Bad with dates

I’m lousy with dates.

I don’t mean the smochy-moochy-hold-hands-look-deep-into-the-eyes-on-a-moonlit-night type of dates nor do I mean an Arabic fruit.

I meant I am hopeless when it comes to the numerics on a calendar.

Take yesterday for instance. I was dead tired after work. It was pouring cats and dogs (even the heavens are crying over the farce of an election that we, Malaysians, had to endure. The jam to my parents’ home was horrendous. A journey that usually takes less than 20 minutes took 45 minutes to complete. But no, this had to be done. It was my mum’s 76th birthday. The wife and kids were already waiting at the restaurant for our arrival, the dishes had been carefully chosen beforehand – dishes that my mum would like; vegetables cooked into a consistency my dad, with his ill-fitting dentures, would bring himself to eat (my dad isn’t a big fan of fibres) and a dish or two to satisfy the kids.

It took me another 30 minutes to reach the restaurant. We settled down, the food came and just before we started eating, I turned to my mum and said, “Mum, we are having this dinner to celebrate your birthday!”.

She looked at me as if I just spoke Sanskrit! There was this uncomprehending blank look on her face. In retrospect, she was probably wondering if her son has finally come loose and lost the last marble in his overeducated brain. And then the look changed into amusement and there was even a hint of pity.

She looked at me and said, “Son, my birthday is 6 of JUNE!”

At the moment, I must have looked as if I had been struck by lightning, had a heart attack and bloody diarrhoea all rolled into one. And then it painfully dawned on me.

Gaaargh!!!! I got the dates wrong! (again). My wife gave me this “How could you have gotten it wrong (again!), you adorable idiot!”

That’s how I am wired!

I’m probably dyscalendarlexic if there is such a term.

I recall the few times I booked flights for the wrong dates or time. There were several times where I hurried to a meeting only to discover I got the dates wrong.

Like this morning, for instance. Yesterday evening, I received an email from my boss – the message was short – get a presentation ready for a meeting on the 10th of May. I looked at the date on my watch and I swear I saw 9th clearly shown on the watch’s interface! And so this morning, I decided to skip the ward round (something I loathe to do unless I absolutely had to – I feel I have done the patients a great disservice) and spent 3 hours preparing the power point. I finished the project 10 minutes before the meeting was due, gathered all my stuff, saved the power point into my pen drive, sipped some water, took a deep breath and said to myself, “YOU CAN DO THIS!” and headed off to the venue – only to discover it was empty.

I rechecked the email and lo and behold, I discovered the meeting is to be held this Friday and today’s date is 7 May 2013!

Gaargh!

And this, this one has to take the cake:

Once I flew off to Kuching to attend a neurology conference over the weekend and discovered upon landing that I had arrived one week too early! Thankfully, my wife was with me and we were left with 2 options – fly home on the next flight or take an unplanned honeymoon! We chose the latter and had 3 glorious days in Kuching.

The following week, I returned to Kuching for the conference and many of my fellow colleagues were amazed at how much I know about the city and getting from one place to another! LOL!

I didn’t tell them about my impediment with dates.

The new old pool

After what seemed like an eternity (actually it had been only slightly more than 3 weeks), the public swimming pool in Seremban 2 finally reopened to the public on 10 April 2013 (and about time too as my tan-lines were fading fast!) – *kidding.

What’s new about the pool:

1. The faulty pump and filter have been replaced. The water is now crystal clear again in contrast to the almost sewage-like quality of the water at the Paroi pool. 

2. The old management is gone (although not entirely as one of the previous staff has been rehired to continue his old habit of sitting around and doing nothing) and a new management has taken over.

3. The broken tiles at the bottom of the pool have been replaced. There is now no risk of accidentally swallowing diluted hemoglobin bled from the injured foot of idiotic pool users who cannot resist walking over broken tiles.

4. The locker fee has been increased from RM 1 to RM 2.

5. The pool is now closed on Monday (previously it used to open for the evening session – in the morning the pool is cleaned). However it is now open for all sessions on Thursday (previously it used to close for the morning session for cleaning). This raises a concern because it would mean the pool would be cleaned only once a week – not good at all, considering so many people jump into the pool without showering or even wearing proper swimming attire. 

What’s still the same with the pool:

1. The lockers are still the same – old, rusted and barely secure.

2. The entrance fee remains the same – RM 3.50 per entry which is actually far more expensive than public pools elsewhere (Putrajaya Precinct 16 pool charges RM 2 per entry while the Kelana Jaya pool in Kuala Lumpur charges RM 3 per entry and they have far better facilities). The good news is they plan to re-introduce the 10-entry-for RM 30 pass card in May – something the previous management conveniently abolished in their greedy bid for more income which angered many pool users (read: yours truly).

3. The deplorable toilet condition, sadly, remains unfixed. In the one week I’ve been there, I noticed the thrash (in the bin and the floor) has not been cleared at all. Broken taps were not replaced – in fact, nothing has changed. 

4. There is no lifeguard – so swim and drown at your own risk.

Happy swimming! With the current hot weather, the newly reopened old pool is a welcome sight indeed.

 

 

Contraceptive marriage

Received this referral letter some time ago. >_<

The Thin Red Line

Not too long ago, some one decided to adopt a rather ridiculous, in my opinion, infection control measure in the ward. Whenever a patient is detected to harbour a multidrug resistant (MDR) micro-organism, a thin red line will appear on the floor around the patient’s bed!

No doubt the intention is noble – it is to warn others, especially health care workers that there exist, in the ward, a patient with MDR bugs and (hopefully) take precautions when handling a person.

But no one really bothers. Hardly anyone notice the existence of the red line. Certainly the red line does nothing in infection control. The MDR bugs are color-blind and are certainly not threatened by the ominous red line.

This is what happens in an institute with little enforcement of infection control practices, where the isolation rooms are severely limited and always occupied, and where even alcohol-based hand wash is not freely available.

The thin red line makes a mockery of the whole idea of infection control.

Milked!

I became very ill last Thursday night. I had been unwell a few days prior to that – the usual under-the-weather-feeling coupled with intermittent diarrhoea. In fact, on Wednesday evening, I had a bout of chills and fever which subsided on its own. My worried spouse asked me to be admitted, which I stubbornly refused (all doctors are stubborn people).

Thursday morning, I was fine and was even able to perform the ward rounds after I had my blood sampled and sent for various tests including culture and sensitivity.

I suddenly turned bad on Thursday evening after dinner. My daughter was fast asleep as I had asked her to go and sleep and that I would wake her at 8 pm to take her for her tuition class. The wife and son had gone visiting the in-laws. At 7 pm, I felt especially unwell, the chills and rigors came in waves and I vomited out everything that I had eaten in the last decade. To add to the drama, my wife came back horrified to find me on the toilet floor, being too weak to get up.

She bundled me up, packed a few necessities and drove me to the nearest private hospital (the government hospital was too far away and I was in a bad state). En route, I managed to call my colleague at the hospital where I worked to determine from my blood tests sent in the morning if they found evidence of malaria (I had recently travelled to Bangkok but stayed in the city throughout the trip – but who knows…).

It was negative.

I won’t go into the details of my hospitalization although I would mention the one thing which struck me as being ludicrous, almost to the point of being darkly comedic was when the attending physician of the private hospital approached me a while after my blood was drawn for various tests and promptly announced: “The good news is, your cholesterol levels are normal!”.

Imagine the scenario – there I was lying on the uncomfortable hospital bed in the ED, breathing laboriously (my oxygen sat was 93%), tachycardic (rate 130/min), highly febrile (39 degrees Celcius), hypotensive (blood pressure was 80/50 mmHg), feeling weak (the potassium level was 3.0 mmol/L) and terribly unwell and then BAM! I’m hit with the ‘good news’ that my cholesterol levels were normal!

WTH!

I wasn’t elated, not in the least.

Anyway, it’s still a mystery as to what actually caused me to be hospitalized for 4 days (3 nights) and I’m still on the road to full recovery, more than a week after being discharged from the hospital (my darn appetite has altogether disappeared!), so if you meet me in the corridors, don’t ask.

