Non-Medically Medical Dilemmas

In medicine, there is always sibei alot of dilemmas one. Use this drug can save patient but hor she will get fat, come back scold you jailat jialat. So how ar? You tell her about side effect or not? You know girls they rather die than fat!

But today, Dr Og not talk about this type medical cheem cheem or ethical type of dilemmas. In a doctor's life there can sometimes be very peculiar and special types of dilemmas.

When Dr Og was a (fake) junior small lokun, I always amazed by some of the senior doctors the hair like helmet one. Some like Darth Vader pattern. Some like birds nest. But all got pattern. When we xiao yi sheng, usually not so hiao la because no time for anything. When your medical school girlfriend don't even have time or bother to pluck their armpit hair and their hair more chor (coarse) than yours, you also paiseh to gel your hair until so nice just to go to school, tio boh?

But later when you more senior then hor start to change, will comb hair nice nice and wear nice shirts and Burberrryyyy ties. Senior liao, must play the part and look the part lor. Or not, not pro(fessional) leh.

In Medicine decorum is very important and held to the highest standards!

But then because of this comes the dilemmas!

1) If you are on call at home and they tell you patient will soon be admitted liao from A and E...
- Do you stay awake and wait for the phone call (never ever go down hospital coz patients sometimes don't make it from the A and E. ((I mean they decide to go home and not get admitted la))), OR
- You catch a nap only to have to be awakened again!

2) If, in the same case, you get awakened up to attend to the non urgent case in the ward liao,
-Do you brush your teeth, take a bath, comb and gel your hair nice nice OR
- You go looking like you just woke up, with hair very luan and with bad breath?

3) If you are in the middle of talking to the patient in the ward or in a clinic session and you need to lao sai...
- Do you lun and finish the consult (but let out some farts coz those really cannot lun one) OR
- You tell patient "Sorry ar, tak boleh tahan, and run off to the toilet?"

4) When your junior on call with you proved herself to be incompetent (which is why you had to be awakened in the middle of the night)  and you gave her a piece of your mind (bad breath included)  cries in the toilet and refuse to come out post call...
- Do you say sorry and buy her chocolates OR
- Do you tell her she is not fit to be doctor and please go find another job.

5) If your Prof has a a lot to say and say and say and you are going to be late for your one year old's birthday celebration...
- Do you excuse yourself and risk offending him OR
- Do stealthily text your wife that you are going to be late and know that you are going to get it from her.

6) If the female medical student leaned too close to you (maybe coz you started combing you hair and now more yandao) and you feel something soft,
-Do you educate her about observing good personal space at work and risk social awkwardness OR
- Do you just keep quiet? (and also keep very very still and avoid any #metoo misunderstanding)

And last but most annoying,

7) If you have seen the patient in the ward and returned home at 2am.
Do you bath and wash your hair coz OCD? OR
Bath but don't wash hair coz the hair will be wet? OR
Don't bath and just jump into bed with germs and gel-on-hair and all???????

Hmmmmmm....

Gender Bias Part I

The Radiologist held up the request form and his hand was shaking. He was reading the form as he would a X-ray, against the light of the ceiling. I made a mental note that radiology was a discipline I would never consider, given that the radiologists I've met so far, half a year into my Housemanship, were nothing short of coo coo.

"You can go and tell your consultant there is no way I will do this!!! This is ridiculous!!! There is no urgency!!!!" He bellowed.

I wasn't particularly flustered given that this sort of treatment was a day in day out affair to me by now. It was just that I could not stand his stale cigarette smelling breath in my face. I uttered some apology and had wanted to leave. After all, I've done my part. The consultant wanted me to kamikaze and I had kamikazed (君要臣死 臣不得不死). The Radiologist had a rejection rate of almost a 100% for urgent requests and there was a 100% risk of getting at least an angry stare of disapproval if not the more common hairdryer treatment of being yelled at.

Unfortunately, he was not done with me yet.

"And it is not COOP LOOP, you....... It's COPE LOOP!!!!! You think chicken coop?!!! You......"

Ummm, the dark dingy radiology department did somewhat remind me of a chicken coop.... Freudian slip, my bad.

He took out a marker, drew several lines across "coop" and then wrote the word "cope" across the whole of the A4 sized request form. As he handed the form back to me, he hesitated for a while. Realizing that the nurses might misconstrue that he had agreed to the procedure since his distinct handwriting (and his distinct stale cigarette smell) was spluttered across the request, he tore the form into two before giving it back to me.

