Took a break this afternoon and visited Tuaran with Wilhma, a district town some 40mins from KK. Was there a couple of years back during my very first trip to Sabah. We dropped by the Tuaran Crocodile Farm on the way back. Fed some ostriches in the farm. More pics later. Have to sleep early. I'm oncall again tomorrow. Stupid NICU call again. Argh.
Good news is: I'M GOING BACK TO KUCHING THIS SATURDAY! FOR 1 WHOLE WEEK!
Sunday, 25 February 2007
A break
Sunday, 18 February 2007
Happy Piggy Year!
Was oncall CNY eve, so today post-call. A little too tired to write. So here are some nice shots I took over the week.
Happy New Year! Piggies are cute. :)
CNY fair at Gaya Street... can get all sort of CNY goodies here.
Gorgeous lanterns!
Visited Wilhma (2nd from left) for CNY...
The night market...
A view of Queen (short, affectionate name we give the hospital) from my car... miss her so much!
I live in Penampang.
A dashing-looking cat at Lintas.
Happy New Year! Piggies are cute. :)
CNY fair at Gaya Street... can get all sort of CNY goodies here.
Gorgeous lanterns!
Visited Wilhma (2nd from left) for CNY...
The night market...
A view of Queen (short, affectionate name we give the hospital) from my car... miss her so much!
I live in Penampang.
A dashing-looking cat at Lintas.
Sunday, 11 February 2007
Paitan
I made the best decision in months by volunteering to go for a relief mission in Paitan, some 6hours journey from KK last Friday.
Not only I got the change of environment that I strived for initially, but I also felt so alive after months of what I would describe as aimlessness and mundanity after I started working.
There's more to life than waking up early and just working brainlessly. Yeah, there's more to life than being a houseman.
Enjoy the pictures and wish me luck. I'm oncall in Neonatal ICU tomorrow. So freaking scared. All those reptilian-like babies.
Not only I got the change of environment that I strived for initially, but I also felt so alive after months of what I would describe as aimlessness and mundanity after I started working.
There's more to life than waking up early and just working brainlessly. Yeah, there's more to life than being a houseman.
Enjoy the pictures and wish me luck. I'm oncall in Neonatal ICU tomorrow. So freaking scared. All those reptilian-like babies.
Sunday, 4 February 2007
The Time Capsule
I have a persistent headache (the sound of babies crying nagging inside my head).
Didn't exactly have a bad call, but you know it's bad also when you get to "sleep" but get woken up periodically throughout the night. The end result is fatigue the next day.
Last night I was awoken several times to attend to several leukaemic children who had spiking fevers.
I could only offer them paracetamol and several minutes of my time of a fairly thorough physical, and maybe a septic work-up, if really indicated. All that more for the extremely worried parents than for the children. And also some reassurance.
The recovery ward/oncology ward in the daytime is like a happy playground from hell. Children wearing masks running around with balloons and dangerous-looking toys, screaming and chasing each other along the cold-looking hospital corridor.
They would be running into me and their remote controlled cars getting into my way.
Though it's the most lepak call in paeds, it's been quite stressful for me. Hence, the headache.
One child was screaming so loud that I was awoken from my sleep around 2am in the HO oncall room at the end of the ward. I got up and started looking for the child. I tracked the crying right up to the other end of the corridor in the procedure room.
The nurses were trying to set a new IV line for the child because her old one got bunked. And she was crying hysterically. I'm sure the whole ward got woken up.
Anyways, I'm getting the hang of paeds. I'll be still in general paeds until the end of this week then I'll be in neonatal ward I think. I'll be oncall there this coming Saturday. Need to tag someone there again before my call. Have to go through the arterial line thingy and on how to set up TPN.
---
I'm missing surgery less and less now, so that feeling of heaviness is also bothering me less. I'm also missing Mr. V less. 1 month of cold turkey is cruel but thankfully effective.
