I'm very happy this week because I'm in my new rotation. I'll be manning the children's clinic for the next 3 months, which is so much more fun and fulfilling than running the diabetes and hypertension clinic. I've definitely learnt quite a bit there in the hypertension clinic particularly about the drugs used, but in the children's clinic, I get to put some clinical skills into practice, and I just love the process or the motion of coming up with a diagnosis from a symptom or two. And of course the kids are pretty cute. This afternoon I was asked to attend a flogging at the local prison here as the doctor on site (duh) to make sure the prisoners were fit for the punishment. It was a new experience for me, both going into a prison and also the flogging, and surprisingly, after 9 prisoners were flogged in succession, uneventfully, and after the brief excitement from the new experience had died down, I was just surprised at how I had no opinion at all about the flogging punishment. Except for excruciating ouch.

It's amazing how much I can get done during the drought period of locum, usually mid-afternoon and dinner time. In the past 2hrs without patients, I've completed a few very complicated claim forms and sorted out all the resits and optimized all my claims priviledges, some personal info forms for my personnel file ordered by the dept. and some more forms to renew my practising licence, and now writing a little something for my blog. :) And after this, or after the next batch of patients, I'll be starting on my PowerPoint presentation for my talk next week to some 30 nurses from all the MCHs in Sandakan regarding Port-partum haemorrhage. It's a subject that is dear to my heart after my very, very traumatic (and often bloody) 4-month stint in obs&gynae. THE PROBLEM is, I have to give the talk in MALAY! And it's not just 1 hour talk. I have to take several topics, the worst is probably talking on the physiology of 3rd stage of labour, IN MALAY LANGUAGE. I can so imagine how hilarious I would sound. :(

I was told by my boss and colleagues working already for quite some time here in Sandakan that people here (particulalrly the Chinese) love to write to the press or create a hoo-haa through the local political parties if they were unhappy about something or they just want things their way. One man this morning who came into my clinic was so quick to say to my nurse, "So apa macam? Mana file saya? Sudah 3 bulan belum jumpa dokter. Saya tulis pada surat khabar la, baru tau. Apa macam ini file saya tidak ada." The truth was, the clinic doesn't hold on to any patient's file, but the man kept on insisting that that was the case. He apparently lost it and after defaulting for several months now wants to see a doctor without any file or any documentation of his condition and the medications he was on. He stormed out of the clinic after that when he was told that despite not having an appointment or any case file he could see the doctor today but he had to take a number. He just stormed out. All I thought of the whole incident was whether it was good thing for him or for me that both of us didn't cross path this morning.

My favourite place in my apartment is my sitting hall where I have my meals, watch tv and go online, which makes the bulk of my time. My 2nd favourite place in my apartment would be my bedroom, which has a giant kickass bed and a very old-fashion washroom, a modern-looking aircond and an old noisy standing fan which I prefer over the aircond because my bedroom for some reason is the coolest place in the whole apartment. It's always 2-3degs cooler than the rest of the apartment, independent of the weather. So cool. My 3rd favourite place in my apartment would be the tiny kitchen which has about everything but I only use the electric kettle, the stove, electric slow cooker and fridge to prepare my brown rice porridge, vermicelli, omelette with cheese, instant oats and purple spinach soup with ikan bilis. Yummy.