AIMST University Tour

Haven't been to AIMST University, Kedah before? Let me bring you for a university tour. 

This is the clock tower located opposite the cafeteria block. The behind I supposed is the library. It was a huge library with multi floors. Don't believe me? Let's move into the building.

Destination: Library

It seems to be a 3 floor library. We need to climb this a bit long stairs to reach to the entrance. The girl tailing behind a big group was Boon Jin. Say CHEESE!

We were given briefing about the library but I didn't managed to hear what the organisers were telling to the groups because I was.....................

well, not fallen asleep in the class but...

I was studying in their library! =P Me and Boon Jin were 'checking out' the books there. To be truth, it was just a random flip.. HAHA.

This is the classroom situated outside the library and the girl beside me is Deborah, my group 8 leader.

This is the lockers area. I was told that the service is FOC. OMG, do you hear the word FOC? If I didn't recall wrongly, it was situated near the library exam hall. I will show the exam hall in a short while, be patience.

We were now at another level of the library. See me and Boon Jin were so hardworking! Joining us as well, we have Ahmad Hafiz from UITM.

As seen, the library here is very spacious and there are individuals cubicles as well. It is 2-3 larger than the library of my own university. =.='

This is the so called 'small exam hall' which I think can cater around 100 people. It is only used for midterm purposes and other 'small' exam'. OMG, this is how they defined the term small. Me and my friends whispered and said we should bring them to UCSI University to see what is called small. =.=''

BTW, I was the one who directed them to be seated and take a 'pitcha'. Good job, every one was very cooperative! 

The top picture was the scene behind the bottom picture. From left, Hafiz, Boon Jin, Yen Moi, Suk Yen, Lim Hooi Ann and Me.

Destination: Dental Institute comprises Faculty of Dentistry and Dental Clinics

At the Dental Institute, we were greeted by Pn. Seti, Head of Clinical Support Services, AIMST University (the one with brown tudung on top left picture). We were very pleased that she spent some time in bringing us for a tour around the place here.

Pn. Seti worked in MOH at Putrajaya previously before she went for an early retirement  Thereafter, she joined AIMST University as her home is located in Kedah.

At the bottom right, it is Clinic 1 where the registered and practitioner dentist will first screen the outpatients before segregating them into other clinics handled by the year 3, 4 and 5 dental students. 

There are altogether 7 different clinics as below:

1. Clinic 1: Reception & primary care (RCP)
2. Clinic 2: General dentistry
3. Clinic 3: Oral surgery
4. Clinic 4: General dentistry
5. Clinic 5: Paedatrics dentistry & orthodontics
6. Clinic 6: General practice
7. Clinic 7: Specialist practice

Faculty of Dentistry is located at the third floor. Cosy sofas for you to seat, any one?

Remember to knock the door before enter. Knock knock...anybody home?

To our surprise, there are a lot of dental student 'working' on their simulated patient inside. See how professional they are. Now, you can see clearly the face of Pn. Seti on the top right picture.

I managed to take a picture with one of the dental student named Sue Lyn who happened to be a friend of Ms. X (couldn't track her name).

Knock, knock.. next stop was technology laboratory.

The lecturers were seem busy discussing with their students. Better, not to disturb them. Shhhh.....

Next stop was service laboratory. Upon opening the door, we can hear the sound of the electrical equipments.

Introducing to you, Mr. Jimmy, a dentistry student who was working out with the dental dentures. For your information, the dental services is FOC as for now including dental braces, dental dentures etc due to its new establishment. In future, there might be some cost for all these services. 

We had the opportunity to talk Mr. Jimmy and he shared some information to some of us. Wanna hear a short briefing by this Mr. Handsome? 

(ATTN: You need to turn your volume high to hear his voice)

Sorry girls, I forgot to ask him whether he is still single or not.

I believed they are final year students as at this stage, it involves more technical and skills of the students.

We were also pleased to be briefed by Mr. Abdullah bin Ismail, a dental technologist [Dip.Dent.Tech., BSc ( Newcastle , UK ), Teaching Cert]. He was kind enough to spent some time in explaining about the dental dentures. Dental dentures are prosthetic devices to replace the missing teeth or in layman term 'fake teeth'.

Here are some of the Laboratory Prescription Card which I believed involving real patients.

Next, we move on to this unidentified clinic whereby real patients are being treated by the dental students. We had the opportunity to tour around this clinic and I can observed the students seemed to conduct their work professionally. Each of them is wearing this blue colour unifrom, a face mask and a head gear (I supposed). Everything looks clean and neat.  

I was told that the Dentistry course is more expensive than medical course in AIMST University. It seem that the dentistry course in AIMST University is well established and they have this own dental hospital in their own university. Isn't it great?

Destination: Anatomy Pathology Museum

Boon Jin, Suk Yen and Yen Moi were looking something very long and look shocked too. They were actually looking on these real specimens on foetus (top left) and infants (bottom right).  

