w.I.b:warung ikan bakar:
Harap-harap INI KALILAH !
Sunday, November 30, 2003
The Magnetist' 5th Winter: Fraud or medical strategy?
I finally finished watching this Danish production I acquired from Speedy Video a month ago. He claimed to have the power of magnetism that will cure many, including the presumed incurables but to do that, he has to achieve full faith in his patients, and to achieve that, he even resorted to deception.
"What about the people out there? Consider them, their sorrows, their longing for faith. It takes faith, boundless faith for our treatment to succeed. What are a couple of chicken bones compared to that?" Friedrich Meissner, the Magnetist justified his doings and false claims.
Let's think about it, many a times, diseases start from the mind. If we can win the battle in the mind, half the battle is won, huh? But would deception, even though it works, be a morally acceptable means of medical treatment?
"But it is the mind that is responsible for sickness and health. The patient must believe in me to receive my power. Faith and devotion make it possible to transcend the boundary between the body and the mind. "Do you admit that the foetus is a fake?"
"The fraud was necessary for Mrs Hovberg's sake."
"If it is for her sake, then why is she now in an asylum?"
"If she has gone insane, it is solely due to the brutal way she is confronted by the truth."
I recommend this movie to those interested in medicine, healing and so-called miracles.
November will surely ends with a bang for me. For the past one week, I have been having fun non-stop. Ever since I checked out of the college for a 2-week revision(huh?what revision?), the list of things to do and people to meet are interestingly long.
The Youth camp in Sierramas was great. Being able to hang out with the kids, and enjoying the nice environment, and of course having long chats with Ai was really really a very treasured blessed experience.
Old friends, new friends Even as I make new important friends, the old ones, (thankfully I remember) are still dear at heart. Some of us spent hours talking near the prawn mee girl opposite Super Kinta. And boy, the way we talk.....almost turn the tables in excitement. Kin Hoe, and Wan Kim will start their working life this coming Monday. May God bless them...
Signs of an outgoing blogger huh? Been blogging very little. Traffic's low too. No inspiration to do a political comment ever since Pak Lah took over. Puzzled. Maybe I still respect him too much.
Leukemia and sore throat. One chronic/terminal, another just a symptom, a transient disturbance. But one may suffer more from the latter, right? Anyone knows if there is any real problem with having cough and cold till you get enlarged cervical lymph nodes and neck pain?
if it's right or wrong
if the time is right
if you have found it
if you should stop searching
if you should have faith
if you should wait for Him to provide
if age matters
if we had thought too much
and if we should just be outright honest about it ?
Chee Hoong and I checked in to the hostel in Hospital T.A.R, Klang this morning. Half of my stuff and books are already there. Will start inhabiting the room after the Raya break. The furniture, the setting, and all that is satisfactory. We visited the library too, and saw new computers being installed. Signs of improving internet connection, hopefully.
Prior to this, many folks especially from church has been offering me help to shift my barang to the new place. Although I prefer to rely on my rich coursemates/neighbours/buddies, I feel kind of really lucky to have so many people that cares.
I will need to travel down to PJ every Sunday from Klang. Been thinking - maybe it is time to get a car.....any offer for RM 7000 ?
supper@h19 Hmm...it must have been one of my best Friday nights. Ai, Joy and Khuen came over for some Prego can spaghetti, and I got a very special gift. Ai, if you are reading this, I memang tak boleh tidur after that, hahaha, after you all left, I went to A&E with some colleagues till 3 am.
Friday nights, the quality of them, has been on the rise ever since I return to the Friday Bible class. The discussion on 1st Samuel is excellent, and it is part of my on-going attempt to go back to the basics. The fellowship is superb too.
Good doctors, bad doctors Most of the time, especially when on rounds and other forms of clinical teachings, the doctor/lecturers that we encounter are really nice people - unassuming, witty, intelligent, humble and they have empathy. Even their sarcasm is tasteful. However, our A&E experience early this morning involved dealing with a very rude+careless doctor. A bullshit doctor who swings his stets as he chided the patient's relative. Instead of making a fuss about losing sleep, maybe we should be more sensitive to the background and social history of a patient and her family, there must be reason for their reluctance and all that.....anyway, that was the only setback. The nurses, MA and other docs were nice, and willing to teach. It was another good experience in A&E.