---
I'm online now to do a little research for my "Time Capsule" presentation on Near-death experience. Sounds interesting doesn't it? It's something my paeds head of department likes to do... he would be scribbling some stuff on a piece of paper during meetings or CMEs and then at the end of the gathering, he would assign some random subjects to HOs to read-up on and make a 10mins presentation the following week.
One of my colleagues got "Turtles of Sabah"! It was hilarious when he was assigned that topic because I knew he was not the kind into animals and the environment. He was a smoking, thrash-talking, kick the damn cat/dog kind of person. So I can't wait for him to talk about the beautiful and endangered turtle species of Sabah.
If he had his ways, he would be going, "Kill all the fucking tutles!"
:D Padan muka.
Another colleague is supposed to talk on abdominal pregnancy, another on handphone technology and another on van Gogh. Interesting...
I'm not sure he's doing this to check on us new HOs (because I was told that he's into public speaking) or he's into this general knowledge for doctors thingy.
Either way, I like it. :) Reminds me of Mr. V when he was asking us whether the Starling in Frank-Starling Law of the Heart and the Starling in Starling forces of haemodynamics were the same person.
They were. I did a little research on this guy and all his works, but what struck me most was that he was not well-liked during his time because he was loud and openly opposed to the then practiced empiricality. He fought for evidence-based medicine.
---
Good night!
Didn't exactly have a bad call, but you know it's bad also when you get to "sleep" but get woken up periodically throughout the night. The end result is fatigue the next day.
Last night I was awoken several times to attend to several leukaemic children who had spiking fevers.
I could only offer them paracetamol and several minutes of my time of a fairly thorough physical, and maybe a septic work-up, if really indicated. All that more for the extremely worried parents than for the children. And also some reassurance.
The recovery ward/oncology ward in the daytime is like a happy playground from hell. Children wearing masks running around with balloons and dangerous-looking toys, screaming and chasing each other along the cold-looking hospital corridor.
They would be running into me and their remote controlled cars getting into my way.
Though it's the most lepak call in paeds, it's been quite stressful for me. Hence, the headache.
One child was screaming so loud that I was awoken from my sleep around 2am in the HO oncall room at the end of the ward. I got up and started looking for the child. I tracked the crying right up to the other end of the corridor in the procedure room.
The nurses were trying to set a new IV line for the child because her old one got bunked. And she was crying hysterically. I'm sure the whole ward got woken up.
Anyways, I'm getting the hang of paeds. I'll be still in general paeds until the end of this week then I'll be in neonatal ward I think. I'll be oncall there this coming Saturday. Need to tag someone there again before my call. Have to go through the arterial line thingy and on how to set up TPN.
---
I'm missing surgery less and less now, so that feeling of heaviness is also bothering me less. I'm also missing Mr. V less. 1 month of cold turkey is cruel but thankfully effective.
---
I'm online now to do a little research for my "Time Capsule" presentation on Near-death experience. Sounds interesting doesn't it? It's something my paeds head of department likes to do... he would be scribbling some stuff on a piece of paper during meetings or CMEs and then at the end of the gathering, he would assign some random subjects to HOs to read-up on and make a 10mins presentation the following week.
One of my colleagues got "Turtles of Sabah"! It was hilarious when he was assigned that topic because I knew he was not the kind into animals and the environment. He was a smoking, thrash-talking, kick the damn cat/dog kind of person. So I can't wait for him to talk about the beautiful and endangered turtle species of Sabah.
If he had his ways, he would be going, "Kill all the fucking tutles!"
:D Padan muka.
Another colleague is supposed to talk on abdominal pregnancy, another on handphone technology and another on van Gogh. Interesting...
I'm not sure he's doing this to check on us new HOs (because I was told that he's into public speaking) or he's into this general knowledge for doctors thingy.
Either way, I like it. :) Reminds me of Mr. V when he was asking us whether the Starling in Frank-Starling Law of the Heart and the Starling in Starling forces of haemodynamics were the same person.
They were. I did a little research on this guy and all his works, but what struck me most was that he was not well-liked during his time because he was loud and openly opposed to the then practiced empiricality. He fought for evidence-based medicine.
