Guess Where

I'm typing this in a room full of wonder. It's definitely my type of room.
There's this big map of the world mounted on the wall. a big desk with roomy space below for me to roll right and left on the swivelling chair. Black forest is a look away, with the giants modern windmill rotating.
And all these (well, almost all except few things in the room) are mine. For one whole month.
After a walk through the hospital and around the lakepark, I'm making a mental plan on my head. Should I take a year break, learn German and applied to continue my study here.

Line or Cycle?

I look back on my days, from how carefree of a kid I am, to an eager kindergartener, to a naughty kid and then growing up and getting over my fears in high school up to the 3 months as wirawati in National Service. Those were the best of times in my life, mainly because I know what to expect. I loves waking up everyday.

Still you realise that doing the same thing won't make you happy either. You have to keep moving.
And this evening, I realise there's no such thing as life cycle in human life. There's only one line, one non linear line. You can go up and down but never found yourself cycling.

Limits and Restrictions

Having been in and out of the hospitals and dealed with cadavers in my first year, I have picked up some things that I tend to overlook. Dealing with lifeless bodies and sick people means tighter privacy.

You shall never use real name. especially your patient name.

Photos of full bodied cadavers/preserved fetus/full limb/living patient shall be kept to yourself. means that they are off limit from Facebook, blog, Instagram, Flickr or whatever public sharing that exist.

Photos of the suspiciously pathologic tissue from patient/cadaver, on the other hand is within limit.

If discussing about mortality, do it outside of patient hearing range, eventhough you are speaking language unintelligible to them, even if the patient is comatose. Because honestly, I think you'll feel extremely horrible  if you are on the bed and some people in the same room are talking about how your days are numbered and how the only thing they can do is to make your demise comfortable.

And at the end of the day, you would want to save yourself. Even knocking a chess piece is harder than sueing the doctor nowadays.

Honeymoon Year

In high school, it's the best year. Reasons being
*elegant classroom : air conditioned, tinted windows, tiled floor, no need to decorate the class
*bonding time with friends. got coolest of classmates. doesn't matter anymore if people think we are the geek collection of our batch and avoid going into our class.
*interesting subjects.although 90% of the time chemistry is as hard as it can be and studying physics is almost like doing astrophysics.

Gambaq diambil dari Fb Ridzuan.

In medical school, at least here, honeymoon year is a year filled with clinical subjects. you can say it's an introduction to specialisations in medicine. It's the most boring year ever I don't enjoy the ride at all. I was even thinking how foolish it is to fall into the trap of being able to study overseas. I mean, I could study my favourite course eventhough it means only schooling in Malaysia and graduated by now and fly anywhere I want jobwise and travelwise (the jobs offered are highly paid one). Well, I reckon 5th year would bring back my passion and confidence in doing Medicine. These are what I can conclude from my honeymoon year in medical school




Radiology and Nuclear Medicine : my absolute favourite. I love sunshine and being surrounded by people while  this specialty involves individual job and dark room. Here's the catch ~ I am excellent at finding faults and people, that is what you need in this specialty.

Dentisry : Learned how to brush teeth at 22nd year-old, so many years after the first course on how to brush your teeth in elementary. Gotta say elementary's is the best ~ got misi yang penyayang and giant dental arch + toothbrush. Realised that it's a good choice that I don't do stomatology. I prefer twiddling and cutting anywhere on human body except for the mouth area.

Neurology : what you hear isn't necessarily right but what you see, they are most probably right than wrong. Same principle applied for sthetoscope and neurological hammer. The cases in neurology mostly are fascinating. Diagnosis most of the time is spot on. Your patient will either be going downhill, stay the same or get better. But most of the time, the latter is not the case. Neurology is somewhat interesting but I feel indifferent towards it.

Internal Medicine : solving the puzzle. plenty of everything except for free time. loves it.

Surgery : procedures and more procedures. Realising that I suffered from serangan sotong a.k.a orthostatic intolerance, I know the ambition to be a surgeon is as clear as the ambition to be a pilot when you are near sighted.

Anesthesiology and Resuscitative Medicine : Pharmacology + procedures. Gassing people, poking people with needles and tubes. Get to be in surgery while not worrying about ploping down from the warmth and long time standing. I was born to love it

Emergency Medicine : anything can walk in through that door. in terms of illness and also people from all walks of life. Shortlisted as my top 3 but demoted after I realise how gory the scene can be back home. Orang kena parang, cangkul terbenam dalam kepala.

Sports Medicine : made me realise how much weight I have put on and how unfit I've become. Instead of motivating me to specialised in this, it motivates me to be fit and get back into shape.

Dermatology : everything looks the same. they even have complex about naming. you can't say it's erythema because it's too general but you can name a single disease with 3 names.

So that pretty sums up my conclusion of 4th year.

PLKN : Punishments

Dumping 300 something, 18 years olds on a hill for 3 months straight means rules broken, hormones flying around and misdeeds. So punishments are set to restore the order. Whether they serve their purpose or not, it's another topic for another time.