I think and think and I think. Most of the time, I made a lot of foolish, immature, silly, sissy, empty-headed, light-minded, superficial and volatile decisions. In the end of the day, I caused a lot conflict, strife, difference, agitation, letdown, setback, misfortune, displeasure, despondency, disenchanment and disgruntlement (and many more negative adjectives you can think of) between me and people. In short, I really feel that I am a total failure in decision making! Stupid, irresponsible and immature I am! A fool of myself. Teong O Teong, why just can't you make up your mind seriously and wisely! I am, no joking, having a lot of flaws and problems in making up my mind even in a small matter.
Mr. CCS* ecame the clown of the day, at least to me and a few others. The one who worked for his own glory and his own self-advancement.
This talk does have its merits. The SARS expert, Ismail Merican did a better job this time, compared to the one in my 1st year, when he made it sound so impossible to specialise.
So, again, this talk sparked a new round of debates and premature contemplations of our post MBBS plans. To me, what is the use of publicly proudly declare your specialisation field of interest, when things are not certain till you finally meet all the criteria and send in the application.
I think it would like UPU and pulling strings all over again. If they do not want me in, I do not mind settling down as the best GP in Ipoh. Anyone wants to join me?
Another issue: I am starting to doubt the usefulness and relevance of Malaysian Medical Association(MMA) besides being a social club of doctors, used as stepping stones and self-glorification. How better has the welfare of govt doctors and HOs improve with the help of MMA or the lack of it. All of us pay RM 30 of membership fees, but what do we get? There is not even any attempt to publish handbooks on postgraduate opportunities and all that.
3 weeks are almost up! And this signifies the last long study break for me. The next long break I am having will be said in term of unemployment period. 3 years in UM; at first it seemed as a long period of time, spanning 6 semesters and a 5-month industrial training. Wow! But now, I am reluctant to leave study life.
Work?! Gosh!! When I am studying, during holidays, I can just simply come back to my sweet home here in Ipoh. Eat breakfast, watch Astro, wake up early in the morning on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to watch the Champions' League live matches (especially when Juventus are playing), go anywhere anytime I wish.
But work?! Is such freedom still exist?! DEFINITELY NO MORE!! Unless I am a big boss of a company and to be one big boss, it is going to take me years or perhaps decades. This also depends on how well I can handle myself, how smart I am in the working arena to achieve such a success. Furthermore, getting a good job (in terms of paid and opportunities) aint easy nowadays.
In short, it is a long long hard way to go man! A big S-I-G-H!
Besides staying at home for 90% of the time during this break watching TV, anime series downloaded from Kazaa while I was still in PJ (just need to mention that Naruto is great), and yeah Matrix 1 and 2 (yeah, just watched them!), sleeping and eating, I did meet and go for drinks with old friends, especially Beng Kuin and Alan Lee. Once a while, with Chong Yit and Chee Meng too.
Not to leave out the Big Thing also. I was there. Spent an amount of time too enhancing, learning, and picking up some web programming knowledge in HTML, CSS, and ASP.NET. A big let down was, I didn't manage to really force myself to learn Java and Matlab in depth. I will be using both tools or languages to program/build my final year project (thesis).
Since, my knowledge in Java is still not up to a beginner's level, I am forseeing constraints (time and competence) to catch up with Java API, Java Swing and Matlab interconnectivity with Java. I am putting my 5 credit-hour Thesis 2 at a high risk of failure! Moreover, I don't have any idea at all on how to begin my coding phase! That's disastrous man!
And thus... I need to pack my things again and say bye-bye to my home and Ipoh once again!
The 6-week period of "Introduction and teaching of clinical skills" is now at its 4th week already. Seniors or even some doctors have commented that this 6 weeks is more like a honeymoon and rather useless for anything substantial.
I don't think so. There is no ward round or tutorial with clinicians that can be absolutely useless. There is bound to be something to be learnt, whether medical or not. Some ward rounds were postponed at the last minute, we have to wait and page for doctors every now and then, have to wake up early for those 8am lecture just to have it cancelled or find it too overwhelmingly boring, but generally, our lecturers do want to teach. It is up to us to plan our learning process.
In this 6 weeks, we are lectured on the basics of diagnostic imaging(plain X-ray, CT scan, MRI, US..), the blood business, symptomatogy, examination techniques, history taking, psychology of patients, et cetera....yeah, it may sound interesting to the uninitiated ones, and it may sound boring and impossible to us. How can we learn so much in 6 weeks before we are thrown to Klang?
Well, of course, to learn up all that was taught is impossible, but I think the exposure had given me a minor paradigm shift of what this whole business of medical training is really about, and what it is made of, and where it is coming from. It feels like the real medical school just started. We have been unashamedly dreaming in the pre-clinicals, mugging texts stupidly without correlation, intimidated by the wards and clinics, focussing too much on exams and not on seeking higher grounds and the realistics.
