in society. In this programme, a minimum of four visits per year are organised to areas of need (recently the inner tribes of Kanowit, Kapit and Sungai Asap, Sarawak) to provide health checks, screening and education to the local population. All these activities are supported by their state-of-the art training centres in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur and Kuching, Sarawak.

The main brainchild of AFSM is the i-Silent Mentor Program, a national body donation programme, which serves to achieve the aims set forth by AFSM through the selfless, altruistic acts of voluntary body donors.

These body donors or 'Silent Mentors' not only donate their bodies but also their life stories and values as a teaching tool for liberal arts and humanity education, and as such, this programme is unique in that it benefits the participants in learning soft skills in a holistic environment.

Furthermore, through rapid freezing technology, they are able to offer a surgical dissection model that is comparable to operating on a live human being to facilitate realistic surgical training without risk to the patient. In addition, they use soft body intra-arterial embalmment techniques to preserve their silent mentors for anatomical dissection modules over a prolonged period of contribution to medical science and education. Furthermore, they also offer First Rapid Tissue Donation programme in Malaysia, where ‘fresh’ donor tissue will be procured within 2 to 6 hours of a donor’s death for the purpose of molecular and genetic research in Cancer and other diseases. Penultimately, they are due to launch their national skin and bone donation programme.

The programme has been supported through a charitable trust fund through public donations and a private social responsibility initiative. It is governed by a Board of Directors and an Independent Board of Ethicists and Humanitarians pro bono publico, an Independent Research Ethics Board, and a Legal Advisory Board; both local and international members, an executive committee and administration team supported by the Finance Committee, Medical Advisory Board, Research and Science Advisory Board, Conjoint Universities Committee, Conference Committee, and Volunteers Committee.