Happy 2017!

My last blog post was about 2 years ago. I guess I just don't have the passion to blog anymore. Not that I did have any back then. Lol.

So yeah. Life is great. I'm currently working at a government clinic in a small town in Terengganu. My husband got transferred here as well, to a small clinic which is about 30 minutes away from my workplace.

Did I mention that I have a son?

Guess I didn't huh. That's like a major news! :P

He turned one year old last September.

Like I said, life is great.

I shall cherish the moment and stop complaining like I used to. :P

2014. In a nutshell (not really)

I've been neglecting this blog for quite some time. It's been 7 months since my last blog post! The thing is, I no longer know how to put my thoughts and emotions into word. I just don't write anymore. Well, many things did happen while I was gone.

"I got married."

Yes, I did, finally! Alhamdulillah. Best thing that ever happened in my life. I love him with all my heart. I miss him every second of my life. But sure marriage has its ups and downs but hey, that's what you call "living" because if you don't have those, you're not really living. You might as well just "be dead". Hubby and I have been staying separately though due to our jobs. Our sucky job. Okay, that's not entirely true. I love my job. It's a bit of love-hate relationship. I hate the fact that we could be placed anywhere in whole Malaysia. 

My wedding reception was held in a small community hall. It was a simple one. I don't believe in taking loans just for a luxurious wedding ceremony. That just doesn't cater MY need. Sure different people have different needs but I'd rather spend my money on something else like honeymoon or whatnots for my future home. Just my 2 cents. :)

"I've completed my two years of housemanship."

Alhamdulillah. It's definitely not the end. It's a beginning. A whole new responsibility. I'm on my own this time around. It's been an emotional roller coaster ride. I'm glad I didn't quit halfway through. Special thanks to my parents who have always been my backbone throughout the entire journey. They have been supporting me from the very beginning until now. I still remember I was so tired during my tagging days in Medical so they sent and fetched me home everyday. My hubby, who has been giving me words of encouragement, knowing the real me, having faith in me. You know I would do the same for you too sayang. To my consultants, specialists, medical officers, colleagues, medical assistants and staff nurses. Thank you for your guidance and teachings. I hope I can be a good medical officer someday. 

"I've been posted to Terengganu."

My worst nightmare finally came to reality. I've been applying to go to Kedah where my hubby currently is working in now. I even attached my surat nikah and my hubby's employment letter but noooooo!!! They didn't bother to look at it. I'm sensing some kind of trend in which all married / about to get married doctors will be posted to Terengganu and the rest will be thrown off to Sabah / Sarawak. But can you tell me why some single doctors get Melaka or somewhere near the Klang Valley for their placement? It's either they use freaking big cable or the people in KKM put a blind eye or just pure luck?

Dan di antara tanda-tanda (kebesaran)-Nya ialah Dia menciptakan pasangan-pasangan untukmu dari jenismu sendiri, supaya kamu cenderung dan merasa tenteram kepadanya, dan Dia menjadikan di antaramu rasa kasih dan sayang. Sungguh, pada yang demikian itu benar-benar terdapat tanda-tanda (kebesaran Allah) bagi kaum yang berpikir. (QS. ar-Rum [30]: 21)

I still think they shouldn't separate the married couples. It's just too cruel. =/

I'm appealing. Hope my prayers will be answered. Aamiin. 

Usaha sudah. Tinggal doa dan tawakal. :)

Little Miss A

Just when I thought nothing is worse than O&G posting, Orthopaedic came along and proved it all wrong. Come on, Ortho sucks? Why in the world would Ortho suck? Ortho was never my best subject. To be honest, I have no idea what I learnt from medical school years ago. Ortho was only a minor subset of my Surgery posting. I was never truly exposed to Ortho. It's just too specialized, I guess? *shrugs*

Just when I thought to quickly wrap it up and move on to the next posting, the dream just died right during my first month in Ortho. I wanted to stay invisible so badly but SHE jussttttt had to choose me to become her mentee. What did I ever do in my past life to ever be treated like this? My life is doomed. No, I'm not being a drama queen here thankyouverymuch. People keep telling me I can do it bla bla bla and shits. Yeah, easier said than done.

I can't stand her anymore. Please let this be over.
...
..
.
Holy crap, I'll be having EOP assessment with her. There's no escape.

Ps. "SHE" refers to an infamous Orthopaedic surgeon. Everyone is just so scared of her including the MOs. How the hell am I supposed to endure her every single freaking day of my Ortho life? You tell me.

O&G

I hate this posting.

The atmosphere. The people.

Everyone is so emotional. 

Workload is fine. It's the same damn thing every single day anyway.

Bleargh. I just hate O&G.

Period.

Housemanship #1

One of my colleagues posted this on our ward's Whatsapp group. Gelak guling-guling baca! Adakah ini salah satu cara untuk houseman melepaskan stress? Lol. This might not be true because it will be a medicolegal issue if something like this is actually being written in the patient's BHT (bed head ticket = patient's medical file).

