Revathi Murugappan is the Assistant Editor, Feature for The Star’s health pullout, StarHealth. She is responsible for planning and overseeing the content direction of StarHealth. She has recently crowned winner of Medical Travel Journalist of the Year (Malaysia category) at Medical Travel Media Awards (MTMA) 2021.

Congratulations on your award recently! What was your strategy in picking your submissions to MTMA 2021? 
Since I write quite extensively on health matters, I had to pick some articles which I thought were worthy of being disseminated to a wider audience. For example, I wrote one on the role of intensivists in treating COVID-19 patients. I don't think many people know there is such a medical speciality. They are physicians who provide care to critically ill patients, usually in ICU. The stories they shared early in the pandemic broke their hearts, and mine.

As the Assistant Editor, Features, for The Star's health supplement, StarHealth, how does your typical day look like? 
Every day is different - it involves answering email / phone pitches, interviewing people, researching the subject matter (this takes time as I'm not a medical professional!), and writing the articles in a simplified manner that laymen can understand. Once a week, I will also proofread the pages before it goes to print.

Given that we are living in the pandemic, how do you balance out COVID-19 content with other similarly important healthcare-related topics? 
In the beginning, almost every other story was COVID-19 related as new data kept (and keeps) emerging everyday! Readers grew weary of reading these because let's face it, no one wants to read doom and gloom all the time when there is already so much uncertainty. Unfortunately, a lot of our columnists continue to write articles surrounding COVID-19. I try to explore other health / fitness / wellness topics that readers might find interesting, such as robotic knee surgery or anti-ageing exercises.

Nodding to your recent win at the recent MTMA 2021, what is your current observation on medical tourism and your 2022 forecast? 
Even with the borders opening up, there is still a lot of fear over seeking treatment in another country so I don't think medical tourism (on the international front) is going to see a big growth, at least for the first half of next year. However, there is a huge potential for domestic medical travel as I see a lot more patients coming from out of town to consult with doctors in the Klang Valley and do a bit of sightseeing at the same time. For example, I spoke to a patient who had come from Melaka to seek treatment at Institut Jantung Negara for a valve replacement and his family, who accompanied him, took the opportunity to visit Batu Caves to pray for him and visit the gallery there. It was their first visit here.

What are the rooms of opportunity that you would love to explore when it comes to working with PRs? 
A PR who understands the health topic he or she is pitching makes a lot of difference. Do your research first before approaching us.

Would you encourage more journalists to dwell with medical travel beats? 
Definitely, there is so much to be explored but so little interest in it!

What are your hopes and thoughts for the next installation of MTMA? 
It can only get bigger and better!