KUCHING HOPELESS - ONCALL TERUK

If you have read the post “Mad mad dogs working in a mad mad world”, you would get some idea about how bad it is for a doctor to be oncall in a Government hospital. It is not uncommon for us to work 36 hours a day without sleep. Before each oncall, we have to prepare ourselves mentally & physically. On top of being doctors, we also have to be iron ladies, bionic women & superheroes. Some of us are “hot” & some are “cool”. “Hot” here doesn’t mean “sexy” or “a major babe”, but the ability of a doctor (when he or she is oncall) to attract patients to the hospital or ward, like ants to sugar & bees to honey. I can be considered rather “hot”. My record as a House Officer had been 36 hours without sleep or shower (felt like a zombie, a salted fish & even a dead man walking). I had taken my lunch at 6 in the evening & my latest dinner was at 10 o’clock the next day. My good friend, LJ, is another “hot” one at the hospital, since housemanship till now. The ward is always full when she is on duty. During our last call as House Officers in the Surgical Department, she was stucked in the Operating Theatre (OT) the whole night till the next morning, assisting our Paediatric Surgeon with a complicated case (a premature baby with Tetralogy of Fallot defect if not mistaken). At the end of the surgery, LJ actually fell asleep inside the OT. If your being too “hot”, the nurses would tell you to “mandi bunga” first before coming to work (like Ramona Rahman in the movie ‘Fenomena’)- with the more types of flowers the better, to get rid of “sial”. You should also comply to certain “pantang” during oncall, like not wearing bright red or black. Red would cause you to be “hotter” & black, as we all know, is a sign of mourning. “Cooler” colours like light blue or green are recommended.