As I was to exit the radio department, my pager unsurprisingly rang and I had to make a call back to the ward. A female house officer strolled in and waved a big hello to the Radiologist. His deep frown turned into a crooked smile and they started chatting. I wouldn't say that his hands was all over her, but they were close enough. She then took out a request form in a by-the-way manner and he happily signed it without even so much as to glance on it (his eyes were on [the wrong parts of] her).

I waited for the female HO outside. She was a good friend.

"Wanna go quickly grab some dinner before going on-call?" I asked her and she nodded.

"Wah you damn power. You know, I'm still a 100% reject rate!"

"Next time wear a skirt la!" She said.

Moral of the story: unless you are wearing a skirt, don't expect your busy fellow male HO to wait for you for dinner.

Fresh Off The Boat

Wah! Today the news NUS student got punished for making freshmen orientation look like lup sup bar! Actually what did they do huh? The picture on the ST website shows the freshmen dancing line dance niah. The article also mention the Arts Faculty got student kennah kar chng bua gu you (butter backside) for simulating rape during orientation? Wah really karma lor. Some say these the ginnahs kennah punished very buay kum wan since these were traditions pass down by seniors. Wah lau, you NUS elitistest (I invent this word one elitist plus -est), senior tell you to jump then you jump meh?

Dr Og is genuinely quite disturbed since I have a daughter. Also nowadays boys all very weak. If son kennah groped (by other boys) during orientation also will get traumatised. But lets leave the future aside, Dr Og's daughter still small, and reminisce about the past......

Long long time ago, Dr Og was also an undergrad freshman. Sadly, my orientation was also traumatising but no where near so happening as the Arts Fac people leh.

When you join the medicine orientation, first and foremost is disappointment. Somehow, most of the chio girls fail medicine interview and all go dentistry. Left maybe one or two not bad ones. To begin with already not so many girls coz that era got quota for female medicine undergrad. By orientation time, the few pretty girls (actually only two) already chope liao. There was a medicamp where I suppose is orientation for orientation and those girls got hitched liao. Dr Og of course din attend, wah lau, army not enough camping ar????). And so begins a merry go round of inbreeding.

What did we do in the medicine orientation as freshman? There was no hanky panky. There was no simulated games of any kind. There was no lewd cheers. Boy, was it traumatisingly boring! Actually, we were making some float (the Chingay float kind of float) for Rag and Flag. Build some imaginary boat which is mounted on a motor vehicle is already very boh liao, but to have to build some Disney themed float is as regressive as it gets. I thought we go Uni to become adults? At least do some Sci Fi or Horror, Vampire vs  Alien design la (last time no Zombies yet, now I sure suggest Zombie apocalypse float).

So Dr Og decided just stay under radar and quiet quiet follow instructions. I quietly stick colour papers (and pray silently for all the unnecessarily dead trees) on the float but then suddenly, this self appointed as leader skinny girl come and scold me.

"Why you tear the paper never use scissors to cut??!!!" She screamed at me.

Hello aunty, the judges sit how far away look at your float? You think they can see the paper is cut or torn meh?

The girl buay song went to complain to a senior year two medic who was some mad socks president. He came over and attempted to ask me to use the scissors. I picked up the scissors, put it in his hands and told him, own time own target, carry on. Senior tell me to cut then I cut meh? I flip my motorola clam shell phone open, call my buddy Ah Bui, "Bro meet you Arts canteen eat beef kway teow!" There sure more happening!

NB: The point of the story? If you blind blind choose to follow tradition and do what your seniors did, then don't kpkb when you kar chng tiok bua gu you!

Toilet Games Part 3

Eventually, as a doctor working in the public sector, you become senior, a.k.a. lau kok kok  and lor sor, and you will be expected to do admin work. Already, no time to even go toilet liao, still got to do admin work!!!??? I also wondered why they hire health administrators if lokuns still have to do all these non clinical work.

If you think admin work is about filling this form and that form niah, then you are wrong. Admin work can range from simple (but endlessly tedious) things like claiming transport to sitting through (endlessly endless) meetings for another IT project, another CEO's bright idea or another dinner and dance committee. 

Believe it or not, Dr Og was once the team lead for an improvement project for clinic renovation. As a doctor I of course focused on how to improve patient safety and workflow, but it slowly became quite clear that the administrators had other agendas on their mind!

It seems the senior management had decreed that special attention be given to a certain area in the clinic. 

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.

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The Toilet.

