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What is happiness?
Is it the presence of joy or merely an absence of sorrow.
Lately i wonder what really makes me happy or unsatisfied about my life & job.
Heheh long hours.. sure! As long as it pay the bills, I'm ok with it.
But having thought hard about it, it's the opportunity of getting know your patient as a human being rather than merely a case. So in our mind... "Mr liver failure behind curtain no.4" is no more just another patient, but has become a face with a pesona who turns out to be a loving husband who always put extra-hours at pasar malam to support his family. Or a novelist who failed twice in her marriage knowing that she will die of cancer in 2-3 days time... alone, with no offsprings.
It's the privilege and humility of being granted the access to another people's life and even intimate part of their history. Every patient who walks in has a 'journey' that could be learned from.
Not all of us docs feel the same, their contention being getting too close will end up taxing you emotionally when patient dies. Detachment may be a good thing, some sort of defense mechanism to our fragile heart. An overdose of ill patients & death could numb the mind of even a veteran doc.
You guys have any personal encounter with docs?... ones that inspires us to become better people... or ones that leave us in anger
Initially I plan to watch Happy Feet this weekend. However ended up watching 2 local movies instead. Phew! A record. Well folks Ciplak & Cinta prove that Malaysia can still produce good quality movies.
CIPLAK
(PULP FICTION meets SNATCH) A low budget indie movie yet an impressive 1st outing for this malay dude! The strength mostly come from clever editing, story development and fine acting. Sure there is some 'ciplak' directorial style from his idol K.smith & Tarantino, but the result is something to be proud of. The nonchalant humour works well with this guy.
The only thing is.. sometimes it's quite difficult for me to understand his thick UK accent/slang. English subtitle will be helpful though haha!
Very promising talent. Hopefully he'll get some $$ return for a bigger production next time
CINTA
LOVE ACTUALY meets 'nasi lemak' (surprisingly much better!!)
It has all the elements of great story telling & love that trancend all walk of life which works well with our multi-facet society. The idea of love can exist in many forms i.e sacrifice, unconditional, siblings, is rarely potrayed in modern malay films. Kudos to the great effort! The cinematography cleverly captured both urban and rural feel of KL.
However putting 5 stories may have put a toll on some plots and its character development. The ones that have better premise for more story-development are the married couple & siblings. Dato' Rahim, Fasha, Rashidi (eg. telling his story to Nanu at building site), and Nanu have all put up convincing performance.
Rita and Eizlan have shown their hidden talents in this movie, albeit not consistently shown in some scenes (i.e. press conference). Love the flashback scenes... Sadly I feel Amani didn't show her natural acting strength - previously seen in SEPET & GUBRA. ...
Oh btw, that little girl can really act huh!
Phew! The A1 GP racing came and gone. I got lucky to be called again for the second time to join its medical cover team. Th experience can be summed up with 3 words - fun, hectic & wet.
The medical cover was organised by our own military medics, with the inclusion of some civilian docs.
It's always interesting to watch the way those army folks run the show. We got morning parades and briefing ala-ala "an officer & a gentleman" minus R.Gere of coz. I guess the take home message is teamwork begets success
We were devided into several key-teams, comprised of docs, paramedics/nurses. Each team had different role and were given unique call signs: e.g. zulu leader (team leader), papa lima (pit lane doctor), foxtrot sierra (flight surgeon) etc... this whole code-thing reminds me of J.A.G yeyeh!
The main role of each team will then be determined by the doc's (who lead them)specialities e.g. emergency physician, surgeon, anaesthetist, orthopods etc.
The Sepang medical center itself was turned (in just an overnight) into a 'mini-mi' hospital, we got everything from X-ray machine, observation ward to even an operating room! - Malaysia boleh kan! Even the mat-sallehs who co-supervise the whole action complemented our local effort as being among the best medical teams in the global GP arena. No play-play ah!
We had 3 days headstart purposely for only 1 thing = TRAINING. This includes from reporting accidents to evacuating drivers from their damaged cockpit. Most of the guys had been trained before in the previous race or tournaments i.e F1, Japan GT, so it was just a matter of getting back into shape & rhythm.
We also gotta learn and memorise the track well, esp. the dangerous turns & curves and the fastest & nearest route to the crash location and back to the medical center.
And oh boy! In Sepang circuit, when it rains it pours huhuh!
"Charlie 2 to Zulu leader, we've got a code red at turn 12, requesting Bravo unit assistance, do you copy? over".
