Internet Journalism: 3 Keys to Be Great in MSF

by Hee Jiun Kang

3 Keys to Be Great in MSF

To become one of the Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders (MSF) member is easy, but to become one of them that run assigned medical missions in all over the world, have its difficulties.

Doctor Tan Day Seng (Nason), a local MSF medical doctor who just completed his missions in Ethiopia and Sierre Leone years back, mentioned about the desirable qualities of a front-liner, which is high adaptability, able to cope with stress and working as a team.

Doctor Tan Day Seng, Nason

“The first qualities we look for, is your adaptability. Because you know you will be sent to places that you cannot imaging, all these luxury things you might not have there.” Said Nason.

Indeed, the title of film screening today is “Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders”. Mark Hopkins, the director of this documentary has precisely emerged how stressful and difficult of running in the front line, through his camera lens.

Approximately 100 visitors attended the film screening.

Nason differentiated, “Adapt and coping with stress are different, because adaptability can be how you adapt to a situation, whereas coping with stress, like stress from work, colleagues, arguments and so on, you must know how to resolve it. For example, you go to work non-stop, saving and helping one and after, then just go on for how many donkey hours? It is stressful, isn’t?”

“When I said coping with stress is like, you need to have an outlet, for your stress. So you need to be able to cope with stress, this is the second qualities I would said.” Nason emphasized.

The documentary has portrayed some arguments between the 4 doctors, but they are able to manage the stress. They argue, they go smoking, and they even go clubbing and drinking, right after they got enough rest when they are off duty from the front line.

Nason explained, “Argument is common in every mission. It is tends to happen because we are a group of people that came from different background, personalities, all these passionate arguments and clashes do happen. But, the way we solve it always comes back to the reason of joining MSF.”

In the field works, the doctors used to have a spiritual conversation with their colleagues after they’ve completely dispassionate from that particular frustration and argument. This is the key, because they have to live and work together, for a period of time, probably 9 months to a year.

“We might have different way of achieving that goal, yet our ultimate goal is saving our patient’s life. So the third thing is working as a team, you need to have team spirit. You know we all from different backgrounds, so you cannot be very individualistic, cannot being like I don’t care about others, it can’t works that way.” Nason finished third qualities of being a front-liner.

Unfortunately, there are probably 30 of MSF’s volunteers and field workers in Malaysia, however, only 10 out of 30 are really active in the MSF missions.

Less in Quantity, Beyond in Quality

Majority of the visitors came to the “Behind The Scenes: The Journey of Doctors Without Borders” photo exhibition and film screening with the intention to know more about MSF, the sharing session with the Malaysia’s field workers today took probably one hour after the film screening. The response is way beyond expectation, overwhelming and enthusiastic.

The Malaysia's field workers share their experiences after the documentary.

Left: Lim Suet Fong, Logistician; Wong Siew Weun, Administrator; Nason Tan, Medical Doctor; Martyn Broughtom, the emcee.

“In term of quantity of the visitor, there are not too many. However, in term of quality of the visitor, I would say that, it’s very good, because MSF is not so well known in Malaysia at this moment.” Baikong Mamid, the public relations said.

This is the first engagement between the MSF and the Malaysia society, however, the number of visitor increased day by day, especially on weekend. Therefore, Baikong is very happy and satisfied with this.

“The visitors asked very good questions about our organization, like how we do our works, how the doctors treat the patients with limited resources, and many questions that I do not expected the visitors would ask, like do MSF urge the government there to stop the crisis, and they also concerned about the safety of our workers, we really appreciated it.” Baikong praised.

Malaysian may yet to acquaint to this international organization, therefore the MSF photo exhibition is mainly to raise awareness of humanitarian crises and to gain the support of Malaysian people on issues that matter in the wider world.

Malaysia’s Social Media is Powerful

Baikong is very surprised because most of the visitors know about this exhibition from social media, especially Facebook. On the other hand, Baikong would like to take an opportunity to thanks the mainstream media as well.

“The use of social media in Malaysia is powerful, people came here because they seen it on Facebook, amazing right?” she winked.

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