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.

Post-KK Day1 at work is hard. :) After such an excellent weekend of merry-making and great food, I have sort of a hang-over at work this morning. I literally fell on my bed after a quick shower last night when I arrived back in Sandakan around 9pm. I even forgot to set my alarm but luckily my internal alarm was functioning this morning. I woke up exactly at 6.30am. I'm feeling so bloated after the weekend that now I'm planning to skip dinner from now on if possible. After all I have lunch almost 2.30pm everyday.

Wow the session today was pretty heavy. Imagine slides and slides of ECGs but it was quite an experience straining my eyes and forcing myself to figure out what each ECG tracing meant with 150 other doctors and paramedics.

I'm in KK! I didn't miss KK a bit but it's nice to sink my teeth into my fav McD double-cheese burger! :) Yeah... Sandakan doesn't have McD. Good thing too la... can cut down of grease. My 3G broadband is up and going so I can practically go online anyway where there's 3G, so cool. Tomorrow is the ECG workshop and I just got good news... will be meeting up with my 2 old housemates there! They are also attending. Apparently there is going to be quite a crowd. A team from IJN will be conducting the workshop.

I love Oprah. I was watching a segment on women and their finances and it got me thinking about my own money. So I decided that I should do everything I can to maximize my income. So I started doing locum. Last long weekend alone I earned quite a bit in 4 days just doing consultation work. It's really easy money. I really thank my parents for my education. I know many people earning lesser than what I made that 4 days, in a month.

I'll be making a short trip to KK this weekend for a course, my first as a MO. It's on arrhythmia and ECG, which are excellent topics, but honestly I'm more excited to eat and shop in KK. :)

A typical day in my working life here in Sandakan would be seeing between 60-80 patients in the diabetes and hypertension clinic where I'm currently posted to now in the outpatient department.

Some days are good:

1. compliant patients

Some days are bad:

1. patients with weird, diseaseless symptoms
2. those who adjusts their own medications and come back for review with rocket high blood pressure and unrecordable sugar reading (meaning ridiculously high)
3. patients from [2] who get some scolding and do the same thing again the next time around
4. non-compliant patients
5. those who tell you (doctors) what medications they need, the dosage, what their blood test results mean and when they should come back for their reviews
6. patients who complain about that one episode of headache that lasted about 5mins 5months ago and expect you to tell them what disease they had
7. patients who treat doctors like God and leave everything about their health into our hands and do not take any accountability
8. those who insist that Ranitidine is a medication for gout!!! just, just because their "best friend" told them so
9. patients who can't speak English/Malay/Mandarin and call themselves Malaysians
10. patients who suddenly after 3years on a certain anti-hypertensive tell you that the medication causes gidiness and "lemas" but never told the previous doctors who reviewed them the last 3 years just, just because they couldn't speak English/Malay/Mandarin and keep the medication in their medication museum at home

And it goes on for this list.

The point for my entry today: it's easy to make me happy.

I'm having a great life at the moment. My move to a new town and starting my new post and moving into a new place, meeting new people. All have been good.

But all these couldn't stop my heart from aching and tears streaming down my face every time I think of Stryker.

My dear 18-year-old mongrel Stryker, the most "durable" dog in the world, succumbed to intestinal obstruction early this week.

Stryker in my life taught me one very valuable lesson: when you hope and pray for something hard enough, you'll get it, for sure. Both times I collapsed on my knees and prayed for something very hard (both times for Stryker), they miraculously came through.

Sorry Stryker I didn't know you were sick, I would have prayed harder than usual.

Hope you enjoy heaven!

My week-long break of solitude and self-pampering was a most delightful experience! It was a time of consolidating all that had happened for the past 18months since I arrived in KK. All the great moments reminisced with fondness and the not so great ones, scoffed off with a little laugh and lots of serenity.

The packing process for my great exodus to Sandakan next week was a back-breaking task. I just realized that I'm such a rubbish collector, a trait most unsuitable for an aspiring nomad/traveler.

My birthday middle of this week was better accepted than my last because I felt younger than the last one, a sign of a smooth transition of an ongoing acceptance of the aging process. And what really made my day was what the girl at the ticket counter of the cinema asked me.

"Ticket for one?" she asked, looking at me and for anyone else beside or behind me that may look like he or she was with me.

"Yup, one." I smiled at her graciously, rather used to the ticket-for-one question.

She punched in the request and asked where I would like to sit. Then...

"Your student pass?"

MY STUDENT PASS? I suddenly became acutely aware of myself. What was I wearing? My shoes? My bag?

I was wearing a simple black top with a brown floral skirt and a pair of sandals and carrying my Jacques Lacquer handbag, and my new pair of shades on my head.

Not very student baby-T and jeans and some Nike sling bag.

So, so, I must certainly still look young to her! Muahhaahhaha!

Yes, another of my bimbo moments, but I was deliriously happy. And continued to be happy throughout the very bloody Todd Sweeny: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

I found this miracle in Yogur Berry that would help with the sugar issue in my obsession with ice-cream! I'm weaning off Veda Bleu's hazel nut cream ice-cream...