---
Good night!
Friday, 2 February 2007
Virgin call
So far so good my savings plan except for the occasional binging sessions I have with my girlfriends. Food in KK not cheap ok. I just had a RM50 Japanese dinner, which could have been petrol money for at least 5 days.
But when it comes to food, I don't skimp. :) Food too important.
So far it's been a roller-coaster ride in paeds. I'm in the acute cubicle, so it's really crazy. And the fact that I'm new, it's extra stressful. Scoldings from my MOs and Specialist. It's not really scolding scolding. It's nagging scolding with a pinch of sarcasm and a teaspoon of irritation. It's less nurturing in this department, but the workload is bearable.
At the begining of the week I was feeling a little more motivated after getting the hang of blood-taking and managing some of the common acute cases.
Then yesterday a neonate 30+ days of life came to the ward in respiratory distress. Born to an illegal immigrant mother with no antenatal check-up. Delivered at home, no Vit. K given. Non-immunized. While resuscitating, blood oozed out from her endotracheal tube.
Haemorrhagic disease of the newborn.
Bedside ultrasound showed intraparenchymal bleed in the brain.
I don't recall exactly how long we resuscitated, but the baby died.
Though it was heartbreaking to see the child died quite horribly with her bruised chest wall (from resuscitation) and blood oozing from her nose, as I drew 10ml of blood from her heart for culture, I was quite excited to have experienced my first neonatal resuscitation in real time.
That excitement didn't translate well to my mum though when I called her to tell her the events of my day, after more than a week of not calling home.
"It's quite exciting today mum. A baby died and I got to do resuscitation on her!"
A moment of unusual silence.
"That's disturbing. " my mum finally replied.
Damn. I didn't mean that way la. It's just that I usually like to focus on the positive side of things, because in my field, we see bad things or heroic things, on a daily basis. We need to know how to balance things up.
I'll be having my virgin call in paeds tomorrow. 4th call. The most lepak call. Happy. And Saturday calls are better than Sunday calls.
It's only 9pm, but my eyes are losing thier focusing power, and I'm yawning 4-5 times/min. I need sleep.
But when it comes to food, I don't skimp. :) Food too important.
So far it's been a roller-coaster ride in paeds. I'm in the acute cubicle, so it's really crazy. And the fact that I'm new, it's extra stressful. Scoldings from my MOs and Specialist. It's not really scolding scolding. It's nagging scolding with a pinch of sarcasm and a teaspoon of irritation. It's less nurturing in this department, but the workload is bearable.
At the begining of the week I was feeling a little more motivated after getting the hang of blood-taking and managing some of the common acute cases.
Then yesterday a neonate 30+ days of life came to the ward in respiratory distress. Born to an illegal immigrant mother with no antenatal check-up. Delivered at home, no Vit. K given. Non-immunized. While resuscitating, blood oozed out from her endotracheal tube.
Haemorrhagic disease of the newborn.
Bedside ultrasound showed intraparenchymal bleed in the brain.
I don't recall exactly how long we resuscitated, but the baby died.
Though it was heartbreaking to see the child died quite horribly with her bruised chest wall (from resuscitation) and blood oozing from her nose, as I drew 10ml of blood from her heart for culture, I was quite excited to have experienced my first neonatal resuscitation in real time.
That excitement didn't translate well to my mum though when I called her to tell her the events of my day, after more than a week of not calling home.
"It's quite exciting today mum. A baby died and I got to do resuscitation on her!"
A moment of unusual silence.
"That's disturbing. " my mum finally replied.
Damn. I didn't mean that way la. It's just that I usually like to focus on the positive side of things, because in my field, we see bad things or heroic things, on a daily basis. We need to know how to balance things up.
I'll be having my virgin call in paeds tomorrow. 4th call. The most lepak call. Happy. And Saturday calls are better than Sunday calls.
It's only 9pm, but my eyes are losing thier focusing power, and I'm yawning 4-5 times/min. I need sleep.
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