On this episode of #TheFutureIsFemale Melisa Idris speaks with Professor Dr Yeong Chai Hong, medical physicist and Professor at Taylor's University’s School of Medicine. She is a leading figure in the field of medical physics worldwide, and throughout her career has secured over RM3 million in research grants, owns four patents and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, three academic books, and two book chapters. She is the current President of the Southeast Asia Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics, and Chair of the Medical Physics World Board of the International Organization for Medical Physics.
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00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to The Future is Female. This is the show
00:16where we find the extraordinary in every woman. I'm delighted to introduce my guest today,
00:22Professor Dr. Yong Chai Hong, who is a medical physicist and professor at Taylor's University's
00:29School of Medicine. She is the current president of the Southeast Asia Federation of Organizations
00:35for Medical Physics and the chair of the Medical Physics World Board of the International
00:41Organization of Medical Physics. She's a leading figure in the field of medical physics worldwide
00:47and has throughout her career secured over 3 million ringgit worth of grants. She owns four
00:54patents. She has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed journal articles and has three
01:01academic books and two book chapters. So I'm absolutely delighted to introduce Dr. Yong to
01:07the show. Welcome. Thank you so much, Melissa. What an incredible career. But I think we might
01:17need a little bit more clarity as to the field of medical physics. You are the first medical
01:21physicist. I've had the honor of interviewing and I'm curious to learn more about this field.
01:27Tell us a bit about the field and maybe how you began or what led you to pursue a career
01:35in this field. Yeah, sure. So medical physics is a relatively not so popular profession in Malaysia.
01:44Well, actually we are scientists who are working in hospitals. Normally you won't see us with the
01:51patients. We usually work behind scenes. Yeah. But let's say if you are familiar with cancer patients,
01:57so most of the cancer patients will go to radiotherapy treatments and radiotherapy treatments are using
02:03like very sophisticated machines to treat the cancers and in very precision methods. So the person who did,
02:13who do the treatment planning is actually medical physicist. Oh, I see. So it's not a medical doctor.
02:19Yeah. So a lot of public data, they are not aware of this. But that's why I said we work behind
02:25scenes. So we are the one who are working in front of the computers, looking at the patient's body
02:31conditions and optimize the treatment planning for them. Yeah. And then we discuss, of course,
02:37we discuss with the oncologist, with the medical doctors to find the best treatment solution for
02:43this particular patient. So this is medical physicist. So what led you to pursue a career in this field?
02:49Wow. It's a long story. So the journey can be traced back to when I was 12 years old. Yeah. So I was
02:57diagnosed with a hard murmur. It's a medical condition where the doctors found an abnormal sound
03:04in my heartbeat. It was during a normal, just a routine health screening in school. Yes. So I was
03:11caught. Then I was referred to a larger hospital to do the further checkup. So my father sent me to the
03:17hospital and I've been in and out the hospital several times and gone through a lot of medical
03:23imaging tests. Yeah. So that included x-rays, ultrasound, doppler ultrasound and the ECG. Okay.
03:30So I was so amazed. It's like totally like fascinated by how these machines help the doctors to see
03:37inside my body. Yeah. Because some machines, they produce images. Some they can record the sound from
03:44my heart. And it was for the first time I was able to see my heart on the monitor screen. So it was
03:52an ultrasound image. So the doctor told me that, oh, this is your heart. Then I know all my heart is
03:57this size, the size of the fist. Yeah. That was really fascinating. And it really like spark a strong
04:04curiosity in myself. And it's there for a long time. And I think that is the reason ultimately
04:11that shaped my current career. That is a remarkable story. If your 12-year-old self could see you now,
04:20I mean, think about that. Yeah. So, and talk to me about your career. You have a specific field that
04:26you're looking to. Tell us a little bit more about how you've been able to contribute to research in this
04:32radio nuclear theory. Yes. Maybe you can tell us more about that. Yes. So maybe I need to
04:38explain a little bit about the journey. How can I become a medical physicist in Malaysia?
04:43Yeah. So I applied for a degree course. It's called BSc in Health Physics. So it was the only
04:50program offered in Malaysia by UTM. So I was very lucky. So I got into this program. I go at A1 in my
04:59Physics and Biology. So I thought, okay, I can. I have the confidence I can do Physics and Biology.
05:03So I went to this field called Health Physics. Health Physics. But it was a totally, relatively,
05:10very new subject in Malaysia during that time. And to be honest, I totally had no clue what this field
05:17was about. And I had no clue where it would lead me. Yeah. It was later on. Then I found out,
05:24wow, this is the job. This is the career that I was dreaming about all this while. Yeah. And then I
05:33did my industrial training in nuclear medicine department in HKL. So from there, I realized,
05:41okay, this is the profession that I want to dedicate my life to. So that's how I go into this field.
