Wa tan beehoon

The other spot I frequent during my calls. The hospital canteen. Their good food (esp. Wa tan beehoon, tom yam mee) offsets their poor service. I hope the next 12 hours of my call will be as uneventful as the past 12 hours. Only 1 referral so far. A stab wound victim who alleged that he was attacked by several unknown men, for no apparent reason in the pasar ramadhan during the breaking of fast hour. Not even an apparent robbery. But then, everybody lies (according to House). 3 jagged stab wounds on his back, but luckily superficial when I probed the wounds one by one with a swab stick. X-rays ok. So I sent him home with some oral meds after T&S.

Oncall, my painful left toe, necropsy & Paris

It's 1.20am, I'm oncall and I can't sleep after seeing a stupid referral in casualty. Stupid because it's not a surgical case but I saw the patient anyway because I couldn't trust the referring doctor. Call me bias but I couldn't trust him because of his very thick middle-eastern accent and because he couldn't speak BM very well. Sorry. How to get a proper history from patients? Not feeling great these 2 days. A bit stressed out, I know because my left toe is painful again. The pain always come when I'm in stressful circumstances. It's not because of work, just all the decisions I have to make pertaining to my future. 2 days ago I had a shot of being an actual CSI/coroner when I assisted a visiting forensic specialist in a case. We went to the scene of the alleged crime and took pictures and reconstructed the possible chain of events before proceeding to the actual necropsy. Soooo fun! That was the highlight of my week I guess. Thank God my housemate will be back from Paris tonight. I really so envy her courage to just pack a few stuff and travel all the way to Paris from Sandakan without elaborate planning, all by herself, just for the fun of it. I should do that too next year. I've exhausted my leave for this year, saving my last for Christmas.

What every doctor should have

I'm oncall today. Quite a few admissions, none critically ill so far, touch wood. I pass my 'drought' period during my calls going online on my E71. Coolness. Whatever information is literally at my fingertips. Gone are the days of carrying not-so-very light pocketbooks, which are limited to the discipline of the book. With the internet, I have unlimited info. But I wish I can have Dr. Soo's Sarawak Book of Emergencies in my E71. That would complete me as a MO.

Nice day

Had an enjoyable day running errands. Sent my neglected car for servicing and wash, mini spring cleaning in the apartment and some self-pampering. :) Even had a bowl of my fav seafood soup at this famous local spot. Sorry forgot the actual food pictures because my meal was interrupted by a chinese uncle who was recently admitted for irreducible hernia. He was so excited to see me and was surprised I was there all by myself so he thought he sat with me and told me all about the eatery. He owns a shop next to it. He also paid for my lunch. I guess it was a good thing that this uncle sort of intruded my planned peaceful lunch because for the 1st time in many months that I'm in Sandakan, I thought the local people, particularly the chinese, were quite ok.

Bearer of bad news

Breaking bad news is probably one of the worst part of the job. Yesterday the team had to tell a 40-year-old man that he had colon cancer that had invaded his bladder. Unfortunately he was eating when we got around to his bed. I saw his face turned a shade paler and he was weakly pushing his food around his container after everything was said. After that just one cubicle away, I had to tell the family of an illegal immigrant who presented with severe head injury with craniectomy done, but post-surgery he was slipping away, so the team decided that we couldn't do any much more for him. So basically I had to tell the family that we had given up on him. So no escalation of medicines, no inotropes and, no resuscitation. So we are hoping he dies soon, so his suffering would end soon, so that his relatives' anguish would be over too, so that no infection starts in the ward from him, so that we could prepare his bed for the next patient.

My day is bright and sunny eventhough grey clouds loom over the main area of the hospital, a sinister sign of yet another day of impending lighting and thunder and brief downpour this evening. Didn't wake up feeling extremely chirpy because of my rather busy call. A little tired. So wasn't a great start to the morning. No. But my day is bright and sunny with fluffy cotton candy clouds because I'm so happy that Federer was victorious early this morning! I can't stop smiling and beaming. :)

Oncall & toiletry bag, but my heart is at Flushing Meadows

My oncall equipment since my internship. :) Especially my trusty ol toiletry bag. We go way back to my 4th year in medical school. It has since been everywhere with me. I got a new one couple of months back so briefly I left the old one in Kuching, but after 3 months apart, I knew we were meant together. So now the new bag is stuffed away in the closet in my house in Kuching, and my dear ol friend with me everyday, never again to be parted again from me. I promise. A colleague is sick so I'm oncall today. So will be missing the US Open men's singles final between Federer and brit Andy Murray who looks super sharp on court. But I'm Federer's most loyal fan. No question about that. ;)

Weekend & Decisions

Spent my weekend hydrating myself, arranging my wardrobe, doing laundry, ironing, facial and hair treatment. It was bliss. It's strange that I'm always coming upon crossroads in my career every few months. After 2 months in Surgery, I've finally received my transfer to the Casualty Department, but my Surgeon asked me to stay another month to help out, so I'll only cross over in October. Initially I regretted that I agreed to stay after 2secs of saying "ok" but now I don't know if I really want to leave because I've become very comfortable. And now I realize that with the new year looming in, I remember my plan early this year to start applying for my attachment in forensic in KL. My target is actually a transfer by the 2nd quarter of 2009, so by right I have to start applying before end of this year. So it's a non-stop process of moving on, trying new things, avoiding to be complacent. Decisions, decisions.

Chaos

Chaos is the order of the day. An intestinal obstruction, a head injury with intracranial bleed, few abscesses, an irreducible hernia and a couple appencitis. I'm so glad I'm 1st line. It's fun making diagnoses and making plans. But standing in the OT for hours and hours, I can't imagine. Of all the disciplines in Medicine, surgeons have the worst life. The appealing thing for me about surgery is the decisiveness of the plan of management. Tumour=chop, bleeder=tie or burn, obstruction=relieve, pus=drain. Do or die. Life should be that simple.

Anger management

The carnival has been in town for about a week, but after just one weekend, this is the atmosphere at opening time yesterday. People in Sandakan are not cool enough for a carnival. Though I enjoy my work here, I'm very sure I'll not miss Sandakan when I have to relocate again. It's a shabby and neglected town and her people equally shabby. Ever since I got back from my Induksi, I've promised myself to learn to manage my anger and impatience more especially in my work, and some of the tips I got from the internet regarding self-anger management has been surprisingly very simple and useful.

Babies are rather durable

My first. A baby with an indented skull. His mum tripped while carrying him and squashed him on a concrete floor. Thank God for a child's malleable skull. Child is fine, except for the ashtray on his head.

Mobile blogging

This is cool. I can now blog on the go. The picture is of the bed in the surgical MO oncall room in the hospital, my 2nd home. :)