5 Types of Medical Colleagues You Love to Hate

Dr Og tries to be positive but sometimes the serotonin receptors in the brain gets a little short circuited and you can't help but can't stand some of your fellow colleagues.

1. The Pseudo-Researcher

This dude was basically a chow mugger in school. When people were chasing skirts, he was chasing paper. So when he became a lokun and has gotten his name on as many degree as he can, he tries to get his names on journals. He does not care if he has any right to any database and will bulldoze his way to generating papers for journals even if he offended the rest of the world. Most of his papers would be case reports of no scientific value as he will not spend too much time doing good solid studies. After all he just gian to see his name on paper.

2. The Sneaky Bastard

Remember that JC classmate that told you he never finished studying for the exams and still topped the class? Remember the time he said he did really badly in the exams and ended up with an A when the results came out. That classmate of yours is probably a doctor now! Instead of being sneaky about his studies, he is now sneaky about his work. He doesn't share his notes for the MRC(Whatever) or M.Med Exams. He will borrow all of the senior's notes and tell you he lost it. He will chope exam leave before the posting even starts. He pretends to go for evening rounds but ends up assisting the HOD in the operation of the decade while you slough like hell in the ward. As he get more senior, he keeps news of research grants, training programmes, overseas conferences and any other opportunities to himself, even if he does not need them. He will suck up to the boss, get an A* for his TPM and tells you he got a B. He is sneaky because he is selfish. Just like back in JC days.

3. The Learned Colleague

Some say that learning is a lifelong process. But this people take it too literally (may be due to some frontal lobe lesions). They seem to be forever away for courses and training. However, they are never able to apply what they have learnt in real clinical practice in that few days you see them in the wards or the clinics. Your Boss may however be quite impressed with their insatiable quest for knowledge. Unbeknownst to him, these people will suck up the department training fund, make absolutely no contribution and bring their knowledge to their grave.

4. The BCC Char Bor

This is a bit of a sad case. Call it uglism but you cannot bin chow chow (face black black) if you are not bin swee swee (face pretty pretty). Typically, the BCC colleague is a female who just have to black face everyone. It may be that she steps on shit every morning or that she had some very traumatic experience during childhood. But whatever it is, she puts up that "you owe me money" kind of facies day in day out, to juniors, to peers and to seniors. The whole team cannot stand her but she does not seem to care. The only time she will smile at you is when she needs a really big favour from you. Sometimes, some idiot may defend her in the department and induce guilt in you by saying that if she is pretty, you would not be so upset with her. Do not feel guilty about it! This is real life, if you ain't pretty or handsome, then be nice. Prolonged PMS is not your birthright.

5. The Super Duper Bastard

Some people have it all! Its probably in the genes. Every decade or so, the stars align and the super duper bastard is spawned. He is the pseudo researcher who chases every paper qualification and writes stupid papers regardless of the scientific value (of which you sometimes have to review if he submits to the local journals). He is the sneaky bastard who uses rejected submissions to journal and sends them for overseas conferences as posters. He uses up all the department training fund to go for these overseas conferences and is thick skin enough to buay paiseh still go for lots of local courses. He may be a she and if back in the department for that few days annually from her long sponsored trips and courses,  she will show you her BCC!!

Service Quality

Dr Og is still a bit sore over the fake 20% pay rise saga. You see, in a recent wedding I went to, a IT friend exclaimed loudly, "Wah! 20 % pay rise ar!!"

I took great pains to explain that "no lah", its at best 5% per annum, lest the bride and groom expect a corresponding increase in the ang bow!

Another issue that arise during the recent saga was the introduction of the Service Quality Komponent. Lets just say Dr Og is a great proponent of solid service. Some doctors don't seem to realise or they die die don't want to believe that medicine is basically just a service industry. Yes, doctors (of all grades) tend to have a messiah complex and think that they are doing what they are doing to save lives. But honestly, even saving lives is a form of service, is it not?

And it is not only the patients we are serving. We also serve our Bosses. These days things may have changed with Residency but when I was a Houseman, I was the biggest service provider since I served all the patients and was at the beck and call of everyone else in the team from the Medical Officer to the Senior Consultant. We had to buy coffee, run errants and play flower pot during meal times with Senior Cons who needed his ego soothed with a big entourage. More often than not, we also tio raped and kennah bwat guyou on our gluteus region by our seniors. At times, we had to go karaoke and it is rumoured that some female HOs also provide extra service. Hahaha...

You wouldn't blame me if I were to tell you that I felt like a prostitute as a HO, the similarity in that we had to service anyone and everyone, being the lowest life form in the hospital food chain. And when I became more senior, I often had to use this analogy to correct the attitude of some yaya papaya HOs or interns.

But on deliberation with one of my senior doctor one day, he concluded that the term prostitute may not be most appropriate for obvious reasons. He reckoned, "I think we are more like...... Geishas!"