In this 6 weeks, most of us are re-introduced to medicine and surgery, finally, the real way. Not through slide shows and powerpoint presentations. Yeah, we may not be able to answer the questions asked in front of the patients, we may have shamefully lost all we learnt in pathology and anatomy, we may look like useless creatures in the clinics and A&E, but at least, we are finally exposed to the need of common sense, courage/thick-skin, correlation of knowledge, PR/building rapport with docs and sisters, seeking your opportunities on your own, fighting off the kiasu label,handling the volume of patients' anxiety and all that.
After this 6 week, we may not be able to interpret a chest x-ray film or a simple ultrasonogram of the liver, we may not be able to examine the abdomen properly, and fail to interpret the electrolyte tests properly, but surely, the attitude towards medical school will change, the transition from a immature, robertrichard 2nd year medical student to a proper clinical student will take place.
May God be our helper.
To all colleagues, selamat berpesta dan berlatih di Klang !
Event 1:
Some months ago, I played with Piow's digital camera. Took many pictures. There was one I took while looking very stupid and blur. There was another one where I was wearing my white coat, with the stethoscope around my neck. Would never do that with my stethoscope in the hospital. Most of the time we put it in the side pocket. (There's an unwritten code that MS like me should not do that like a doc till I become one. I think so too.) Anyway, these are 2 of many photos I took, and it was stored in both Piow's and Pang's PC.
Event 2: The UM Medical Society would be organising a Post-graduate talk next week. Posters are put up to publicise this event. Pang is the society chief.
Event 1 + Event 2 = My pictures are on those posters, letting everyone see my silly acts everywhere in college. Again, I become the reluctant mascot for Medsoc. Without my permission!!!!!!!!
What should I do ?
A) Charge Medsoc publicity fees - RM 50++
B) Kill Pang
C) Tear off those posters
D) Forget about it
Malay doctor looking for a suitable position in a primary care clinic. Highly experienced ex-government officer. Willing to do locum. Interested employers please contact mahathir@putrajaya.com.
Got this joke some days ago, I think it is from Pravin. Funny, eh? The Warung has gone past 10,000 hits, the tauke is happy.
I was just back from a medical ward round with Prof C.T. Tan when I read the article on StarTwo,Permission to examine.
Yeah, the concerns and ethical issues brought up is very real. It is a dilemma for the teachers and the students.
Of couse for those who joined medicine for the wrong purpose, they would fail to appreciate what the fuss is about.
There is a fine line between having good beside manners and being pretentiously nice. For me, I prefer anything else rather than hypocrisy and faking 'nice-ness'. Nevertheless, being courteous and making it our business to obtain consent before touching the patient is important.
To train new doctors, patients are the best textbooks. We are encouraged to see as many patients as possible. If patients see themselves as part of the processs of making good doctors to serve the society, then perhaps, they would be willingly to let students examine them. There are patients like this in the University Hospital(UMMC). They know it is a teaching hospital, and there will be students. And they are prepared to be examined by them.
One of them is a patient our group met today:-
"May I listen to your heart for a minute?"
"Hmm, my heart seems to be popular today.....yeah, go ahead and listen"
And we took turns to auscultate her chest. Madam Sybil is smiling to each of us as we thanked her after our turn. When we thanked her and said goodbye, she replied "You're welcome. All the best to you all!".
It is the students' responsibility not to abuse the trust given, not to ridicule the condition, and mock the whole teaching process. How to ensure this? Have a strict entrance requirement for medical students, and I do not mean the number of As.
It was Saturday night. No one seemed to be in a studying mood. After failing to draw blood from my great saphenous vein, it is time to do something else more meaningful.
And we went to the A&E, in our white coat, hoping to learn and observe some interesting cases.
Yeah, it was interesting indeed.
Also malu-fying. 3rd year now, but clinical experience is almost zero, and we are hardly of any use in the resus room. Pang and Choo Wei helped to add pressure to the drips, I refilled some water, Piow changed some bags.
Later, we followed the case all the way to the OT. We changed into greens, and we gave the surgeons and attendants a good laugh as we entered the OT wearing the 'shoe cap' as our head cap. One doctor was so nice to tell us quietly to change that, he could have been sarcastic and make us look like real fools.
Anyway, it was a really good experience, and a humbling experience. Also a cool way to spend a Saturday night.
*W.I.B is the personal blog of fooji. He works for the ministry of health seven days a week, skips his breakfast and looks forward to a good dinner at the end of the day.
w.I.b:warung ikan bakar:
