Ol’ Naggy Dad

My dear kids,

I believe that when God created fathers, he conveniently made them deficient in a number of special abilities which are only found in mothers. For instance, fathers are unable to take the continual presence of kids for more than 2 hours at a stretch.

So, imagine the horror of horrors when I went on a 10-day break from work recently on account of the Chinese New Year and had to endure your presence 24/7. It was enough to drive any dad insane.

By the end of the week, I remarked to your mum that the only verbal conversation that I have with you guys usually starts with this phrase:

“(Insert name of child)!, please put your (insert offending object*) away!!!!”

*the offending object may be anything from books left on the kitchen table/toilet floor/my lounge chair over the last 2 weeks/living room sofa/the swing outside; pieces of Lego toys (left in all those areas mentioned including the tiny spaces between/behind/under the sofa); 3 days of uncollected dog-poo; mountains of folded laundry; socks/bags/shoes/jackets/water-bottles conveniently left all over the living room floor; unwashed plates and cups left on the kitchen table to everything else that are not in their proper place.

Consequently, some days were downright crappy as I moped around in the foulest of moods while you guys tried to keep a safe distance in the small space we call home.

Not easy and not pleasant.

There were days I go to bed feeling angry and sorry for myself thinking a better dad would have made the day much better for his kids – you know, yell less, smile a bit more, engage and interact – stuff that Hollywood-ideal-dads are supposed to do as portrayed in the movies. In the movies, the house would be spic-and-span, the dishes auto wash themselves, toys are miraculously kept away automatically, laundry fly themselves from the clothes line to the cupboard all folded and smelling like summer rose, the dog never ever poops and bathes itself, mums and dads are forever smiling, kissing and hugging and need not worry over mounting bills and an expanding waistlines and sagging appendages and kids are euphorically happy with their electronic gadgets and the latest in fashion wear. Oh, and in the movies, dads also fend off the bad guys and handle a bazooka with ease – saving the world while keeping the family happy.

But I’m no Hollywood dad and I’d quite likely shoot myself with a bazooka.

There were days that I worry I would not wake up in the morning, having breathed my last some time in the wee hours of the morning and fearing that all you kids will remember me by are the negative nagging I dish out like an old broken record day in and day out. I dread passing on without hugging and kissing you guys enough and telling you that you matter instead of constantly yelling over things that don’t really matter.

I do not want to be remembered that way.

So, kids, can you help me be a better dad to you by doing the bits that need doing? That way, I won’t have to yell at you and we would be a lot happier.

But really, at the end of the day, even if you refuse to do those bits I expect of you, know this:

That despite all the yelling and nagging, I love you guys to bits and I’d like to be remembered that way.

And then, one day, when you find yourself yelling at your own kids, do think back and remember your ol’ naggy dad fondly.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Ah yes, I do celebrate the Chinese New Year AND Christmas! The former because I am Chinese and the latter, because I am of the Christian faith. One is race, the other religion, something that many remain ignorant of despite over 50 years of independence. When I tell people I celebrate Christmas, I get a weird look. Ditto when I tell people I celebrate Chinese New Year! People in my land can no longer differentiate race and religion. To many, race and religion are the same Sigh….

Anyway, I just want to wish all the readers of my blog a very happy and prosperous Lunar New Year!

Cheers!

The accidental receptionist

I remember when I was a house officer in the infamous ward, Ward P2, at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital (KLGH), how I used to dread sitting at the registration table (we didn’t have a counter then), in the wee hours of the morning, when all was quiet in the ward (typically there would be between 50-65 patients in the ward at any one time), when all the blood investigations have been taken, all the results have been traced – there I would be, sitting at the table and because I found it hard to sleep whenever I am on-call (it’s pointless anyway, since 9.9 out of 10 times, my sleep would be disrupted before I could even achieve REM sleep); trying to finish writing the mountain-high load of pending case-summaries.

Those days we did not have to give a copy of the case summary to the patient upon discharge, so work tend to pile up if one is not consciously trying to finish off all the case summaries assigned to all the junior doctors by a very stern Ward Sister. I remember burning the midnight oil with a fellow HO helping him to finish writing his backlog of care summaries. We finished writing 465 case summaries at around 5 am after 7 hours of slogging! If he didn’t complete them, he would be  barred from moving to another department! (Dr Yong, you owe me one!)

