PROFESSOR DATO’ DR. AHMAD FAIZAL BIN MOHD PERDAUS
He obtained his Bachelor of Medical Science in 1989 from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), followed by his Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree in 1992 from the same university. He subsequently earned his Master’s degree in Internal Medicine in 2000 and was accredited as a Respiratory Physician in 2003 after completing his sub-specialty training. Joining UKM’s Medical Faculty in 2001, he was appointed as a Consultant Physician (Internal Medicine and Respiratory Medicine) at Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM). Additionally, he served as a Senior Lecturer in Internal Medicine and Respiratory Medicine in the University’s Faculty of Medicine and was Head of Medical Education between 2004 and 2006. He also held a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, Australia, from 2006 to 2009.
His involvement with MERCY Malaysia began in 2003 when he signed on as a volunteer and became a member of MERCY Malaysia’s Executive Council. He headed the Drug Rehabilitation and Assistance Programme in Malaysia from 2003 to 2006 and was elected Vice President 1 in 2008 before being elected as President in 2010, after acting in the interim since August 2009. He was re-elected in 2011 and has served as President since then. In 2014, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees for MERCY Malaysia UK (MMUK). Professor Dato’ Dr Ahmad Faizal’s humanitarian missions include visits to Sri Lanka (2003), Iran (2004), Sudan (2004, 2008), Indonesia (2005, 2006), Pakistan (2005), Myanmar (2008), Syria (2013), and the Philippines (2013), among others.
He previously served on the boards of the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF) and the Advanced Training Program on Humanitarian Action (ATHA) and since 2013 until current chairs Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection (PHAP), the world’s leading network of individual humanitarian workers. He became the first Asian to be elected as Chairperson of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) in 2015, having been on the board since 2009. Representing the international humanitarian NGO community, he served on the IASC Principals while Vice-Chair and Chair of ICVA between 2012 and 2018.
On 6th April 2021, he received the Honorary Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Sciences from Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), granting him the title of Professor. On 23rd June 2021, he was appointed as Adjunct Professor at the Malacca Islamic University College (KUIM). His other current academic appointments include serving on the Advisory Board of the Humanitarian Encyclopaedia Project at the Centre for Research in Humanitarian Action (CERAH) in Geneva since 2016, as well as on the Advisory Boards of the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership (CHL) and the Post-Graduate Certificate in Humanitarian Leadership course at Deakin University Melbourne since 2017, where he has also recently been appointed as a post-graduate supervisor and guest lecturer for the Masters in Humanitarian Action.
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Dr. Faizal played a strategic role as the Head of the Health & Emerging Hazards cluster of the Scientific Expert Advisory Panel (STEP) to the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA). He was also a member of the Public-Private Partnership Group under the External Advisory Group (EAG) on Covid-19 to the Malaysian Government, along with other national-level committees. Simultaneously, he led MERCY Malaysia’s pandemic response and preparedness efforts and coordinated the decanting of Non-Covid patients from public to private hospitals in the Klang Valley. He was fully engaged in treating Covid patients on a daily basis on the frontline