Major Angst

If I have a mountain, I shall call it Gunung Angst-sy! And the object of my displeasure? That www.myeg.com.my website!!!!!

Remember 14 days ago, I wrote an angst-filled article and I mentioned the frustration I experienced trying to renew my driver’s license online? Well here’s what happened since then…

16th April: Tried 3 times to renew my license online but failed as the final screen on the pc hanged.

17th April: Tried again, to no avail.

18th April: A lady called from the company and asked if I still want to proceed with the license renewal since in their computer, it seems that money has been deducted from my credit card account. She promised that it would be delivered in 5 days as they so happily jingled on the radio advertisement. Naive ol’ me said “Go ahead”. I must have been charmed as I didn’t even bother to ask for her name. My driver’s license expires on 27/4/07.

19th April: I checked my account and indeed RM158 was deducted from my account for a 5-year renewal.

20th April: No news.

21st April: No news.

22nd April: No news.

23rd April: ditto

24th April: ditto again

25th April: ditto again. Was getting a bit worried and so I called the company umpteen times and no one bothered to pick up the phone. All I got was an answering machine.

26th April: called again and then realised it’s a public holiday and so I didn’t expect anyone to be in.

27th April: D-DAY! Called a billion times and still no one picked up the phone. Wrote an email to them threatening legal action (still no reply till now).

28th April: Drove without a valid license. Felt like the biggest felon in Malaysia. I had to send my friends off to KLIA. It was an emergency. Also drove to Parkson Sale after that….that’s also an emergency la since they only sell Docker’s Pants at half price on Bonuslink Members day.

29th April: Drove to church illegally. Another emergency as I have to lead P&W. And then I drove to KL for my niece’s first birthday, silently praying all the way that I won’t be caught and religiously keeping to the speed limit!

30th April (today!):

Drove illegally to work. After round, I decided to call them again and lo and behold a Malay guy picked up the phone.

Me: Hello, good morning, I am so-and-so, I have a problem…

And ‘click’, the phone line went dead.

The bloody idiot hanged up on me the moment he heard the word “Problem“!!! Gaaargh!!!

And then I tried dialing over and over again and finally I got a Malay lady on the phone, after which I launched into a 15 minute angst-ridden tirade against her, her company, the JPJ, the government, the North Pole (where a bunch of hooligans just parachuted over using my income tax money), the Ijok by-election etc etc….

And she went:

“Ah encik, sebenarnya I tak brapa faham english la….”

Good grief! Words fail me…

So, I made a 180 degree switch to Malay and continued with my ravings and rantings but by now much of the angst-sy energy has dissipated. Sigh…. I was actually quite gentlemanly and cordial at the end. Must be another spell.

She promised to get back to me after 1 hour, but she didn’t but I got back to her and she finally told me that Mr Jaafar ( I don’t know who he is) is away, Cik Anis (or something sounding like that name) is the real person in charge but she is on leave, and some Encik God-knows-what is also in charge but is not available as well. Whoopie! I bet they have probably gone out for ‘minum’.

And she said the renewed license shall be delivered on Thursday. Bah!

I expressed my displeasure (unfortunately I don’t know any curse words in Malay that do not have a porcine-flavour) and so I said a lame ‘ok‘ just to terminate the conversation.

So, tomorrow I will have to drive illegally to swim ~ it’s an emergency because of my expanding waistline.

Maybe even drive illegally to catch Spiderman 3. Now that’s a REAL emergency.

If I don’t get the license by Thursday, I shall sue them. And God help any JPJ guys who stop me from now till then to give me a summon.

Mon, 300407 @ 1839; work’s done finally. I am so glad it’s a holiday tomorrow.

Telemedicine?

A little over one month after consulting LM on why my recalcitrant orchid refuse to bloom for 2 years, and receiving a brief introduction to Botany and a prescription listing the do’s and don’t's, voila!!! It bloomed!!!

Aren’t the flowers lovely?

And the ironic thing is, I didn’t even do anything to it!

But thanks anyway, LM. I am sure it’s not mere coincidence.

Mon, 300407 @ 0739

Man Bai

Come listen to one of my favourite song with me.

