Inspiration..

Someone brightened up my day...Again..without fail..

Being a doctor, our duty is to save life. No doubt about it. But what is the difference between a good doctor and a normal doctor? Today I learnt the different. Good doctor can inspire you the way that normal doctor do not.

Moving up the food chain in hospital from med student to intern, to resident, to registrar then lastly to consultant, one will learn more and more each steps. And with this one will earn more and more respect as well. But sometimes I wonder are we respecting them because they are good doctor or just because they are skilled doctor?

I categorised the doctors that I encountered in this Gen Med rotation into 3 group.

1) Doctors that are skilled themselves but in term of passing down their knowledge they are just not the best people to do it. So you will ended up feeling quite lost after their session. Luckily they aren't lot of them.

2) Doctors that can teach but make you feel damn stressed because after their teaching you will feel that you know nothing. This produce 2 outcome, either you buck up and study or you just give up.

3) Doctors that are good in teaching and good in prompting you to think. You will walk out their tutorial with great satisfaction. You will feel that you know your stuffs but there are plenty of room for improvement and so you are motivated to do more studies.

I am very lucky to have the 3rd category doctor as my clinical tutor. Being a gastroenterologist obviously he knows his stuffs just like any other consultants do. What made him so special to me is that he can pass on his knowledge to us without making us feel that we don't know our stuffs. He has his way to lead us to think and apply our knowledge. In such, we won't feel that we know nothing but we just don't know enough. Then he will teach and reinforce our knowledge.Because of this I always felt I learnt a lot after his tutorial.

With him around the whole learning experience become so rewarding. Learning in a stress-free environment indeed is better than learning in a daunting condition. He never put up the 'consultant' air and allowed the tutorial to go in a friendly way. I don't feel scare to speak up my mind, don't feel shy to say I don't know something, don't feel embarrass even if i did something wrong in front of the whole group. A really conducive condition to learn. I learnt to speak up more, speak up what's in my mind even though I may not be 100% sure. I found it useful to let him know what's in my mind because sometime what I think is correct actually is not. Sometime something that I had been doing and thinking all these while was wrong but I never know it until I spoke to him and he corrected me.

He has this charisma that can made people around him feel safe and secure and hence relaxed. I think the way he carry himself made him shines on others as well. And yeah, I think this is what a good doctor should be. Good doctor must be skilled, not only can cure people from sickness but can also made some differences in others' life. Treat the physical and emotional. Influence others, bring hope to others, and brightened up others life. Good doctors are being respect and looked upon not only because they are experienced or they are superior but because they can inspire others and made positive changes in others' life. That's what made a good doctor. I learnt that from him and I hope I can carry this with me throughout my career and life.

Allied Health '08

It was a great night with tonnes of fun going on...:)


We were all gathered at Stephanie's house for a pre-party drink before we headed off to Metro City.Sitting outside the house and have a glass of white wine is fantastic...

Wai Sun and Jason. A Pharmacy guy from Kuching. I reckon he looks a bit like Poh Peng. Didn't have a chance to ask him about this though. He is really a nice guy to go clubbing with as he will be there to taking care of all the girls before he got himself drunk!!

This is Metro City - Northbrigde. Happening night... Allied health is supposed to be an annual party night for all the health related profession. Anyway by looking at how crowded the place was, I think there were more than just people from health profession but no matter who we are , we were just there to have fun!!!

So surprise to see Rupinder, one of my respiratory intern in my current hospital.

With Russell, one of my Gen Med PBL mate and his hot girlfriend, Macy. Haha, he said he got to hold on to her the whole night as she was just too drunk.

This was taken at about 4am in the morning. We were all so hungry after dancing for the whole night so we decided to go supper. The food was yummy and as Elaine said this is the best way to end a prefect night !!

pew..It's over :)

Yeah..
Finally the long weekend that I had been waiting for has arrived. 4 days of holiday... Just nice for me to finish up my case report, my log book and the piles of lecture notes that were left pending because of my preparation for observed case presentation (OSCE).

Had my OSCE today as well. So glad that it is all over now. I got a patient with cystic fibrosis and OMG i really dont have a clear idea of what CF is. All I know is this is a congenital disorder and it cause a lot of pulmonary symptoms. Haha, I dont even know what kind of finding I should get in CF patient. So in the end I just went in and ask what ever question I can think of and pick up as much sign as i can.