What I CAN tell you is what the illness was NOT caused by:

1. It wasn’t caused by high cholesterol levels. (the good news, remember?)
2. It wasn’t caused by dengue (I had dengue serology done 3 times in 2 days although the blood works did not suggest it)
3. It wasn’t caused by syphilis (I don’t know why VDRL had to be done!)
4. it wasn’t Mycoplasma (the titre was normal)
5. It wasn’t a urinary tract infection.
6. It wasn’t any bug in the blood (cultures eventually came back negative)
7. It wasn’t malaria (the smear was done twice)
8. It probably wasn’t typhoid or typhus (so the street food I ate in Bangkok wasn’t to be blamed).

I honestly don’t know what it was.

It cost a whopping RM 3800 for 3 nights of hospitalization.

I have a feeling I’d been milked nice and proper.

 

Symptomology of an ED doctor

This is so hilarious I had to post it. I received this from a friend on Facebook. I must confess I am guilty of about 90% of the misdemenour listed here:

You KNOW you’v worked in an ER department when:

You believe that all bleeding stops … eventually.

You find humor in other people’s stupidity.

You believe that 90% of people are a poor excuse for protoplasm.

Discussing dismemberment over a gourmet meal seems perfectly normal to you.

Your idea of fine dining is anywhere you can sit down to eat.

You get an almost irresistible urge to stand and wolf your food even in the
nicest restaurants.

You plan your dinner break whilst lavaging an overdose patient.

Your diet consists of food that has gone through more processing than most
computers.

You believe chocolate is a food group.

You refer to vegetables and are not talking about a food group.

You have the bladder capacity of five people.

Your idea of a good time is a cardiac arrest at shift change.

You believe in aerial spraying of Prozac.

You disbelieve 90% of what you are told and 75% of what you see.

You have your weekends off planned for a year in advance.

You encourage an obnoxious patient to sign a self discharge form so you
don’t
have to deal with them any longer.

You believe that “shallow gene pool” should be a recognized diagnosis.

You believe that the government should require a permit to reproduce.

You believe that unspeakable evils will befall anyone who utters the
phrase “Wow, it’s really quiet isn’t it”.

You threaten to strangle anyone who even starts to say the “q” word when it
is
even remotely calm.

You say to yourself “great veins” when looking at complete strangers at the
grocery store.

You have ever referred to someone’s death as a transfer to the “Eternal Care

Unit”.

You have ever wanted to hold a seminar entitled “Suicide … Doing It
Right”.

You feel that most suicide attempts should be given a free subscription
to “Guns and Ammo” magazine.

You have ever had a patient look you straight in the eye and say “I have no
idea how that got stuck in there”.

You have ever had to leave a patient’s room before you begin to laugh
uncontrollably.

Your favorite hallucinogen is exhaustion.

You think that caffeine should be available in I/V form.

You have ever restrained someone and it was not a sexual experience.

You believe the waiting room should be equipped with a Valium fountain.

You play poker by betting ectopics on ECG strips.

You want the lab to perform a “dumb shit profile”.

You have been exposed to so many X-rays that you consider radiation a form
of
birth control.

You believe that waiting room time should be proportional to length of time
from symptom onset.

Your most common assessment question is “what changed tonight to make it an
emergency after 6 hours / days / weeks / months / years)?”.

You have ever had a patient control his seizures when offered some food.

Your idea of gambling is an blood alcohol level pool instead of a football
pool.

You shock someone with an unrecognizable rhythm … until you get one you DO

recognize.

You believe a book entitled ‘Suicide: Getting it Right the First Time’ will
be
your next project.

You have ever referred to someone’s death as a ‘transfer to part 3
accomodation’.

You can identify what kind of diarrhea it is just by the smell.

You will never name a daughter “Melena” or anything along those lines.. and
laugh to yourself every time you hear someone by that name

You call subcutaneous emphysema “Rice Krispies”.

Your immune system is so well developed that it has been known to attack
squirrels in the backyard.

Protected: Exam Bloopers #73 (PW: None)

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: Exam Blooper #72 (Dexter 7: Isaak Sirko’s lover)

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Uncaring

It’s personal policy that I do not let know that I am a doctor whenever I deal with anyone in the hospital. So, I take my number just like the bloke next to me, I wait my turn, I listen to the instructions given, I fret and get annoyed, just like the next twenty or fifty people waiting to be seen by the doctor. Call it a kind of social experiment.

I simply wanted to see how people are being treated. I didn’t want to be accorded artificial special treatment because of my ‘status’.