Kau Ilhamku
Manbai
 
    G          Dm        Em       Bm 
Beribu bintang di langit kini menghilang
C            Dm
Meraba aku dalam kelam
     G         Dm        Em      Bm 
Rembulan mengambang kini makin suram
C       Dm       G   Dm
Pudar ilhamku tanpa arah

    G        Dm        Em    Bm
Sedetik wajahmu muncul dalam diam
C              Dm
Ada kerdipan ada sinar
   G            Dm Em       Bm 
Itukah bintang ataupun rembulan
C        Dm       G      Dm
Terima kasih ku ucapkan

G   Dm        Em      Bm          C      Dm
Izinkan ku mencuri khayalan denganmu
G   Dm        Em      Bm          C      Dm
Izinkan ku mencuri bayangan wajahmu

           G     Dm    Em   Bm 
Maafkanlah oo…
      C                                Dm
Andai lagu ini mengganggu ruangan hidupmu
              G     Dm    Em   Bm
Kau senyumlah oo…
    C                         Dm
Sekadar memori kita di arena ini
         G   Dm Em       Bm   C      Dm
Kau ilhamku…       kau ilhamku…

Abrupt turn of events

I was looking forward to the weekend. Tonight we (the cell group and some musicians) were supposed to congregate at the church to have a ‘jamming’ session in preparation for this Sunday’s P&W (yours truly is leading). And then tomorrow, we were supposed to head on to the pool in the morning to swim, then a spot of shopping in preparation of the BBQ tomorrow night. We wanted to celebrate Aaron’s birthday.

This morning, I received a text which reads “Have some bad news 4 u. A’s dad has ******. He has not long. A n A r asked to go home. They r trying to get a flight 4 tomorrow.”

That changed everything. The jamming session is off tonight. The swim tomorrow is probably off as well as we will be sending them off at KLIA. And the BBQ is off as well. And tonight, what should have been a birthday party will now be a farewell gathering. Sigh.

It’s been a long day. The morning passover meeting was followed by rounds  and followed by ID clinic which was followed by another meeting over lunch, and then I had to invigilate for an exam. It’s been a long day.

I spotted this on the wall while invigilating just now.

Evidently we have some rather artistic (or artistically challenged depending on how you view it) students who have more than medical stuff on their minds. That brought a little smile.

Fri, 270407 @ 1646

Symbiosis?

 

A recent survey done on more than 3000 physicians and published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed rather interesting findings. I have copied the abstract of the paper below: 

Background
Relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical, medical device, and other medically related industries have received considerable attention in recent years. We surveyed physicians to collect information about their financial associations with industry and the factors that predict those associations.

Methods
We conducted a national survey of 3167 physicians in six specialties (anesthesiology, cardiology, family practice, general surgery, internal medicine, and pediatrics) in late 2003 and early 2004. The raw response rate for this probability sample was 52%, and the weighted response rate was 58%.

Results
Most physicians (94%) reported some type of relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, and most of these relationships involved receiving food in the workplace (83%) or receiving drug samples (78%). More than one third of the respondents (35%) received reimbursement for costs associated with professional meetings or continuing medical education, and more than one quarter (28%) received payments for consulting, giving lectures, or enrolling patients in trials. Cardiologists were more than twice as likely as family practitioners to receive payments. Family practitioners met more frequently with industry representatives than did physicians in other specialties, and physicians in solo, two-person, or group practices met more frequently with industry representatives than did physicians practicing in hospitals and clinics.

Conclusions
The results of this national survey indicate that relationships between physicians and industry are common and underscore the variation among such relationships according to specialty, practice type, and professional activities.

You can read the full story here.

My own experience: Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, not guilty (yet) for the 5 items they named above.

Fri, 270407 @ 0747

Wide Eyed Awe

 

Today’s a public holiday, but NOT for me. Darn, I knew I shouldn’t have left the civil service! Sigh. Instead I have to come in and take 4 students for exams and go to an orang asli kampung in the afternoon.

Anyway, I just want to talk about how gullible innocent children can be some times. They get that wide eyed awe look on their faces when you tell them something totally (in their opinion) profound. Here are some instances:

1. My daughter was totally awed when I told her I was born in the year of the Dinosaur. She thought that was awesome. She was a tad disappointed she was born merely as a rabbit! A rabbit is simply so un-glamorous.

2. She was also awed when I told her that our bedroom closet has a secret door which we could walk through right into their room next door just so we could check on them sleeping at night. Cool eh?

3. She was doubly awed when I told her that her daddy and mummy are actually people with secret identities. We are actually superheroes by night, changing into our capes and external underwears and flying off to save the world (or buy groceries, depending on which is more urgent ~ superheroes also must eat what) while she sleeps at night. Double cool eh?

Of course this was when she was a little younger. Now she is wiser and wouldn’t be so easily fooled. A few more years down the road when she hits her teens, she will think her daddy is the biggest guffaw that ever lived. Sigh.

Well, there still Ryan…. heh heh…

I shall tell him about the Bat-Cave  in the basement! ;-P

Thurs, 260407 @ 0808; working on a public holiday. Sigh..

Ugly Betty Script – Blogophobia

Those who have missed my first script for Ugly Betty can read it here.

It’s been 5 months now since Betty Suarez started working for the fashion company ‘Mode’. She had her fair share of ups and downs (more downs than ups really). To keep her sanity, Betty has been blogging for some time now, ever since she had to sit for her final exam in ‘Masters in Girl-Friday to an Impossible Boss’ which she passed with flying colors (and with sanity intact).

