A Doc's Life is a underground Medical Blog about some poor Singapore doctors. They are sibei sian and very buay song. Best practices not observed!
(Warning: Grammar is non existent in this blog. Those obsessively compulsive about good English please go no further and book an appointment to see your psychiatrist in Singapore.)

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Toilet Games Part 2

Someone left a comment that PJ / pang jio / urinating takes only a short time and the doctor should just go ahead. Of course not every lokun will hold his bladder for his patients (sounds darn wrong but I have no other way of putting this across). I have caught Medical Officers leaving halfway during their clinics to eat fishball noodles in the market across the road while their patients were waiting for them. For me, I really don't like to keep my patients waiting. When I go for my own medical appointments, I go on time and I expect to be seen on time. Likewise I try my best to accord the same courtesy to my patients.

A full clinic runs for about 4 hours. You would think that it is actually quite reasonable for a toilet break of 15 minutes to be included in a typical clinic schedule. But the hard truth is that in Singapore, none of the clinics in public hospital have toilet breaks scheduled. In fact the administrators like to double book or triple book a slot. Which means you are always trying to catch up and there is really no time to go pang jio la. It is not like Dr Og never feedback about toilet breaks to senior management but they just laugh in my face. You can't hold your urine, you better not be a doctor :(

Say I bochap that the patients wait until frustrated and still leave the room to pang jio pang sai, the patients see you leave the room dunno go where sure even more pek chek. Wah like dat sure tiok complain. But it is also quite strange for the clinic staff to broadcast through the PA system, "Dr Og from Room 10 going toilet ar, tolong tolong you all wait a while. He tahan a few hours already."

Some clinics also don't have staff toilets. So you quickly cheong out of the room, avoid the stares of all your patients waiting, cheong into the toilet, start PJing into the urinal, only to realise the person next to you in the next urinal is your patient! Worse, he looks over to your side and says, "wah lokun you very stress isit, stream very weak leh."

You get my point la.

For the above reasons, I prefer to just finish my clinic before attending to my physical urges. But hor, sometimes it is sibei irritating when patients are already late (by alot alot) and when you try to call them in for the consults, the nurse tells you that they have gone to the toilet. Some lagi jialat ones will even go makan first! Wah lau, hospital toilet and canteen very nice meh?

But then I suppose its wrong to expect patients to hold their urine like their doctors. After all, we have years of training through:

1) Medical Student: long boring lectures with super fierce lecturer who will kill you with their stares if you walk out
2) Junior Doctors: Super long ward rounds with lagi fierce Consultants who will kill you if you walk off from the round
3) Senior Doctors: Super long meetings with Chief Medical Board and/or Chief Executive Officer who will kill you if you walk off in the middle of their motherhood statements

(Please do not try to emulate these stunts at home. Like I say, doctors have had special training.)


4 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:11 PM

    Actually u all lokun quite funny one..on one hand tell us patients don't hold bladder long long hor, wait get bladder infection, hold some more get kidney infection, very terok one, very hard to treat. Lagi worse, if still hold long long time some more can get kidney stones ar, pain worse than give birth and must go stay in hospital. We also think it's good advice so we follow lor. But then u all leh, like lau hero or what? must challenge see who can hold bladder longest. Aiyah, I actually quite pity u all, actually my specialist lokun I think, hor decided to leave for private sector, because now got nice staff toilet and not so many patients to see, so can go PJ anytime. I think ar, no chance to PJ must be one reason why the good lokuns decided to quit garmen hospital la.
    Btw, thanks for great article:) Got part 3 some more or not?

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  2. Sometimes to engrossed blogging and forget to pang jio :P

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  3. Anonymous9:19 AM

    you are one funny doc/blogger..:-)

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    1. using an adjective like humorous would have been more reassuring... but thanks anyway :)

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