Several weeks ago, my wife took my 10-year-old son to the hospital for his ENT appointment. Atopy runs deep in my children’s genes (inherited from the maternal side – I’m allergic to nothing except extreme stupidity) and so Ryan was afflicted with allergic rhinitis, albeit mild. Although they were there early enough, it was past noon before Ryan was eventually seen by the doctor. By then, my wife was anxious to go to work and asked me to take over. Thankfully by then, my routine of morning rounds, seeing referrals and taking medical students for bedside teaching was done and so I quickly made my way to the clinic.

“The doctor said he needs to take his puff twice a day now. Just wait near this door for the prescription. His next appointment is in 4 months. I’m off to work now. Bye!”, my wife said hurriedly as she left Ryan in my care while we waited patiently in the clinic packed with more than a 100 people.

It took another 45 minutes for the nurse, an elderly woman, to appear at the door and shouted Ryan’s name. I quickly informed her that I was Ryan’s dad and may I have the prescription.

“Oh, you must be Dxxxxx”, said the nurse, addressing me with my wife’s name, after peering at me over the rim of her golden-frame glasses, and handed me the slip of paper.

I didn’t bother to correct her. Instead I took the slip of paper and exited the clinic with my son. On the way, I happened to look at what was written on the paper. I was surprised to find that his appointment was scheduled for 6 months later while the prescription for the nasal puff was amended to be administered once a day instead of twice and the supply was written for only 4 months.

I stopped my son, who by now was hungry and told him we needed to go back to the clinic to sort out the discrepancy. We went back to the clinic and I knocked at the door of the room where the nurse appeared from before. After a while, she opened the door and peered out and asked me what was the problem.

I explained to her that my son was advised to take his puff twice a day instead of once because his symptoms were not controlled and that his next appointment was supposed to be in 4 months.

“There are too many people in this clinic, so we had to extend the appointment to 6 months”, she explained, with a little annoyance.

“Ok, fine”, I said, “but the prescription is only for once a day and for 4 months only”, I pressed my point.

“Well, the consultant do not think he needs it twice a day”, she barked at me, raising her voice a notch.

“But the doctor who saw him said he needs it twice a day”, I persisted. “And 4 months is not enough, what happens for the two remaining months after the medication has run out?, I asked.

“That, you will just have to take care of yourself”, she said dismissively. I took it to mean I would have to source the medication from elsewhere until my son’s next appointment.

By now I got a little miffed. “You can’t do that! I would never do this to my patients”, I said determinedly.

By then, something must have flickered in her mind and she asked, “Are you a doctor? What doctor are you?” although she was quite oblivious to the the name tag I was wearing which suggested that I am a doctor.

“I’m a doctor at the MOPD (Medical Outpatient Department) and I always make sure my patients have enough medications”, I explained.

“Well, MOPD patients are different from ENT patients. MOPD patients have to take their medications. ENT patients don’t need to. They can skip medications!”, she retorted, looking smugly triumphant.

By then the medical officer who saw my son earlier had appeared having heard the commotion we were creating, and asked the nurse what’s wrong.

“This doctor here wanted bd dose of the puff but the consultant struck it off and only signed for daily dose”, she informed the medical officer.

“No, he needs it twice a day, and it is for 6 months, please make the changes in the prescription”, he ordered the nurse.

“Dr XXX (the consultant) is not going to be happy about this”, the nurse murmured spitefully while making the changes to the prescription.

I thanked the medical officer profusely and left the clinic with the re-amended prescription.

The whole incident left me with a sour taste. The nurse displayed a woefully uncaring attitude and in my opinion has no place working in a healthcare setting. The consultant was careless and flippant in simply striking off the prescription written by his/her medical officer without discussing it with the MO to find out the justification behind the double dosing needed and he/she did not bother to inform the patient (or in this case, me, as the carer of my son) regarding the dosage change. It was also highly irresponsible of them to short change patients with regards to their supply of medicine.

Things could be better. A whole lot better.

Family jewel therapy

Spotted this sign at a shop near where I am staying at the moment in Bangkok.

Pay THB 800 (about MYR 80 or USD 25) to have one’s private assets massaged for 60 minutes?!!!

Very cringe worthy, in my opinion.

>_<