卖 艺 不卖身！What wisdom :)

Gostun!

Gostun is the Singlay (Singapore Malay) word for reversing.

Eg. Lai. Gar Gar (dare dare) gostun your car!

Gostun can also be used metaphorically to mean a reversal of any kind. Today, Apple made a super gostun! Just as everyone anticipated a iPad 3 or iPad HD, Apple song song released the new iPad as "iPad". Aiyoh, how can???

While analyst confirm that this will not affect the sales of the new iPad, it does pose a serious problem. Imagine this scenerio.
HO: wah Boss, new iPad ar?
Consultant: Are you asking if this is a brand new original version of iPad or a new new version of iPad?

Evidently, when nomenclature kennah gostun, communications can become a problem and our ward rounds shall never end. Of course the only reason why the Consultant bought the new iPad is because he believed he was going to get a pay raise. But as the saying goes, do not count your eggs before they are hatched. In the land of ever changing constitution, it should be "do not count your eggs until the chicken grows up".

Firstly, the lokuns struggling in lokun chu were told they could expect a 10-30% per raise in their basic pay in April this year. Then as announced here, they say and I quote:

"The new framework will be implemented in phases and doctors will, on average, see an increase in total compensation of around 20 per cent by 2014.

Phase One will commence next month, and doctors will start to receive their pay raise according to their job levels.

Associate consultants in hospitals will get an increase equivalent to 20 per cent of their base salary, while consultant family physicians in polyclinics will get a 10 per cent raise.

Doctors will receive further increases when the framework is fully implemented in 2014.

Dentists' pay will also be adjusted."

 Dr Og always readily admit that my England no powderful but I would assume that the passage means that in April, ACs will get a 20 percent increase to their base salary, etc. Dentist of course we don't care la. There are so few in public sector and they are not even real doctors :P

But for those who have been briefed by the men in black from the ministry next to a lokun chu, our pay raise also kennah gostun liao! Apparently, in April, we will only get some funny component which the above said people refuse to commit to. Wah biang, whats this? Early April fool joke ar?

Wei! Don't like that can or not? My lao pek, lao bu, wife and kids all read in newspaper big big that I will get 20% pay raise. But actually boh leh. How I explain to them? Wait my wife think I keep mistress and never bring the dough home how? Wait I really already keep mistress and cannot upkeep her how? Wait I preorder the iPad, engrave name, cannot even sell in eBay liao, how?

医生们，有没有被骗的感觉？

Bodies

When we talk about bodies, as lokuns, we automatically think about the dead cold ones we send to the mortuary.

But these days, the buzz is really about what hospital administrators like to call "warm bodies".

Sorry la, Dr Og dunno what  warm bodies are... simi lai eh? Are warm bodies those not yet cold but will eventually turn rigor mortis? Or do warm bodies belong to hot girls who have somehow gain 10kg after marriage and child birth?

And how often has it been that we hear our bosses and senior management talk about getting warm bodies for the department. We need warm bodies here, warm bodies there, warm bodies no enough. A warm body is better than no body.

When I did a literature search (on Google of course), the following definition turned up:
 n.
just anyone who can be counted on to stay alive. : See if you can get a couple of warm bodies to stand at the door and hand out programs.(1)

When I look around the office, I see a horde of warm bodies prevented from decomposition by air-conditioning set at a ridiculously low temperature; set to be turned off by these very warm bodies after they have left work while the rest of us continue to slough and suffocate to death. They don't do any real work. Some may pretend to press on the keyboard, some may be blatantly watching youtube and most are just making nonsensical updates on their facebook status .

So gahmen say they will flush healthcare with hard cold cash and so all the hospitals die die gotta employ or deal with losing funding later on. But lemme tell you, warm bodies will do more harm than good (unless they belong to the hot girls before childbearing!):

1) They are space occupying lesions. Warm bodies take up space. Even if they have nothing to do, you gotta give them a place to sit, or at least stand right?

2) They will kill morale. Soon everyone, even the good guys, will want to be a warm body coz there is nothing to do and you can still draw pay.

3) Membership is for life. In healthcare no one ever gets fired. When u ever see anyone dismissed tio boh? Once inside, the warm bodies will stay there forever.

4) Warm bodies have NO insight. They think they are the best workers around. They believe that they should get an 'A' grade for deceptively looking busy and getting in the way of those who are doing real work.

5) Warm bodies cannot be trained. Its a fallacy that warm bodies can be trained to do work. If they can do work, you will realize it during the job interview or at least on the first day of work (and therefore they will not be labelled warm bodies).

So don't just hire for the sake of hiring. Especially in healthcare where its a matter of life and death. If they don't deserve to be a specialist, fail them during residency. If they don't perform up to standard, send them back where they came from. Don't let our healthcare system become diabetic; hyperglycaemic but you can't digest the sugar.


Wah got Reference Sia!
(1) http://dictionary.reference.com/idioms/warm+body