Sometimes she blogs about her work, her family, her thoughts, her angst, her feelings, her beliefs, and about all the young apprentice Fashionistas that she meets every day. Sometimes she even blogs about the ‘bloopers’ that these fashionistas commit while parading on the catwalk. She had no intention to belittle anyone. Far from it, her blog was meant for herself and anyone who cares to read it with an open mind. But then again, not all her readers are open minded.

Betty didn’t realise it but her blog was garnering more and more readers each day, and some of her readers were from the very company she worked in! The majority were silent readers of course, but not so with others.

A sinister wind began to brew. Some senior employees felt threatened (though for God-knows-what-reasons) and they gathered together to whisper/talk/gossip/malign this ever growing blog belonging to such a lowly minion among them. Finally they dispatched a more junior employee to ‘tactfully’ voice their ‘concern’ regarding Betty’s blog. They suggested that she should stop writing about the stuff she writes.

Upon hearing it, Betty was quite distraught of course. She felt that her blog was benign and the concerns expressed were, in her mind, wholly unjustified. She ponders if she should continue to blog (if not she might lose her sanity and turn homicidal ~ after which the show might be renamed “Really Ugly Bloody Betty“) or should she carry on?!

Meanwhile in the political arena, politicians were calling for bloggers to be registered and regulated, some sued bloggers for defaming them, others insist that bloggers are a threat, still others continue to live under coconut shells hoping fervently that this ‘fad’ would eventually die off, leaving their political career unscathed.

Betty thought how the same sentiments prevailed in her work place too. Her life principle has been to embrace change. Change or die a fossil. That’s her motto. Now she wonders if her principle would eventually be detrimental to her career and life.

Betty is one unhappy girl-friday. She feels that the show should be renamed as “Ugly and Petty”.

Wed, 250407 @ 0710; post call and it was alright.

Sudden Death

His last words to me were “Doctor, I…”. Then he gasped, clutching a hand to his chest and went limp. I blurted out ”Sh*t!!!” and lunged forward and caught him just before he fell off the bed. He wasn’t responsive then, his breathing was  shallow and he was soaked in sweat.

From then on, things were a blur. I remember shouting for the resuscitation trolley, gloving up, commencing CPR with a team of doctors (and some onlookers). I remember inserting the endotracheal tube into his lifeless airway. The cardiac monitor showed VF-VT pattern. We shocked him a couple of times to no avail. We got him back a while only to lose him again. We went on and on and on… we tried everything.

And before we know it, it was over.

I hardly knew him beyond the fact that he was young and he was admitted for central chest pain which started that morning while he was driving (he was a cab driver). A woman brought him to the hospital. She was reserved about their relationship. I also knew he had a heart attack a while ago and even had an angiogram done. I knew that he continued to smoke after the heart attack.  I was interviewing him when he collapsed.

There was no one there to grieve his passing. I learnt that he was estranged from his family. They live in KL. The woman with him expressed shock and disbelief.

I had no time to grieve for him either. Right after that I had a 2 hour bedside teaching with students followed by a lunch meeting which was followed by another brief meeting with another student, which was followed by clinic and then another ward round (where there were 8 new admissions!) and another 2 hours meeting where I had to listen to 6 powerpoint presentations by students. 

I went home late, tired and hungry with a migraine headache pounding in my head. I had dinner, took a shower, pop some pills and rested. I didn’t do revision with my kid last night. I didn’t feel up to it.

But in the back of my mind, I still thought of that man. It was too sudden. I wonder if we could have saved his life if he came earlier, if we acted a little faster, if we have intervention cardiology facilities available, if he didn’t smoked anymore…

I’m a little blue today. Sigh.

Tues, 240407 @ 0740; on call. Sigh…

Small Talk

I’m allergic to small talk, which was very evident when I attended our annual dinner last Friday. We weren’t allowed into the dining hall until 8 pm and we were expected to hang around in the lounge outside sipping juice/beer/wine and ‘network’.

Yours truly was hanging around, sipping beer (couldn’t find a decent glass of juice) and NOT doing any networking. Sigh.

Truth be told, I find talking about the weather, children, karma and dog fleas a waste of time. Not knowing 98% of the people there made it worst. I’d rather be mowing the lawn or watch the grass grow.

I got a watch (with the company emblem imprinted on the back) as a door gift and a bag (from the earlier International Medical Education Conference 2007); both are for sale if the price is right.

Mon, 230407 @ 0745; already feeling blue as I’m on call tomorrow.

Birthday Pics

Since the Picturetrail Flicks that I made for my kid wouldn’t stick in WordPress, I’ve posted it on my old blog (works fine there but kinda distorted). You can check out how she has grown here.

Sat, 210407 @ 2107