Before you think they so good, want to reno the toilets nice nice for staff, let me clarify that it was quickly decided that staff will have those single cubicle UNISEX toilets. (more on unisex toilets next time!) Their concern was really the public toilets for patients. And if you think they are so concerned about the welfare or comfort of patients, think again! 

The toilet is indeed an important and strategic area for a public outpatient clinic. Based on many previous surveys done, administrators have identified that how good the toilets are in the clinic is directly related to how well the clinic fares in satisfaction surveys. Yes it is proven once again that patients do not go clinics to see doctor but actually to use the jamban!

So the whole improvement project was spent discussing where the toilet should be situated and finding the balance between having enough privacy in the toilet versus ensuring that a person who collapses in the toilet would be noticed. You mean patients come clinic and spend most of the time in the toilet meh? Is that the reason why I can never find them when I buzz their queue number?? And yes, must have queue numbers displayed conspicuously so that if they see their number flash, they can quickly get to their clinic room (without flashing, wiping backside and washing hands...) for their appointment.

At the end of the day, one joker actually recommended that we take a gemba walk (walk the ground) in the toilet. Honestly, I didn't know how that was NOT going to freak our patients out. Group of doctors and administrators entering the toilet to look at the process flow for their defecating ways. As the team lead and only rational member of the project, I vetoed this of course.

Plus, Dr Og already got no time for toilet breaks and now you want me go toilet but NOT to pang jio!!???!???! You must be kidding...

To celebrate the screening of Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Dr Og change all the toilet series posts to Toilet Games. See below for more instalments of the Toilet GameS!

Toilet Games Part 1

Toilet Games Part 2

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.)

Toilet Games Part 1

From "http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/donatahuggins/100166145/owen-jones-the-new-dave-spart-fearlessly-champions-the-right-to-proper-toilet-breaks/"

Dr Og often feels that one of my duty as a doctor is to dissuade others from joining this terrible profession. If you read my past posts, you would have realised that most of them are horror stories meant to give young impressionable pre-university (I don't dare say JC or not wait say I elitist) youths nightmares on the very mention of medical school. So here goes another one...

As a medical student, it became very apparent quite quickly that to be a good doctor, you have to be quite in control of your feelings. There can be emotional feelings and there can be physical feelings. Even as medical students, we became desensitised to emotions rapidly and soon acted like numb and unfeeling robots. It serves its purpose well when you have to tend to emergencies like resuscitation. You would rather be remembering resus algorithm and dripping sweat than to be all emo and shedding tears. After all, its enough that the nurses are already running around in panic like headless chickens. They are allowed to but as a doctor you ARE NOT. Period.

Whilst Dr Og never had much difficulty controlling my tears (as men we sooner shed blood of the non menstrual kind), I cannot say the same about controlling other orifices where fluids may overflow. Yes, this sounds gross but my blog has never been meant for the weak hearted and you chose to read this, did you not.....

Physical sensations are sometimes almost impossible to control. One day, I was sitting in an orthopaedic clinic as a 4th year medical student and the clinic ran from 9am to 1:45pm. During this time, the kopi-O-gow I had earlier was working its diuretic wonders. But those were the days when you guai guai sit in the clinic room to wait for the doctor you were tagging to come and left the room only after they left first. Going anywhere during the clinic session will earn you cold hard stares from the doctor and nurse and so going to Pang Jio (urinate) was never an option!

At the end of the clinic, the surgeon had obviously noticed my urgency from the frequent crossing of legs to aid my urethral sphincter. He patted my back and said, "You know, to be a good doctor you have to be able to hold your urine and tahan hunger! You will be ok next time. Come let me buy you a sandwich for lunch then we start afternoon clinic in ten minutes"

But..... er, Sir... Can I go for a toilet break first.

You know, last time when matah wore shorts......

You see, as people get older, they like to talk a lot about the past. One of the things that junior trainees get most frightened of is kennah stuck with the lao kok kok professor or senior consultant. 

If you are lucky, you may be listening to his life story for the first time in a nice restaurant over lunch. He will tell you how he struggled through a poor family and had to study with a candle. Nevertheless, he managed to get into medicine and eventually became the godfather of the fraternity. He will tell you how he had wanted to be in another speciality but fate has it that he was rejected and therefore he is in the present one (which explains why he hates a certain speciality so much). At times (if you are really lucky) he will share how he eventually fell out with his long time teacher and mentor or how he used to be best buddies with another prof but he cheated/ framed/ made used of him. Sometimes (if you are really really lucky), he will tell you how he had wished for his son to follow his footsteps but he did just the opposite. All these are really interesting and gives you a perspective into why so and so cannot be seated in the same table during the faculty dinner. This also may just keep you out of trouble by preventing you from offending one prof because you openly praised the other.