This museum is seriously huge that stores a lot of specimens and again more than my own university about 20-30 X. All these real specimens ain't cheap!

Top pic: Specimen of neck and face structures.

Bottom right: Do you spot a Malay man clad in brown uniform. He is Mr. Haji Jamaluddin, a staff working under Faculty of Medicine. We were grateful enough that he was willing to spend quite a lot of time bringing us for a tour. He is better known to be Pak Haji.

Top: Hafiz, Me and Shamil
Bottom left: Me and Jaycynta.
Bottom right: Me and Shamil or commercially known as Shamel

Check out some of the specimens~

Destination: Anatomy Dissection Hall

This time you really need to knock the door before you enter as there is one occupant inside and he is actually a DEAD man. Keep rolling and don't close your eyes. 

Pak Haji introduced us a deceased who had passed away for EIGHT years! He even allowed us to touch on the dead body. The way Pak Haji handle the corpse is very professional and he tried to be friendly to the deceased by tapping him and also caressing him while explaining to us.

We were told that the deceased will remain there till one fine day, the lecturers from the faculty will perform a surgery to cut the deceased into parts for medical education purposes. Sounds scary? Not till you see the cut pieces below.

Introducing to you Ms. Fion, a year 1 student of Faculty of Medicine. Initially, she was reluctant to tell her name when I enquired her, but don't worry I won't eat you or otherwise you will chopped me into pieces. 

According to Ms. Fion, she is now familiarising the lower limb part including the muscles, nerves, blood circulation and basically everything. This is to prepare her for an examination (forgot what the term as it was too technical) whereby her lecturers or examiners will pin some part of the body part and the students are required to name it. 

Asked whether she she was scared to handle the lower limb part with a dead body right in front of the room, she replied 'Well, we are get used to it. It is part of our routine. Normally, there is another friend with me but was back to hometown'. 

I always agreed that the medical students are very good in physiology wheres the pharmacy students will be good in chemistry and drugs. Ms Fion agreed that too and logically, they need to know precisely the exact location of body parts and structures or otherwise how they are going to perform a surgery. It also good to be noted that both doctors and pharmacists should work together for the best of patient care.

Now, you have a clear look of Pak Haji. Thanks for the tour and information provided. Those who touches anything in this dissection hall will be required to wash their hand before leaving.

All these are real specimens meant to be touch (for education purposes) and not be eaten!

Destination: Faculty of Pharmacy

Finally, we were visiting to a place not aliened to us which were the Pharmacy laboratory. In pharmacy course, we deal with a lot of experiments and lab report writing.

Top left: Bench top orbital shaker
Top right: Seem to be a spectrophotometer
Bottom left: Weighing area
Bottom right: Weighing machine aka balancer

Top left: pH meter
Top right: Hand wash area
Bottom left: Water distillation unit
Bottom right: Tablet disintegration tester

Top left: Autoclave
Top right: Tablet dissolution tester. I find that this equipment is a bit huge but the capacity is only 8. My university equipment is better.
Bottom left: Sieve which is used for powder mixture for tabletting. However, in my university, we don't have this sieve shaker but we do it manually.
Bottom right: Twin jet ampoule sealer which provides hot flame to seal the ampoule.

Top right: Hot air oven

Bottom left: Soxhlet apparatus. When I see this, I was wondering what was it. It is used for liquid extraction to extract ether soluble constituents from liquid mixture. I forgot the devices that we used in my university but definitely not this one.

Bottom right: Capsule filler. The students seem to learn using modern devices whereas Mr Jony, our Dispensing and Compounding lecturer taught us the manual way.

Bottom left: Water bath

Bottom right: Mixer or rotator. I forgot the exact name of the device but it is used to mix the mixture used to produce emulsions and creams. It is a high shear mixer.

Taking pictures around~

Next, we have this weird tabletting room which is located separately from the laboratory and far away in a place looked like a garbage collector area. There is only one tabletting machine which occupy the entire space of this room with no door but as the one you see behind the left bottom pictures. 

I'm not sure about the quantity of the equipments in AIMST University but I believed in terms of that, UCSI University scores better. We have more quantity and types of equipment. We even have the clean room meant for producing sterile products which is not available in AIMST. 

Apart from that, since our establishment was way earlier than AIMST University, we do have very old machine such as the tableting machine but as the time passed, new modern machines are complementing the old one. Thus, this gives opportunity for us to try both old and new equipments. For example, my dear coursemates, do you remember we were using old tableting machine which requires us to do it manually and rotate the rotatator continuosly to produce the tablets. Argg sweats were coming out while we can just stand and watch lots of tablets being produced when we then shift to the modern one. 

I actually have some not all of these pictures including video such as the time when we performed tablet dissolution and disintegration tests. Those were the times.....~~

Anyway, this post is all about AIMST University specifically the Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Dentistry and Faculty of Pharmacy. 

Now, do you have the clear pictures of the university facilities?