05:47But after I graduated from my BSc, I tried to apply for jobs in hospitals. Unfortunately,
05:54none of them accepted me because most of the vacancies, they required at least a master degree
06:00in medical physics. Yeah. And that's how I found, I figured out, oh, there is a medical physics program
06:06in Malaysia. Yes. So I spent a year working as a program engineer in an electronics company.
06:13Then I got enough saving. So the next year, I applied for the master of medical physics in UM.
06:21It was offered in UM. And ultimately, I continued with PhD. And I stayed on in UM. And they offered
06:29me the senior lecturer positions. And I had the opportunity to work in the medical center,
06:35UM medical center. Yes. And I met my supervisor, my PhD supervisor, who is from the UK.
06:42Wow. So he is from Nottingham, UK. And he introduced to me radionuclide, which is in nuclear medicine.
06:49So there is a very niche area in medicine where we use radiation, radionuclide source, radio-edit
06:56source to treat cancer, to kill cancer. And at the same time, you can also use it to see through
07:04your body. So my PhD was about, we use a very small amount of the radio-edit source. We label it,
07:12we take it into the drugs. For example, if you want to trace where this drug goes to,
07:18right after you swallow the pill. You sort of tag the, okay, and then you can monitor where it goes.
07:23I see. Yeah. So that was my PhD project. Amazing. Yes. Just to clarify, so radiotherapy,
07:31is that an alternative treatment to chemotherapy for cancer? Yes. Radiotherapy is using external
07:38x-ray. It's a very high dose of x-ray, but it's shooting outside into the body, into the organ,
07:45and kill the cancer cell. So is it the same as the REST prototype that your team developed?
07:52Yeah. It's different. Different. Tell me more. Yeah. Yeah. So it's different concept. Radiotherapy
07:57is very standard treatment for cancer patients, most of the cancer patients. But our prototype
08:03is called REST. REST. So REST stands for Radio Embolization Sumerian Therapy. So it's a
08:09patented prototype. So I can share the secret. Amazing. Okay. Yes. Tell us how you came,
08:13how you came to innovate this. Yeah. Yeah. So we actually developed microspheres. It's a specialised
08:24polymer. So it can be emitted to our body. So it's biocompatible. And using these microspheres,
08:30we incorporate our radionuclide. It's called samarium 153. It's a specific scientific name
08:37into these polymers. And then we deliver the polymers directly into the tumour. We can see
08:44the tumours now under the guidance of the x-ray. And using needle or catheter, we can actually
08:49deliver our drugs directly to the tumours. Is there a specific cancer or location of tumour
08:58that allows for this? Originally, we were designed it for only liver cancer patients. Because liver
09:05cancer patients, unfortunately, most of them don't respond well to radiotherapy. Because they need
09:13certain criteria to use external radiation beam. So we targeted on these patients. So liver cancer
09:21patients. And liver cancer is a high incidence rate in Malaysia. Oh, I see. Yeah. So we targeted
09:26patients who are not fit for surgery, not fit for radiotherapy, and they can't do chemotherapy,
09:32and they can come to us. So how we treat? We will use the needle or my catheter to deliver,
09:40to send our drugs directly to the tumours. Yeah. And this samarium 153, it has a very unique
09:46characteristic because it emits two types of radiation at the same time. So one is the beta radiation,
09:54the other one is called gamma radiation. So the beta radiation is high energy, but they can only
10:00travel very short distance. So we use it to kill the cancer cell directly. And at the same time,
10:06because it also emits the gamma radiation, then we can actually use the gamma imaging to see where
10:13our drugs is. What a breakthrough. This is remarkable. Was that an easy innovation or
10:22invention or discovery? How did you come across it? I mean, I'm sure this was years of hard work and
10:28sweat and research. What were the challenges that you had to face and overcome to achieve such a
10:34breakthrough? Yeah, definitely a lot of challenges. I can imagine. I started this research in 2012.
10:39So it's already 13 years. Yeah. So of course, there are a lot of challenges along the web.
10:46But to me, we will take the challenge as an opportunity. So every challenge that we face
10:52is an opportunity to improve and to innovate. So there are multiple challenges. Can be from funding,
11:01you know, to apply for funding until the very complex technical difficulties. But one of the
11:08major challenge that our team has experienced is about ensuring our product is safe.