If you are unlucky, you may just have been caught by the prof at the corridor and you are standing there listening to the same story for the nth time. You know exactly what the prof is going to tell you next as you have already (by passive diffusion) memorise his whole life story. You are post call, tired but you seem to be nodding as if you are interested. Actually, your tired neck muscles can no longer hold your head in place and you are just falling asleep. At times (if you are really unlucky), you may really need to go pass urine but the prof just does not recognise the urgency (pun intended) in your contorted facial expression. Sometimes (if you are really really unlucky), his unfilial son has stood him up for dinner again and he invites you to continue the conversation at the same damn restaurant (so that he can continue the torture). All these putting up with the prof is necessary as he still yields power in the fraternity. This may also be the only reason you are still surviving as you have managed somehow to offend the other prof and guru in the speciality. But this one likes you as you are the only probably the only one who listens to his story.

If you are a girl, you may be with the (humsup) prof in the Alumni Building... but that is another story for another day... not sure lucky or unlucky... haha...

Mai Jiak Yok!

Lokun: Uncle you drink alcohol?

Ah Pek: Ya, I lim jiu with my kah kee at the kopi tiam every night. Song song drink until midnight den go home. You know la, dun wan hear the wife nag nag nag.

Lokun: Smoking?

Ah Pek: Wah I smoke more than 30 years. You dun ask me quit ok. They say too old quit smoking can die one! Now hun kee very ex, I only smoke one pack a day niah.

After completing the rest of the clerking...

Lokun: Uncle, looks like your condition like that need to take medicine. This one you take one tablet twice a day.

Ah Pek: Wah... like that ar... Mai jiak yok er sai boh (Don't take medicine can or not?). You know western medicine got a lot of side effects. You see the bottle here write POISON! Jiak liao sure tiok tiao! Will dependant cannot come off.

Lokun: No la. This medicine ok one. Anyway your condition needs it.

Ah Pek: Mai la mai la. Medicine no good one. Got anything natural or not??

It often fascinates Dr Og how patients are so paranoid towards "Western medicines". It is of course true that medications have side effects (sometimes severe) and drug companies have in the past attempted to play down on the side effects. But it really irks me when people who smoke and drink tell me they are afraid of taking medications (for fear of dependency and ill effects). Seriously? With all that addictive poison that you are already putting into yourself?

Now, if they stop smoking and drinking, they may actually not need the medications. 

IT sibei Ho!

Recently my friend who was in charge of the IT implementation of his department told me that the new electronic medical record system is sibei solid.

Well, Dr Og suay suay kennah do IT systems in hospital many years. All I can say is that my youth was wasted (sob sob...) and the time spent evaluating IT systems for the hospital could have been better spent surfing the net for boh liao things (at least that would have brought me some joy tio boh?).

Anyway, since we good friends, I entertain him and ask him why so solid leh?

"You know ar, this time the system hospital want to buy is very customisable. Last time all the systems have to input this input that but this one no need! Means ar the old old lokuns who only want to write a few words in the electronic notes can be easily done. So the lao lokun can just type 'NAD' for notes can liao wor!"

Apparently, this current system costs a few million bucks unlike the cheap cheap ones we evaluated in the past. Understandably, it is more time consuming to be typing notes rather than writing them on paper when seeing patients.

Hmmmm, but to pay few millions so that we can over ride the system to type less...

Hmmmm, nothing that can't be done with simple paper and pen...

IT sibei ho ar!

I rest my case.

Never Learn

Some nice reader left a comment that I must be busy as I have not been blogging recently. To be honest Dr Og had been quite boh eng... this game called Candy Crush has been really sucking up all my time.
Since I kennah stuck at some stupid stage now, I thought take a break.

In between games, Dr Og somemore got to go queue up at MacDonalds... at first for Hello Kitty then the Minions. Really sibei boh eng ar...

The worst thing was when queueing up for Hello Kitty some more got haze! It was really terrible queueing up in the N95 mask and having flashbacks of SARs days.

So while I queue here and queue there, a good friend who works in hospital admin called me.

"Eh brother, you got N95 masks or not?"He ask me.

"Yah la, still got some."Dr Og is a hoarder and I still have those 10 year old N95 masks from SARS days.

"Ooi, don't mind pass me some can?"He pleaded.

"But I thought you work in public hospital, how come no mask ar?" I was puzzled.