Today I officially finish internship. Very happy that I'm getting a chance to mantain my manicured nails now that I don't have to be doing all the ward procedures. Very happy now that I can dress up more to work. I had one of those bimbo moments when I clocked out after my last ever ward round as an intern.

What have I learnt over the last 18months?

Nothing new, surprise, surprise! I learnt that life's too short! That I must seize the moment, every single time. That happiness IS just afterall, a habit. Nothing else.

My Crocs maryjanes are very comfy. But am not wearing it to work this month because I'm doing my ortho rotation meaning going into the operation theater meaning I have to leave my shoes outside the OT meaning there's a not so irrational fear of them getting stolen.

Not enjoying this rotation because of very little personal interest mainly, and because this department has the highest concentration of idiots unreasonable people with questionable medical knowledge. But I'm not sweating myself because I'm only doing this rotation for 4weeks. Thank God. :) But I wish at least my month would be spent acquiring some skills.

This rotation is my last before my transfer to Sandakan reporting 1FEB. I have mixed feelings, but more excitement now that I'm sure when I'm heading with the latest list out and that I've sort of settled my transfer of my things and car. What's left to worry now is my accomodation. I'm looking for an apartment or a small house to rent.

I have an idea of what my life's going to be when I get there. A colleague who's already there 2 months said that workload is bad Mon-Fri but weekends off! Coolness! That means diving, diving, diving for me! He said a typical day means 8-5, lots of patients either maternal child health or general outpatient or traveling to the small district health clinics (which all the medical officers rotate among themselves every 2months).

So that sounds pretty ok to me. I have conditioned myself not to think that I'm more suitable for hospital-based work. I need to have a new experience.

No new year resolutions. Just realization that all I need is serenity.

Will be relocating to Sandakan soon to start a new chapter of my life.

Christmas & New Year were a blast! Hope you had a great time too!

Now, wishing you all a happy going back to your life and routine!

new email add. yahoo mail sucks.

happy new year! pls note my new email add. thanks. don't bother sending mail to my yahoo mail.

 

sharon chin.

My leave just got approved this Wed! So, SO happy! That means I'll be home from 22DEC to 2JAN2008! Not only I get to be home for Christmas, I get to attend Chang's wedding! Chang's an old friend from school, joining the mass of my generation from my hometown tying the knot.

In my work place, last month alone, 4 couples got married. Another couple this month and another early 2008. Wow, is the 26 or 27 the magic number or something?

And my dearest friend Jo is already expecting her 1st child, due I think May.

And what have I been doing?

1. Work, work, work and having successive bad calls
2. Changed my hair colour again (now I'm not Sharon with red hair). I'm now spotting a chestnut brown do
3. Started watching Grey's Anatomy (I know, I know, I'm soooo ketinggalan... and I don't find Dr. McDreamy THAT good-looking)
4. Manicure, pedicure, facial and foot reflexology (I'm over-pampering myself!)
5. Appealing to work in the Casualty Dept. (long story... to make it short, it's a plan, finally, on what I'm going to do after my internship)
6. Bought a new camera, laptop and car (my dear old Wira is safely back in Kuching)
7. Passed my medical intern assessment!
8. Almost had a crush on my specialist (luckily I found out he was married on time)
9. Planning a trip to Miri to visit my godparents in 2 weeks time

My sis has put up her Christmas wish list. Here's mine:

1. Acrylic nails!
2. Eyelash extensions!
3. An eggplant flower motive tattoo! A row of them along my thoracolumbar spine! (It's an idea...)
4. The perfect pair of working shoes (I've tried them all, Hush Puppies, Clarks, Scholl, etc. but nothing can compare to my Grenada beach slippers! Yes, hush... I've been wearing slippers to work, not just any slippers, my Grenada beach slippers.) I need a pair of proper working shoes!
5. A new pair of glassess
6. The whole collection of House. I love Hugh Laurie!

I'm a simple girl.

SINCE I CAN'T POST ON YOUR BLOG, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVI!

STAY YOUR SUPER WITTY AND GORGEOUS SELF!

I found authentic Kuching laksa here in KK! It's in Taman Cantek, just a stone's throw from my apartment complex. I'm always having my noodles in a kopitiam in the same row but never ventured further, or I would have saved my mum the trouble of tapau-ing laksa all the way from Kuching when she came to visit me the last few trips.

I'm now doing my internal medicine rotation and it's kickass exciting! Especially the acute patients! Not cool for the patients, I know but it's keeping me going, you know the adrenaline rush! I'm still waiting for the opportunity to defibrilate somebody! *rubbing my palms together and spotting an evil grin*

And there's always a sense of achievement at the finishing line of each day, irregardless whether I come in 1st, 2nd or last. :)

My new pearl jade Viva! I love!

Hosted on Fotki

Mum made this collage of my sis and I a while back. It's so cute! I'm on the fast track at the moment. Very happy in my current department. And extremely happy with my current team of colleagues. We are a super team of house officers! :) I have so much to to look forward to this week. Getting myself a new pearl jade Viva! Trying out for the Sabah health dept. tennis team tomorrow. Trying out my 1st locum. Will start swimming again after a hiatus to let my new tattoo heal... I didn't mention that I got a new tattoo when I was back in Kuching in September?