11:19Our products have to match all the safety and regulatory standards to ensure that it is safe
11:26to be used for human later. So why is it difficult? Because it requires actually the expertise,
11:32the experts from various fields. Yeah. So from there, I learned about ISO standard,
11:39what is medical device aid, what is pharmaceutical, you know, regulations and all. Yeah. So I have to
11:47learn about all this regulatory foreign language to me. Yeah. I can imagine there are many regulations to
11:56put to protect patients and citizens, but to get through all of them. And it must have been quite
12:03confusing. So when you said you first started in this field, did you have anyone to guide you along
12:12the way? Was there anyone who could maybe kind of show you the way or did you have to figure it out by
12:18yourself and, you know, pave your own path? Of course, I have my own mentors. So they are, they are basically
12:25my PhD supervisor as well. So we had this collaboration for very long term, very long term. But along the
12:31journey also, I built up a lot of collaborations with different experts, different experts. So I work
12:38very closely. Locally or globally? Both. Yeah, both. So I work very closely with pharmacists, pharmacologists,
12:45doctors, physicists, engineers, lawyers, across various fields. Yeah. And I do get very strong
12:55support as well. Locally in Malaysia, as well as in other countries. Is Malaysia, where are we in terms of
13:04positioning in the world of nuclear medicine research or medical physics? Are we a leader? We seem to be a
13:13leader. Are there other countries who are leading in this field? Yeah. So medical physics has come a
13:20long way. The history, I think, is more than 100 years. I'm not sure if you are aware of Mary Curie,
13:28who was the first woman who got a Nobel Prize and the first person who won two Nobel Prize in two
13:36different disciplines. Yeah. So Mary Curie, she was a medical physicist. So she discovered radio
13:42activity, radionuclides, and she started to apply radiation in medicine. They have saved so many
13:49lives, even in many decades after her passing, right? So now we use radiation in medicine with more
13:58cautious and more knowledge. Yeah. Yes. So medical physics has been used widely. Radiation has been used
14:08widely in medicine for more than 100 years. So we use it for imaging. We use it for radiotherapy as well.
14:15But recently, so we see the global trend, how we can combine the two into one. So we have like very
14:24advanced imaging technology. We work together with surgeons. So surgeons, the current trend is called
14:31personalized medicine. Yes. Yes. So they tailored their treatment plan to individual patient's needs
14:40because different patient is different, right? That is the future, right? Of medicine, yes. Correct.
14:44Yeah. And they need our help as well because we can provide them the input. We can help them to see
14:49through the body and to see through where their drugs go to. Yeah. So we need a multi-disciplinary
14:56collaborations together to bring this further. And now, now it's the era. Now it's the era that
15:04we have like cross-discipline collaborations a lot. And that is how we can go more at once in medicine.
15:11It's so, it's an exciting time to be in your field. Is this a field where women are underrepresented? I
15:18mean, are there, are there a lot of, do you have a lot of female colleagues both domestically and internationally?
15:23Yes. Interestingly. So the answer is yes and no. Because, yes, because globally and in Asia,
15:33about 30% of medical physicists are women. Oh, that's not, that's not equal. Not equal.
15:39But our target is around 40%. But in Southeast Asia is a different case. Yeah. In Southeast Asia,
15:47we have more women than men. In this field. Do you want to guess how many percentage of women
15:54medical physicists in Malaysia? I don't know. 50? Is it equal? Is it more? It's more. More. Yeah.
16:01We have 70. Wow. So 70% of medical physicists in Malaysia, they are actually women. Why do you think
16:08that is? Yeah. So we are, Malaysia is an outlier in this sense, in the global statistics. We're a leader.
16:15Yeah. So we are an outlier that. Why do you have more women? Well, a majority of our women medical
16:22physicists, they work in regulatory bodies. For example, Ministry of Health. So in Ministry of Health,
16:28also we have medical physicists who their profession is about radiation. So they know about how to
16:35safe use radiation. So they are working in the Ministry of Health. So public sector,
16:40public health care. Yes, public health care. So majority of our women physicists, they are working
16:45there. Yeah. But if we look back into the hospital-based medical physicists, the percentage dropped back to
16:5230%. Yeah. Which is aligned with the global trend. Okay. So why do you think that is? Why is it that
17:00in practice or out in the field that there is this gender disparity? Yeah. So my colleagues,
17:06she did a survey in 2018. So from the feedback that we collected, so we try to analyze what are the
17:13challenges faced by the women medical physicists. So a few of them, so they include first, they say they
17:19are limited mentorship opportunities. So they don't see many role models of women physicists in this field.
17:28Yeah. And second, it's the work-life balance. So they struggle for the work-life balance in this
17:36profession because the job requires us to work off working hours sometimes because we look after machines
17:45actually. So the very advanced machines that we use in medicine, who looking after the machine is
17:52actually us. It's a physicist. So we can only calibrate the machine or do the quality control test
17:59on the machines when the machine is not in use. Right. So after hours. After hours. Got it. Yes. So
18:06sometimes we will work until midnight or started from midnight. Yeah. So that is the nature of the work.