"Yah la, the hospital short and now cannot sell to staff...." He replied angrily.

"Wah liao!"

In the end I gave away all my N95s and had to use my recycled nuar nuar (rotten) one.

So it seems, always like that loh. Masks no enough, don't take care of own people and panic only when things happen.... what is new.

Thank You

After a long while in a place, Dr Og decided that it was time to move on. And when you are no longer useful to an organization, you suddenly realise how much they really do care about you..... they don't. Well, it can be rather disconcerting and sad, especially when this Dr is narcissistic and suffers ego bruising easily, but as the Chinese saying goes, short pain better than long pain.

So here I was sitting at my new office opening up envelopes and in one of them I found a thank you card. It was from a patient (from my previous hospital) and his family wishing me all the best. I'm sure the little kiddo was made to sign the card rather unwillingly. Hahaha. It was a nice simple card with a nice simple message.

But seeing the card, I knew that the time I spent in my previous organization was not all in vain (wished I've done less silly admin work though).

Thank you for the card, it was important for me :)

Dr Og's Off-White Paper on Preparing Singapore Healthcare for 6.9 Million People

Dr Og is apolitical and will not comment on the quality of toilet paper in public hospitals let alone the recent White Paper on Population. Honestly Dr Og is a small lokun with little helicopter perspective and the last time I comment on TCM also tio scolded... haiz

Anyway, whether in 2030 we got lak bak gao chup ban lang (6.9 mil) or not, Dr Og thinks we better start preparing our healthcare system and hospitals. Don't goondu goondu buy super tight skinny jeans and discover after Chinese New Year all the goodies cannot wear liao, right!!??!!

So Dr Og presents his:

Off-White Paper on Preparing Singapore Healthcare for 6.9 Million People (And A Core of 3 Million Singaporeans).

1. Health Promotion

HPB monkey! Source: HPB loh

Health Promotion Board has always been very solid in providing educational materials to promote good health and well being. From animals to vegetables, their adverts (almost) always strike a cord with fellow Singaporeans. In fact I think they are well prepared because the mascots they use are very international, like generic elephant, giraffe and monkey instead of recognizable local species like orang utan or dugong. So our ever increasing international crowd will have no problems identifying with these beasts.

However, in my Off-White Paper, I will like to propose having overseas health promotion! After all by 2030, most of our residents will be foreigners. It will be too late for any brainwashing form of health promotion by the time they are parachuted in at their middle age. And don't you want to see those HPB monkeys speaking in Tagalog?

2. Training of Doctors
If you are not in the medical line, you may not know that postgraduate / specialist training for doctors has undergone a major change in the past few years. We have cleverly adopted the American system of residency training (think Dr Doug Ross (George Clooney) in ER or Dr Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) in Grey's Anatomy). That's cool right? Particularly when we are becoming a really international nation.

What is even more cool is that while the old training trains doctor to be fast and accurate when seeing patients, the new residency programme allows the trainee doctors to slowly take their time. But with 6.9 million where got time, tio boh?

Therefore in the new residency, not only need to learn how to see patients fast fast, also need to learn to hold urine and skip lunch. The exams will not be about clinical work but how long your bladder can tahan before you need to use rubber band (for guys, for girls, can someone from the female sex advise?). Indeed, with 6.9 million people, there will just be people(not urine or faeces) overflowing toilets lor!

3. Improvements in Hospitals
3a. Increasing Hospital Beds

Hospital Beds in 2030!

Given that there is simply a lack of hospital beds now with just 5.3 million people, there needs to be innovative ways of increasing hospital beds! We are already parking beds on corridors. So Dr Og suggest triple decker beds! Never mind if its so crowded until like those 雾锁南洋 (The Awakening) refugee boats! By then we all will be so use to being pack like sardine and be totally desensitized!

Since there are so many water features and ponds in hospitals, we can also have floating beds on them. So patients can now truly enjoy the soothing sound of water running. These luxurious water beds will of course only be opened up to rich private patients.

3b. Translators

Being truly international, we need to hire translators. No, we do not need translators for the various South Asian or exotic European languages. First we need English to English translators. Strangely in the hospital, everyone speaks English but nobody seem to understand each others' English because of the accent. For eg. we will need a translator for someone to translate Indian English to Singlish or from American English to Filipino English. The combinations are scarily more than Street Fighter 4 combos and we need to hire translators now!!!

Secondly, we will also of course need translators for our local spoken languages and dialects as we will soon be the minority. Even now, our ah pek ah emmm are having a hard time communicating with the medical staff in the wards and clinics!

