Thursday, April 5, 2007

Another Osteopath in Malaysia

That's it ! Another Osteopath in Malaysia Kuala Lumpur ! It took me 9 months to get my work permit. The main problem being that I was only 26, one year short for the Ministry of Health guidelines.

Everything started in December 2005 when my girlfriend and I went to do some volunteer work in Thailand, Surin (thanks to Starfish ventures ). There I worked within the rehabilitation department of Surin Public Hospital, directed by Dr Noi, and Dr Lee. The language barrier was a real challenge. By the end I succeeded to communicate on a basic level with the patient ( lie on your back : "none niai", lie on your tummy : "none kwam ") but of course my tone and accent were rarely precise enough and often instead of saying : "sit down" ("nang") I was actually saying : "cinema". You can imagine that certain patients were a bit confused... Dr Noi and Dr Lee had a lot of patience with me and were helped me out when going through the case history of each patient.

Too often in Europe we practice osteopathy in a private practice having no or very little indirect communication with any doctors or specialists, and working there really allowed me to be in contact with physiotherapists, acupuncturists, radiologists, orthopaedists as well as seeing more "challenging patients' complaints"
Once Dr Noi told me : "you know here, in thailand, in public hospital we are paid really little, we do our job with passion , whereas in private hospital they do the job for money, do it quickly and by quantity..." I know that in France it is definively the opposite, but i found that this statement was true at least in their department.

So a few months later we went to renew our visa in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia . I visited the KLCC and discovered a medical center. I came in looking like a typical tourist (shorts, converse, camera, sunglasses) and got my first interview !

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I understood that Malaysian law does not allow for osteopathic medical practice. Is this true? I would like to recommend Osteopathy to my mum and hence would like to find out more about ostepathy in Malaysia.

Cat Leyow said...

Hi Pierre,
I had a treatment with you in KL around this time last year and it was wonderful, so I recommended other friends. We were all sorry when you left, but thankfully Gael took over. Unfortunately he has gone too now, so I am back to searching everywhere for an osteopath (particularly one who knows cranial osteopathy). Do you have any clues about where I can find one in Kuala Lumpur or nearby? Hope all is going well for you.

Pierre de Lasteyrie du Saillant said...

Hi Rob, Sory fo not eplying earlier on.
This is not true they just accepted the work permit process for another osteopath a few month ago. It just takes time! Mine took 9 months and the same for my colleague Gael.

Thank you for browsing!

Dear Cat Leyow,
Thank you fo your kind comment. I hope you and your family are doing fine. Gael may possibly come back, keep in touch with markizah.
Take care,

pierre

Anonymous said...

hello,

i´m an german osteopath(29y), studied physical therapy in Netherlands and did my diploma in osteopathy in germany. i´ve been many times to malaysia and wanted to to some work there. maybe you can help me!? is it possible to get some email contact.

benedictbreunig@gmx.de

thank you

best regards

Ben

marie said...

hey pierre, I am ostheopath (near grenoble- france )too and i 've got some friends living in malaysia. I went to work as volonteer with my husband in 2006.2007 in shah alam. Now I understood you leave malaysia already, could you recommand me an other collegue for my friends who want to be treat?
thanks to your help
marie

Unknown said...

I am happy to meet and to be treated by visiting Osteopaths in KL.

David

Wolfgang said...

Hi Pierre,
where did you work in KL ? I (german Osteopath) am going to move to Malaysia next year and am interested in working there. Thanks in advance for any reply.