6 weeks appointment

Usually appointment is given 6/52 (6 weeks) after radiotherapy for doctor to review. I suppose this is a special case where patient is required to return after 6 weeks to review the doctor.

now hospital also got ah long

(This notice was found in a hospital compound somewhere in East Malaysia)

practise what you preach

My friend, a physician, was counselling a patient with chronic alcoholic liver disease to stop drinking alcohol during one of her weekend rounds. At the end of the counselling, while my friend was walking away from the patient's bed, she realised that she was wearing a t-shirt similar to that in the photo above...

Leftie for a day

Since young, I've always like to look at people who are left-handed. They are unique & mysterious & tend to be very artistic. Secretly I wished that I was left-handed. My wish came true on Monday when I injured my right wrist while driving back from a friend's house after dinner the previous night.

It felt like something "snapped" suddenly, only that I didn't actually hear any "snapping" sound. There was sharp shooting pain at the wrist, radiating to the elbow & fingers. I manage to drive home that night & to work the next day, using mainly my left hand as any pressure to the right side brought back the sharp shooting pain.

At work, I had problem writing prescriptions & on patients' case notes. Therefore I had to resort to using my left hand, even when examining patients. It sure felt weird & awkward to examine patients using left hand, including a per rectal examination!





The pain subsided the next day without any pain killers or anti-inflammatories. But there is still a dull ache on & off....perhaps it is time for another role reversal. Let's see....which Orthopedic colleague should I bug?

a great achievement

Got this on facebook (from Dr. LJ of SGH)

Had a patient with difficulty passing motion because of immobilisation due to back pain. So we started him on pain relief, lactulose and bisacodyl. Some days later, patient got better and it was obviously reflected in the House Officer's entry:

"Yay! Patient can finally BO."



*BO= bowel open

HOW TO SULK

Sulking is emotional strike action. You still function as a human being but you work to rule. You must never agree to anything, you must only ever acquiesce to things. When someone asks if they should put the kettle on, the correct answer is, "If that's what you want do to." That's because the underlying message for all sulking is that deep hurt is being felt because the other person is utterly selfish.

The big dilemma with sulking is whether you should slope off to another room and do it. Remember that out of sight is out of mind, and they might forget that you're in a mountainous sulk. The best solution is to stay in the same room but pretend other people are not there.

Eye contact is a big no-no for sulkers for two reasons: firstly, no eye contact is the clearest possible sign that a major sulk is under way; secondly, if someone were to do anything funny or loving and you were to see it, you might inadvertently smile and the sulk would be irreparably damaged. It's a cast-iron rule that once you've unsulked you can't then resulk. It's like frozen food - once you've defrosted you can't then refrost.

Sulks can last anywhere between seven minutes and seven years. Teenagers are in an almost perpetual sulk because they are in a continual state of being misunderstood. When people are in a sulk they discover how much harder everyone else has to work to humour them. Some people enjoy this so much that they decide to become permanently grumpy.

The sulk, like the trifle, is a peculiarly British thing. That's because it's the form of emotional expression for people who don't know how to express themselves. The sulk says, "I can't express myself, so I'm not going to express anything and you'll just have to guess what I would have expressed had I been able to express what I wanted to express."

The sulkee then has to decide their response to the sulker. Ignoring the sulk is like ignoring the laundry basket - it'll keep building up until it gets very unpleasant indeed. What's generally required to end a sulk is a mixture of complete attention, physical reassurance, brief subjection to verbal sarcasm, and then major admission of guilt and selfishness.

As the air clears it's absolutely vital not to say, "That was a big sulk, wasn't it?" This is the quickest possible way of launching the world's largest, longest and deepest sulk.

(Adapted from The Guardian, Saturday 16 March 2002)

Doktor Adik

While most Chinese aunties think I'm in my 20's, one particular patient (a 16 year old boy) at my old hospital actually thought I was younger than him! I grew up watching the series Doogie Howser MD but I didn't think my young patient is old enough to have watched that show.

I knew something was amiss when during ward rounds he kept addressing himself as "abang" and called me "adik", but because I was his doctor, I became "Doktor Adik".

He was finishing chemo when I left the hospital & I never got to tell him that doktor adik is actually doktor kakak. But I guess some truths are better left unknown :)