People broke the rule as early as the dawn cracks and even before they wake up. Day starts at 5 am in my camp and every Muslim trainee is to be at the surau for Subuh. You can find those who don't under their blanket, on their bed together with the mosquito net still attached, on the tarmac between surau and accommodation blocks. The trainers went extra miles to drag anyone who's still sleeping together with their bed out. As the time passed, the method turned out futile. So Plan B is to dip those wrongdoers in the pond. Must have been really cold. Usually they are let to stay there, life jacket on, supervisor on the side until the first company go downhill for breakfast. That usually is at 7-715 am. I saw them with my own eyes from the drilling hill, heads bobbing, down there in the pond.

I got punished as well. One is for leaving out ONE freaking piece of t-shirt more than a day on the clothes line. Had to do PT10 5 times. PT10 is starjump, for those who don't know. One evening, my friends and I were late for games roll call by 1 minute and this one particular female trainer from Bravo made a big deal about it (I have always dislike her, for reasons). As we were preparing to run down the hill for the punishment that calls for running up and down the hill no less than 3 cycles, a group of girls from Bravo emerged from the girls accom. gate. They were late by 7 minutes and we were saved.

You know this thing about certain girl skipping the prayer under the pretense that their Nippon flag is up. If you know, you should also know that they are not smart people. If you are smart, there should be no suspicion, and the others wouldn't have to bear insulting treatment as well. Anyway, we didn't get maltreated because of these dumb people. We are close to but we escaped with all the Muslim girls starjumping together in their telekung under the clear starry nightsky. Nowhere would you see such thing except for in PLKN.

Every company has their own flag, cheers and second name. Only the former is physical, thus we have to really take care of it. Means to say it has to always be with somebody, even during holiday. All 4 companies were so excited on our first holiday that we totally forgot the flag. For my company, it was the boys' turn to take care of the flag. They put it at. the. corner.of.the.dorm. Basically, they put it where they live in camp. You would think that under the roof and within the walls that you live in is the safest place to put the flag. Not the case in PLKN though. We returned to see all four flags waving side by side at the top of the tallest peak in our camp, the helipad hill.

Talking about helipad, boys who were caught with cigarette have to run from the office up to the helipad and return down. With a catch of course. They have to do it with 2 cigarettes sticking out from their nostrils.
In my camp, even wearing the cap with the front in other direction calls for punishment. My girls and I were instructed to walk in the direction where the front sticking out. Some walked reversedly, some obliquely. To make it more meaningful, we were caught and punished in the middle of mess hall.

I guess I was OK during camp. Explains why I am running out of the idea of which other punishment were done in camp. I know the boys, all of them got into big trouble after some boys stole a box of tangerine from the vice commandant's Mercz. It was afternoon, right after we returned from our Ekspedisi Wira Jaya. They might have been asked to do knuckle body pumping on the hot tarmac, maybe less, maybe more. And my company did the knuckle body pumping thing at 3 pm, on the sizzling hot tarmac for fun practise, so I know how 'nice' it is.

The Life of Taugeh

When I hit puberty, I grow vertically and out of all my clothes. I tried to hide my ankle and pulled on my shirt for few months before I went to my parents and tell them I desperately need to makeover my wardrobe. And then, everybody started to notice that you are head and shoulders above the average person.

People started telling me that I should be a model and in Form 3 (I mean, with my face?), my girlfriends took turn to walk next to me. Reason being, they are practising to walk next to their boyfriend/ future boyfriend. I am really glad to be of help when reaching for tall places or deep pool. My friends were all petite and sometime I just feel stupid towering over them. If you have to arrange for sitting or standing spot, you'll either get the best spot or the suckest one. Usually, it's the latter one. Thing is I am only long legs, my upper half is just average, so imagine that I have to sit at the back for years

You don't stress out when shopping because I have to admit that most things look good on tall girl. People rarely notice if I put on weight, so the situation is rather precarious because you tend to over eat. Sometime, I want to ditch my flat shoes but considering the situation, I always found myself in the same humble flats. People will make you their shield and some will make you think that being tall is a crime. Actually, being tall is not a crime. The people who don't want to sit or walk next to you is just having inferiority complex. You will always be few steps forward and people will always tell you you can walk faster because your leg is long or they would simply say they don't walk next to you because you are too tall.

But then, the pros outweigh the cons. I just hope my man won't be intimidated by my height. Actually, I don't need such man. It's live and let's live. =)

I Am Listening

This presentation is about colorectal carcinoma but I'll talk to you also about anus because I suppose your contact with anus is poor

I laughed out loud. Alone.

DrMilano said "Not contact with your own anus"

-DrMilano 2012-

When we were writing the credit test, which actually take only 5-7 minutes, DrMialno suddenly asked everyone "Have any of you passed the test?"

Everyone was speechless like have we been found out of collecting past year papers? Is he being sarcastic?

But after his 3rd same question, we get it that he wanted to know if we already finished the test. I assure you that he is an excellent doctor though. You can treat the language part as a humor.