Anyway,I digress. My pet peeve while writing the case summaries at the table was the very annoying and disruptive phone calls.  At that time of those morning,phone calls were few and far in between and more often than not the caller would be either a testosterone-laden amorous suitor or boyfriend of one of the many young nurses working the night shift in the ward, probably seeking some kind of nocturnal (verbal) intercourse.

And since most people I’ve worked with in the hospital had an inborn incapability to pick up the phone (Don’t believe me? Try calling the receptionist in ANY government hospital and count the rings before the phone gets answered – if at all!), and I happened to be sitting at the registration table where the only phone in the ward was placed (there wasn’t anywhere else I could sit actually), inevitably I would be the person who picked up the phone. Usually the conversation would go like this: (translated from Malay)

Me: Hello, Ward P2, can I help you?

Caller: Can I speak to Staff Nurse So-and-so?

Me: (after asking for Staff Nurse So-and-so and discovering she was nowhere to be found) She is not here.

Caller: Ok, thank you.

Call ended.

And if you thought that was the end of it, you are wrong.

The same persistent pest guy would call, again and again at regular intervals throughout the night – or at least until he got to speak with this Staff Nurse So-and-so!

When you are trying to finish some work and the phone keeps ringing off its hook every few minutes or so, it could really try one’s patience.

Until, one day, I discovered a trick that effectively caused these amorous phone calls to cease while I was working at the table. When the phone rang, and before the caller had a chance to complete his first sentence, I would bellow into the mouthpiece of my phone in a sort of sing-song jingle, this sentence:

HELLO SIR! THIS IS PIZZA HUT! CAN I TAKE YOUR ORDER?!!!

Not unexpectedly, there would be an awkward silence at the other end of the phone after which the call would be terminated!

A second call by the same person would receive a similar response from me! (ad infinitum)

Usually the calls did not go beyond twice before stopping altogether and the world’s all good and peaceful again.

HIV-related apps on iOS.

Over the weekend, while browsing through the Apps store, I stumbled upon 2 apps which could be useful for those affected by HIV (either patients or their carers).

The first one is called iStayHealthy. The app has a rather uninteresting interface (probably to discourage prying eyes should the phone lands into other people’s hands). The app has a password-protect feature which keeps it secure. On opening the app, there is this CD4 and viral load chart where a person can keep track of the status of his immunity.

There are also buttons below which allows one to keep track of any drug interactions with the medication he/she is on as well as setting alerts to help him/her adhere to the medications on time.

The other app is called AIDSinfo Glossary and is useful for people who wants to understand what is known as AIDS-speak – the entire gamut of medical jargons related to HIV and AIDS. Medical students might also find it useful.

The glossary is available in both English and Spanish and it even has a button which will pronounce those difficult jargons for you!

Both these apps are available for free on iTunes.

Another tablet tale

After my last ‘tablet’ misadventure, here is another ‘tablet’ story:

Yesterday I was asked to do an impromptu presentation at a meeting. I didn’t expect to present but as soon as I sat down at the meeting, my boss signaled to me at a distance that I was to present on something which we have discussed earlier! By then another guy has already uploaded his power point and was well into his presentation! I was next!

Obviously, I didn’t prepare any power point slides and after the initial panic attack, I gathered my thoughts to figure what to do next. I could do it without power point but I wasn’t sure if I could get my ideas across effectively as the topic was entirely new to everyone. All the Information were on my iPad in emails, photos and documents.

And then, I got a brain wave! I got up, excused myself and hurried off to my cubicle to retrieve this little gadget which I bought a while ago for a cool RM 99:

It’s a VGA connector which allows me to project what I have on my iPad directly onto the screen via the projector!

The presentation went smoothly after that with me swiping between documents, emails and photos to get my point across. It was pretty cool actually.

After the presentation, a rather excited person approached me and we had this conversation:

She: I have a tablet. I want to ask you, how did you manage to do the presentation just now?

Me: Oh, it was easy. I just plug the VGA-connector into my iPad and connect the other end to the projector and I can display whatever I want onto the screen.

She: Oh?! Are you able to edit word documents on your iPad? Like for instance, can you make corrections and mark students’ reports?

Me: Yes I can. I have a number of apps on my iPad which allows me to do that. GoodReader can edit PDF documents, PAGES and OfficeHD allows me to edit Word documents. I edit the documents and immediately send them off by email. It’s pretty convenient.

She: I see….How do you transfer files around? I mean, how do I save documents on my desktop into the iPad and vice-versa?