Made some mistake here and there and missed out drug and allergy component in my history taking which is a super BIG thingy for my patient. Luckily my examiner was a lenient one and a grade of 5/7 is just way too good for me..Got some really constructive feedback from him and he was just so kind in giving encouragement.

Now is my time to relax myself. Going to Allied health party at Metro later. Haha the 1st time in my life i go clubbing!! Hopefully it will be a great and fun experience. Friday need to set up all my furniture which i just bought from IKEA. Sigh, got to do all these myself..LOL, now im missing my daddy :P Saturday is going to be a great day too. Going to swan valley with IMU seniors. Cant wait for the day to come..

Finishing my Gen Med rotation in 2 weeks time. Though at 1st I kept complaining about the whole system which is so not organised but now I am kind of like this way of learning. Now I don't feel like leaving my current hospital and my current team. This time I am really adapting to my life here..No complaint and not psycho-ing myself anymore...I am getting happier each day :)

Adapting and adjusting..

Finally got back my internet after 2 weeks. Finished 4 weeks of Gen Med rotation., 4 more to go. Things did get better now. Start to adjust myself to a system where there is no timetable, no one cares whether you appear in the ward or not. No one will tell you what you need to know and everyone is telling you "hey, u should go back and don stay in hospital anymore, y be so hardworking? Go back and do your own study!!"

At 1st really feel damn lost and aimless. I thought being in clinical years means we need to stay in hospital and do practical stuffs rather then stay at home or library study. Wandering in the ward like no man soul everyday for the 1st and 2nd week. Finally at the 3rd week i think i should do something to change my life. Then I pick up a skill called thick skin. Haha. Now what I will do is go ward by ward and intro myself as a 4th yr student and asked for any ptn with good history and good sign that is worth seeing. Sometime if I ws lucky enough i will find some kind intern or registrar to discuss the case with me but most of the time im all on my own. Although still dunno whether this is de best way to learn but at least I felt i am doing something.

Kinda miss days in IMU now. Everything is structured. And most importantly I always got a bunch of friends to hang out and to study with. Eventho things did happened in between but at the end of the days we will still call ourselves a 'family'. No matter how when things happened I know I will never be alone.

At here, basically I am jus an intruder that come from a planet call IMU. God knows how and why I can jump in straight into 4th year without taking their entry exam and interviews.Every new encounter with new ppl these are the frequent question that they will ask: 1.what the heck is IMU? 2. Isn't it a university that accept student that NUS don't want and those rejected by UM? 3. How you all can cramp everything in 2 and 1/2 yr. What did u all learn? How is it possible? 4. How is the standard over there?

I got to admit I did met with some ppl they eventho they ask the same set of question and I wont feel offended but most of the time yea..I did felt awkward. How am I supposed to explain to them how the whole matching works, how we study thing so damn fast? Hmmm..so the best way I can think of is to show them instead of spending time explaining the unexplainable thing.

Had a few clinical tutorial recently and truely speaking I feel that IMU's teaching is sufficient enough. Although there are some area like Pharmaco and Infectious Disease the student here are way better than us, othere than that we are all quite on par. So I really don't see the problem for me to being here with them eventhough I didnt go through their selection procedure.

Sometime really in a dilemma. I felt really weird when ppl ask me y am i always in hospital so early and come in hospital everyday. Maybe to them I just too hard core and kiasu but i thought this is what i supposed to do? Sometime when doctor ask a question and no one knows the answer and i answered it, ppl will look at me as if i am an alien. Worst is when I said a correct answer and all the others were like what the hell she is talking? Hate that kind of feeling. It made me felt so out of place and as if I said something wrong.

Spending most pf my time in hospital and my home sweet home. Thank god I moved out to a place that I really like it. Luckily I got this little comfort zone to lie back when I feel so tired. I would say I am pretty much adapt to the life here. Sometime did feel I should mix with more of my batchmates and maybe hang out with them but I really hate to do thing that I feel so out of the place. Hence I spent most of my time alone. Eat alone, go hosp and sch alone, study alone, jog alone, stroll alone, watch drama alone..but I am not really lonely..Weird right..Feel so not like my usual self.

Am i really adapted to this new life or am I just psycho-ing myself? I am confused sometime...

oh ya, to jackie and jane june. U guys going off soon right.All the best ya. Good Luck. Bring out the best of IMU to UK. And to all the seremban-ian, happy sch reopen and all the best as well. Miss you guys lot...