PS: Did I hear somebody says F1 :)
Anaesthetist are bunch of docs who guard the ICU and OT (two places in hospital where tension can be quite nerve-wrecking). ICU patients are mostly unstable and usually connected to breathing machine. Which means they are not so verbal... and when they do complaint, it will be in form of 'dropping their blood pressure or heart rate'.
Perhaps that is why there is some form of global regulation that anaes usually gets a day off after being on-call for 24 hours. Whether that 'law' really exist or not, it is something that we do get and need after those semi-sleepless nights.
Question:
"Would you want an anaes who didn't get any sleep the night before, doing your surgical case; by choosing & calculating the correct drug types & doses to put you asleep on the operating table?"
Having said that, I pity our other colleagues from the other departments i.e paeds, surgical, orthopaedics etc. who don't get the post-oncall day off. This means they're working from 8am that day until 5pm the next day --> 33 hours straight.
So.. my most recent post-oncall day: I slept for good 6 hours.. pampered myself with 007 and a nice dinner at Piccolo Mondo! Now dat's my 'morning after' ;) Oh BTW, that blond chap... he is a perfect Bond (after Connery of course HAH).
The on-call morning is likened to receiving your raya's angpow. The feeling of "You never know what u gonna get". You may end up with only one patient to look after or the whole 'full 10 beds' situation.
The passing over session is always d fun & crucial bit. Where the doc who was on-call the night b4 will go through all the cases in ICU with the one who is taking over that day.
i.e: "Mr James Bond is a 40y old Malay man who's admitted 8 hours ago for a gun-shot wound to the left upper chest causing left tension haemopneumothorax. GCS on arrival was 6/15. Intubated in ED with ETT 7.5mm @ 20cm under midazolam 3mg and suxa 100mg IV. Chest tube was inserted uneventfully in ED. The bullet was surgically removed 1 hour ago in OR. Blood loss 300cc. Haemodyamics stable bla bla.."
When reviewing patients, usually we break down the problems into systems i.e ventilation, haemodynamics, infection.. etc etc. That helps us to focus on specific problems or anticipate any future complications. Then we would go through the OT list -- cases need to be operated on.
Hmm.. I should start asking myself in Dirty Harry's style, every on-call morning..."Ask yourself this. Do u feel lucky today ? Well do u punk??"
Once in a while Hollywood comes up with few good movies that linger with you long after you've seen them. Before Sunrise is one of those few that gives life-time impression on me... even more so i was 18 at that time (being innocent, romantic & more optimistic on life ahead).
Jesse, a young American on his way to Vienna to catch a flight back home, and Celine, a young French woman traveling back to Paris. They meet on a train and after brief conversation, he convinces her to get off the train with him at Vienna so they can spend more time together.
They exchange thoughts, perspectives on life, love and fear. Their limited time together (one night) is always on their minds, and leads to their revealing more about themselves than they normally would, since they will never see one another again.
The producers also came up with a sequel 10 years later. Before sunset is when they meet again in France. Both are older and wiser on life, re-examined their lives and the consequences of their past actions. How ironic it is for me to watch the sequal as i grow older myself. It's like meeting up with your 2 long lost friends.Official website:
http://wip.warnerbros.com/beforesunset/"Like everything else in life, should we give love a second
chance?"
Come October every year, a substantial number of Malaysian doctors would compete to get into the Masters program which enable them to become a specialist. Another 4 years of their life will be devoted to exams, lectures, on top of daily clinical works @ hospitals (hey that's ok!)
However, the fustrating bit is the shenanigans we all have to face in order to apply for it.
Imagine all these paperworks and what not:
* u have to get sah lantikan, then sah jawatan (for whatever those mean actually)
* at least 3 years of service
* decide on the kwsp/pension options
* pass the 3-week 'induction' course
* security clearance (some have to filled this twice, since the first one gone missing) - a conspiracy that N.korea agents might infiltrate as under cover docs?
* etc etc
And if you wanna have those papers processed within 1 - 2 month instead of 1 year, one gotta climb the putrajaya stairs around 5-6x, 50x phone calls which may sounds like "Maaf encik, belum siap" or my favourite "..nanti saya passkan awak ke pegawai lain".
I seriously pity those docs who lives outside selangor or worse still @ sabah/sarawak.
Huhu don't forget that this special October - we only have 3 weeks due to the double festive season.. yeayy!
The clock in the OT is ticking my friend!
Shoits - i'm on call again this weekend
Not all of us docs feel the same, their contention being getting too close will end up taxing you emotionally when patient dies. Detachment may be a good thing, some sort of defense mechanism to our fragile heart. An overdose of ill patients & death could numb the mind of even a veteran doc. 