Me: Have you heard of DropBox? You can use that to store your files in the ‘cloud’ and retrieve them whenever and wherever you want.

Me: So…you have an iPad as well?

She: Er…actually, I have an Acer…er…what’s the name already…hmmm.

Me: You mean the Iconia?

She: Yes! I have the Acer Iconia!

*Face-palm*

That little knob

For Christmas last year, my wife gave me this:

It’s a wrist support in the shape of a (very long) dog – probably a dachshund. While I found it to be too bulky to use as a wrist support for my desktop at work (mainly because the DELL keyboard provided at work is rather low-set), I have taken to it, like fish to water – for entirely differently reasons.

See, one of my pet habit (which my partner found to be annoying) before marriage was to play with my pillow corners. It’s a little like Schroeder’s security blanket. It calms and relaxes me. My wife soon put an end to the habit by getting me pillows with non-existent corners! I am okay with it although once in a while I do find myself lapsing back to the old familiar habit.

And so, one day, while working at my desktop, I discovered I was subconsciously playing this:

The cute pointy tail of the dog!

And this morning, while I was busy trying to sort out a challenging problem at my desktop, I discovered, to my utter dismay, that my fingers were playing with a rather peculiar knob on the dog:

This time, it’s the dog’s …..ummm….intimate part! *Gasps!!!*

Pretty mortifying if you think about it, really! I fail to understand why the maker of the ‘dog’ would choose to also sew on its scrotums as well!

Sigh.

Advice to Anwar

So, the whole world knows that Anwar was acquitted yesterday from being accused of sodomizing a young man who was previously in his employ. I was too busy with work yesterday to pay much attention to the unexpected verdict (Everyone expected him to be found guilty and jailed – and perhaps become the catalyst of our very own ‘Arab Spring’ but it didn’t happen).

I didn’t jubilate when I first read of the acquittal. Instead, I was disappointed with our politicians who resorted to these dirty acts and tactics and spending a lot of tax payer’s money dragging someone though the mud for years, sullying the minds of our young children with words like ‘liwat’ (sodomy) and exposing them to soft porn on national TV!

Shame on all of you!

I also felt a measure of relief after the news because we can now leave this sordid episode behind us (unless they find Anuar’s DNA up another person’s posterior alimentary canal again!) and move on with life and perhaps too optimistically hoping that there are still some leaders left with some amount of sanity to tackle the real issues facing our nation.

I was reading the comments in Malaysiakini this morning and I particularly like this person’s comment:

Yes, Anwar, God-forbid but if you are ever embroiled in Sodomy-III because you were unwise in who you trust or hire, then you, in my opinion, is not suitable to lead the nation. Malaysia do not need another long-drawn scandalous judiciary proceeding based on yet another anal excuse.

Disengaged

This morning, while having breakfast with my kids in a restaurant nearby, I witnessed a sorry sight but one which is now the norm in our society rather than the exception. Seated across us was a man in his early 50s with his two teenage daughters waiting for their ordered food to arrive.

The two daughters had their heads buried in their phones (at least one was on Facebook because I saw glimpses of her phone screen from afar), quite lost in their own private world and oblivious to what’s around them! Not one word was exchanged between the three of them! At one point, I saw the father looked longingly at his two daughters, perhaps hoping for some conversations but they were too engrossed to notice. I saw the father shook his head sadly and quickly dismissed his thoughts and went back to waiting for breakfast to arrive in an uncomfortable silence. The mother soon joined them and as soon as she sat down, she whipped out her phone to check for any miss calls or messages! The two daughters did not even look up to acknowledge their mother’s presence.

This morning, while waiting for my kids to get ready for badminton, I read an article on Gizmodo which highlighted exactly the same phenomenon that I just described. The author wrote about his frustrations of having to dine with fellow diners who incessantly play with, texted or received calls on their phones during the course of a meal. I could relate to that very well. There have been many times when I had to endure the discomfort of eating alone while my fellow diner was busy yapping away on his phone! It would have been better had I chosen to eat alone.

However, that said; Alas! I am not guiltless of this faux pax! There were times when I was busier attending to the calls, SMS-es, FB and IMO notifications, Twits and push emails than paying any attention to my fellow diners or on what is happening around me.

Sure, I can claim immunity by citing the the fact that I am a physician and the call/SMS/twit/email may be important or even perhaps, a life hinges upon my response to a phone call! But really, how often does that happen? Hardly actually. I am probably deluding myself if I think that my response is all that important!

