Dr. Pong is a Resident Consultant Paediatrician & Neonatologist and a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE ) at Penang Adventist Hospital. After graduation with MBBS from University Malaya in 1992, his working experience began as a House Officer at Hospital Pulau Pinang. Subsequently he worked as a Medical officer in various departments in Kulim Hospital before pursuing the postgraduate course in Master of Medicine (Paediatrics) at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur in 1996.
Dr Pong obtained his MRCP (UK) in 2000 and MRCPCH (Member of Royal College of Paediatric and Child Health) the following year. He served as a Clinical Specialist in the Department of Paediatrics, Hospital Ipoh, Perak before moving to private practice in 2000. He worked as a consultant paediatrician with special interest in Neonatology at Penang Adventist Hospital from 2002 to 2006. During this period, he was actively involved in promoting breastfeeding in the community and he was the co- chairperson of the breastfeeding committee of the hospital when Penang Adventist Hospital became the first private hospital in Penang to be accredited with The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative status on 26th January 2006. Dr. Pong is also the advisor for the Kangaroo Club, the breastfeeding support group for Penang Adventist Hospital.
Dr. Pong travelled to Sydney, Australia in 2007 for further subspecialty training in neonatology. His training stint of two years in Sydney at the Royal Hospital for Women and the Sydney Children’s Hospital allowed him to get exposed to complex neonatal cases, including managing uncommon neonatal surgical problems and preterm babies. During the training, he developed further skills in neonatal intensive care, neonatal procedures, infection control, resuscitation and mechanical ventilation (including high frequency oscillatory ventilation, inhaled nitric oxide and other modes neonatal respiratory support ). He also established further skills in retrieving and stabilising of sick newborns and children when he worked at the New South Wales Newborn and Paediatric Emergency Transport Service (NETS) . Besides clinical work, Dr. Pong was a conjoint associate lecturer at the University of New South Wales from 2007 to 2009.
Dr Pong was accredited as a neonatologist and paediatician by the National Specialist Register of Malaysia after his return from Australia in 2009. He is an instructor of the Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) certified by American Academy of Pediatrics as well as being a Paediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) instructor accredited by the American Heart Association. He was appointed as the Medical Director of the NRP as well as a Committee member in Penang Adventist Hospital Life Support Education Centre since 2010. He is actively involved in teaching neonatal resuscitation regularly at the Penang Adventist Hospital Life Support Education Centre and Allied Health Centre of Excellence (AHCoE) Penang, Malaysia .Dr Pong was also trained in ECMO (Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation) at the National Taiwan University Hospital and in Australia. He is the Medical Director of the ECMO service in Penang Adventist Hospital since January 2011. He was a Member of the Steering Committee of the Asia- Pacific Chapter of Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation (ELSO) when it was first formed in February 2013. He was the representative for Malaysia in a presentation at the First Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Conference of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation (ELSO) which was held in Beijing in October 2013.
Dr Pong first introduced the S.T.A.B.L.E. Program into Malaysia in 2011 after he was certified as a Lead Instructor in the S.T.A.B.L.E. Program in USA in 2011. This is a post-resuscitation pre-transport stabilisation course for sick neonates widely implemented in USA and Canada. He was the main coordinator/facilitator in organising the first S.T.A.B.L.E. Instructor course in Malaysia which was held on 16 to 18 May 2014 in Penang when Dr Kristine Karlsen ( The author and founder of the S.T.A.B.L.E. Program) was invited as the teaching faculty. A total of 88 international participants from Malaysia, Thailand, China, Australia and UAE were trained to be lead instructors during the instructor course .
All the above life support education programs involve medical simulation and Dr Pong has vast experience and keen interest in this field. After attending several workshops in simulation, ( including the instructor course in simulation by the Institute of Medical Simulation held in National University of Singapore in May 2015), he has been actively involved in running medical simulation training for nurses and doctors at Penang Adventist Hospital and Allied Health Centre of Excellence ( AHCoE), Penang, Malaysia. He also assisted AHCoE in setting up the new simulation lab which is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, one of the best simulation centres in Malaysia. In 2020, he became a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator when he passed his CHSE exam in USA.
Dr Pong was appointed as an Examiner for Paediatric Year End Final Examination at Penang Medical College, Penang since 2009 and he is an honorary senior lecturer at the college.
Dr Pong also has several papers published in peer-reviewed medical journals.