4. Engage TCM and  other traditional healers
My last suggestions. Get TCM and traditional healers to help out! Sure, they don't practice evidence based medicine but so what? There are 6.9 million people can?!! And all deserve some form of medical help right?

Mostly, I'm adding this in to appease the dude who posted an angry comment on my TCM expose. :)

My humble thoughts on the SMRT Strike 2012

So now they officially call it a strike. And as you know, strikes are illegal in Singapore.

Nowadays COE so expensive, Dr Og also gotta take public transport. Compared to many countries, our transport system is very steady (bom bi bi) liao loh. In some countries, strikes are so common that they become a part of daily living. But usually, you have local people buay song their gahmen unlike in our case.

The Straits Times yesterday (not me hor) aptly pointed out  that Singapore is so reliant on foreign labour and talent even in healthcare sector.This to me is quite scary.

If strike how?

As we approach the ten years anniversary of SARs (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - Singapore, 2003) and with news of a new strain of coronavirus (SARS-Like Virus Resurfaces And Infects A Family In Saudi Arabia) lurking, I can't help but wonder whether we can depend on any other than Singaporean healthcare workers should another pandemic erupt.

How Long Should We Wait?

I was waiting to see my Lokun the other day (yes, Dr Og IS ah pek and need to see dr also lah) and I had to wait one hour! The lady in front of me cow peh cow boo for being seen 15 minutes late, "Aiyoh, like that hor I tell you I might as well come late. Also get seen at the same time WHAT!!"


But then when it was her turn, she stayed in the consult room long long, refuse to leave and thereby contributed to my long waiting time!

Dr Og usually don't complain when I have to wait because my medical colleagues always waive professional charges for me la. Even at A and E, I also don't cut queue and most of the time I don't declare I am a doctor because I paiseh...

I know its quite a hassle to see a lokun because of the long wait. Its like tennis, you wait for the player to wayang abit, bounce the ball, swing the bat and suddenly everything is over in a split second! Still ok if its a sweet young thing tennis player but otherwise what a boring sport.

Waiting for doctor is the same thing. You wait and wait and when you enter the consult room its like kennah hypnotise, cannot remember what you wanted to ask and then the consult over liao!

But how long should we wait?

I'm not talking about how long patients should wait but instead how long should doctors wait for their patients? I can safely say that at least 75% of my patients don't come on time. The range of lateness can be from 5 minutes to anything like a few hours. But because the clinic staff don't want to offend the patients and always got something against doctors, the late patients still get registered and have to be seen.

If I had my way, I will not see any patients that is late. If you are five minutes late, its 50% of a ten minutes consult. Its neither fair to you as a patient to be seen in a rush nor to the doctor who needs to decide on your management.

Patients have many reasons for being late:

1) "Loctor, hospital boh parking one". This one quite true. They build hospital never build car park space one. Expect patients to take helicopter isit?

2) "Raining leh, din bring umbrellllllla". Singapore weather suka suka rain and Dr Og also don't like to take umbrella out, so can understand!

3) "I forgot got appointment until last minute than I rush out!". Aiyah, forgot then forgot all the way can or not?

4) "I was looking for my appointment card..." Alamak, the last time and the last last time already tell you no appointment card also can register...

5) "I come early also must wait!" Ok, you continue waiting.

6) "I was abducted by aliens on my way here!" Boh jiat yok!

7) "Loctor, I have to finish watching 爱 first."Courtesy of anon@1123AM

Sometimes, patients may be late because we cock up on our side too. For eg, they give patients a cardio appointment before the respi appointment and the cardio appointment got delayed.

And sometimes, doctors can be late themselves causing delays in the consult.

But in all honesty, patients being late is the number one cause of why you are not seen on time! The appointment time just keep getting shifted backwards and the ones who are slotted towards the end just gets seen later and later.

So I will like to make an appeal for all those who read this (you must be really bored) to go for your appointments with your doctors early. Simply because the reason why you are not seen on time is because you are late yourself. Have pity on doctors, they are humans and need to have their lunch. They also got family to go back to after work.

And surely you don't want to be the one waiting for one hour behind some kpkb woman.

A Dog's Life

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A Dog's Life

SGDR is about the fictional lives of doctors from General Children Women Old People and Anything Else Teaching Hospital. It is the ONLY hospital in the remote and ancient nation of Lan Fang Republic somewhere in Nowhere. It is not real or representative of the medical community at large. However it does parallel a dog's life.....