I like one of the responses in the article I read in Gizmodo:

It’s true, most of the calls I get from the hospital would be regarding matters which I have already settled or regarding protocols/procedures/therapy that I have already ordered and spelled out in detail or the information sought could very well have been sourced easily by referring to books or relevant sites on the Internet (if the person on the other end had an ounce of initiative).

So now, the phone is banned from the dining table at home or outside. I (try) to take conscious effort not to check my phone every so often during a meal. I consciously fight the intense urge to reach for my phone if it rings while I am having a meal with someone.

More importantly, I try very hard to enjoy the company of my fellow diners and give them my full attention because, I tell myself, they are infinitely more important than what’s on my phone. Besides, one of my (better) bosses once told me, “if it is important enough, they will leave a message or call back again!”.

But if you happen to dine with me and you see me reach for my phone at the first ring, maybe, just maybe, it’s because I AM ignoring you!

Bullies

Recently I was chatting online with an ex-student of mine who is now a house officer in a public hospital. He was lamenting about the working condition in his current posting (the department where babies are delivered!).

“My department is crazy! HOs are getting extended for the most ridiculous reasons! One was told he was over-confident and thus extended for 3 months. Most of those who were extended weren’t told exactly why!”, went his lament.

I could emphasize with him very well. When I first reported for work in the same department (but in another hospital) as a house officer, we were curtly informed by a particularly nasty consultant that we were all extended for 2 months unless and until he said otherwise!!!

Imagine that! Extended without even working one day in that God-forsaken department! No reasons were given for the extension. The idea just blows your mind!

We were stunned! And then we got angry and we decided to do something about it!

We wrote a letter of complaint to the hospital director and carbon-copied it to the head of department. An enquiry was initiated and eventually the consultant had to back down and we were all de-extended.

Because we refused to bow to injustice, we took action and we won – and made an enemy for life! Later on, the same consultant deprived me and my wife of a honeymoon because he cancelled my leave at the very last minute! Again no reason was offered. As a result, I had to return to work immediately after my wedding!

Since then I have come across the consultant a couple of times in scientific meetings. I never greeted him. I have forgiven him for his inhumane actions but I have not forgotten his deeds and in my opinion, he does not deserve any respect even if he is now the head of department in another hospital.

I have also worked under a hospital director who, when he was in power, took great pleasure in belittling the doctors working in the hospital. During the weekly assembly, he would call out the names of doctors and publicly berate them for minor offenses such as not punching in or out on time. I personally received a show-cause letter from him asking me to explain why I did not punch out on one particular day and did not punch in on the following day! I explained that I was stuck in the OT on that day and was still in the OT until the next day and that it was impossible for me to punch in and out anyway as the punch-clock machines was locked in his office and was inaccessible after office hours.

This hospital director abused his power by allocating all the houses in the hospital quarters to his cronies who were administrative staff, laboratory staff and their relatives, while doctors who are constantly on call were told to look for accommodation outside the hospital. He also placed himself as the ‘radiologist on call’ 365 days a year although he was not qualified, just so he could claim the on-call allowance for a specialist. In addition, he deprived doctors from extra income by writing all the medical reports himself instead of distributing to the relevant doctors. For each report written he earned between RM 40-80. When a medical officer threatened to expose him to the Anti-Corruption Agency, he tried to shut him up by allocating almost 40 medical reports for him to write in a day! This man was also responsible for downgrading the annual assessment marks of medical officers in order to deprive them of the outstanding rewards from the Ministry of Health and marked up the assessment of his cronies so they would be rewarded instead.

So, when we read letters of complaints in the media written by junior doctors lamenting the cruel treatment they received from their superiors, they are not without justifications. There are indeed rotten apples in our profession. Unfortunately these scum-of-the-earth and poor excuse for a human being are often  in positions of power and often abuse those under them, simply because they can.

My advise to these people is, take stock of what you do, reflect on your deeds and change while you can. Have a heart!

Call it Karma, or call it retribution, I believe that God in heaven sees and He will not remain silent. I met the now-ex-director many years later in another hospital. He looked like a shell of his former arrogant and proud self. I asked him what he was doing in the hospital and he told me this:

“I am here to see my daughter. She has leukemia”.

Supplanted!!

Over the course of a few weeks of school holiday, my role as a ‘Dad’ has been supplanted! Things changed from this:

To this:

Now, if I could get Mark Zuckenberg to pay for their education and upkeep, I’m more than happy to be supplanted.