18:13So it's not an eight to five job. And a lot of women, they cannot adapt their life because they have
18:20family to take care of. And so that is a struggle there. Dr. Dion, if I were to ask you if you had,
18:26you know, one thing that you would like to change about your industry to make it more inclusive for
18:32women so that while we see a higher percentage of women, we don't see the distribution of women equally.
18:38How would, what would you like to see change so that we can address that? Yeah. I would definitely
18:43like to see the equality in performance assessment because there are some unconscious bias there.
18:51Okay. They will feel that women at the, you know, younger age, they might have their family later and it
19:00might jeopardize their work performance. So I hope that there is an equal system. Okay. In terms of
19:06performance, we just evaluate purely based on the person's capabilities and also the leadership
19:15positions. So it has to be a transparent system. So we should throw away the gender bias. Yeah. In,
19:23in terms of their performance assessment, as well as the salary gap. Oh, so from the 2018 survey,
19:32actually we discovered, especially in the private sectors, generally men earning more higher than the
19:41women for the same position. Wow. Yeah. So there are some unconscious bias there. Yes. So I hope the
19:52system can be more transparent and more fair. So, but please don't get me wrong that we are not here to push
20:02you know, to recruit more women in the field. We are actually advocating for equality, gender equality
20:08for both men and women. So for men and women who demonstrated strong interest or talents in the
20:16profession, we should provide them the equal opportunities to develop and to advance their careers.
20:23Yeah. So that is one thing that I would really like to see. Yeah. Level the playing field, right? Yes.
20:28Are you seeing a lot of young people being interested in this field, particularly young women? Yes.
20:34You are? It is. It is. So I also take my take advantage of my current positions. Yeah. So as the
20:41president of the C-Form. Yes. So I make it a priority to have this so-called Women in Medical Physics workshop.
20:48Yeah. We have this workshop every year during our regional conference. So it provides a platform
20:54where we can invite our role model, our women role model to share their journey and their insight.
21:02At the same time, we invite our young women colleagues to share the challenges that they face.
21:08Ah. Okay. So they have, you know, the support, right? Yes. Exactly. Okay. Then we will sit down together.
21:14Then we discuss about the strategies, like how to overcome the gender equality issues and all. And it also
21:21open to men. Oh, okay. Okay. So support for all. Actually, I would like to ask you, what advice
21:26do you give them? So when you, you know, young women and men come to you and say, well, they really,
21:33they look up to you and they aspire to maybe have, you know, a career in this field, what do you tell them?
21:40Oh, I definitely love to meet them. I would love to support and guide our young generations.
21:46Doesn't matter the gender. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Men or female, um, male, female doesn't matter. Um,
21:52I would like to provide them a supportive environment where they can openly share the challenges that they face.
22:01And we, I would also like to encourage, you know, the top management to listen actively to the challenges
22:09that their employees face. Okay. And provide them the meaningful support to, to break the barriers.
22:15So I believe that if you provide them a supportive environment and also the, um, to, to, to, to
22:24bridge the gaps to leadership and more women and more young, uh, scientists can join the profession.
22:31Yeah, that's great. Uh, in the couple of minutes that we have left, I'm curious to know, I mean,
22:36this field in the way you've described it to me is so exciting and, and full of potential.
22:44What, what's in the future for you? What are you, um, looking to answer? Are there questions
22:49that you still have in this field that you're excited to answer? Yeah. Well, this field is still,
22:55like growing, still growing. Yeah. And we see a lot of, uh, at once, uh, treatments that really,
23:02really inspired me. And we started to see artificial intelligence is taking the lead in medicine now.
23:10So that is, uh, truly inspired me to see what the future will be and how can we use AI and robots.
23:19Yeah. To improve our treatments and also to optimize, you know,
23:24you mean this is, this is something that can really happen. It's not, you know, you think
23:28about science fiction films, right? No, it is definitely happening. And it's definitely,
23:34I think we are now moving towards the future where the treatments are safer, more effective,
23:42and also more accessible to everyone. Yeah. We are moving towards the era. Amazing. Dr. Yeo,
23:47thank you for coming on and sharing some of your remarkable highlights of your career.
23:53I appreciate your time. Thank you very much for listening. Yeah. It was wonderful to talk to you.
23:58Thank you. Thank you very much. That's all we have for you on this episode of the future is female.
24:03I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening. Thank you so much for watching. Good night. Thank you.