Whatever pun, memang terbaiklah houseman yang tulis cenggini. Hahaha~

That little crush

I was in the operating theater the whole day yesterday. There were four elective and one emergency operations altogether. Well, I think I like working in the OT than in the ward. But it also depends  on which bosses you will be working with. Lucky me, I got the nice ones. I-dont-care-whatever-you-do type of boss would be fine too as long as it's not the ones that would scold and shout at you even for the smallest thing.

The surgeons are nice and so are the registrar and MO. In one of the surgeries, I was given an opportunity to close up the skin as well as using the diathermy. Yes, it is a BIG deal to me coz as a houseman, all you do is sucking blood and fluids (using suction of course lol!), retracting skin and muscles, cutting sutures, etc. You know, the less important stuff. Well, they'll let you do some suturing if you ask for it or only if the boss in charge is nice. The registrar patiently taught me how to suture the skin step-by-step. (Had done this during medical student years but it was ages ago).

Dr X: Make sure the gap between the sutures and the depth is 1 cm long. *demonstrates*
Me: Okay, got it.
After a few sutures, it was the time for me to try...
While suturing slowly with my unsteady hands, suddenly a voice appeared out of nowhere.
Dr Y: Oi! Lembabnya jahit. Cepat sikit. Apa ni, berapa lama lagi nak tunggu ha?
Me: *wait, this voice sounded familiar and so I looked up* Dr. Y! 
Dr Y: Ha, cepat jahit! Apa ahhh. Tangan terketar-ketar. Tak makan ke?
Me: Puasa boss..
Dr X: Nevermind. Don't listen to him! Just do it slowly. My first suture, I did 5 in 40 minutes.
Dr Y: Cepat, cepat, cepat!
Me: Gahhhhh. *stressed face*
Dr Y: Hahahaha.. Just kidding. Ha, bagus-bagus. Tu jahit ke sana sikit. To your left. Yes, yes.
Me: -________-"

Nak nangis boleh tak? Bengong betul. Buat orang cuak jek. In the end, I finished suturing in 20 minutes? Haha.. After the surgery ended..

Dr X: So, wanna take up surgery? Dah bolehlah ni.
Me: Ha? Susahlah boss. I buat lambat. I need to practise more.
Dr X: Eh no lah. You did well! Not like some people, kaku je tangan.
Me: Ehehe. Thanks boss. *malu*

Hahahahaha. So this explains my little crush.

Ps: Dr X and Dr Y are both registrars.
Pps: Dr Y is Chinese and he speaks Malay most of the time.
Ppps: Apparently Dr X is single. Anyone interested? *winks*

The obnoxious one

Out of all bosses in Surgery, there is this one particular surgeon that had left me a very bad first impression on my first day in Surgical posting. Let's call him The Obnoxious One. Lol. I hope he doesn't find his way to this blog. I heard he's married with two wives and one of them is Chinese (I bet must be his second wife). And so I heard that he is fond of Chinese-looking female housemen. CUTE Chinese-looking housemen. I might look Chinese but I am definitely not cute. Lol. Anyway, I would be better be off than having him as his favourite. Yep, I pretty much hate him. Good thing he's not my assessor.

I had my night shift yesterday and I was surprised how soooo "lucky" I was that he was oncall on the same night too. We were warned that all housemen in the ward are to stay back until he is done with the rounds. Morning shift usually starts at 7am till 7pm, night shift starts at 6pm till 7am and he only started his round at 8.15pm. Since my ward was the last one to be rounded (lol, sorry, couldn't find any other word for it), most of the housemen decided to ignore his order and went back early. Seriously, if I were them, I would definitely stay back because he is not someone to be meddled with. You definitely do not want to have any trouble with him.

Waiting for him was painful in the ass. What even more painful is when seeing him already in the ward with a smirk on his face. And so the ward round started.

Boss: Are all the housemen in the ward? (The other wards are packed with housemen and seeing that they were only a few housemen left in the ward made him asked that question.

Silence....

Boss: ARE ALL THE HOUSEMEN IN THE WARD??! Aifaa, are all the housemen in the ward ?

Aifaa: *shook head* No boss.

Boss: Didn't I tell you all to stay in the ward until I'm done with the rounds? If you people cannot stay back for 2 hours longer, I guess 3 months of extension should be fine! Aifaa, make a name list of housemen who are not in the ward and pass it to me. If any of them are under me, they better be praying.

Us: Gulp...

Gahhhh. Having ward round with him is torturing enough and now this! Lucky thing that he did not ask much during the rounds. The medical officer cut me off when I was presenting my case, in which I was glad he did! Lol. The round ended after 20 minutes. It was brief probably because he was mad.

Yeah. Welcome to HKL baby! Yes, working here is stressful but I doubt any difference elsewhere. Surgery is already well-known to be a tough posting due to the pathologically-minded bosses so I already prepared myself what to expect. I'm just gonna lay low and get over this ASAP. Wish me luck peeps! ;)

Potong orang, jahit orang

I'm taking back my words from previous blog post. I LOVE Paediatric posting. Turns out Surgery is even worse. Four weeks have passed by and I dare say that surgical-based field is definitely not my thing. I'm more of a medical person. (Walaupun ilmu takdelah banyak mana, sangat cetek, perasan suka Medical sangatttt haha)

Bosses in surgical posting aren't the nicest but they're not as bad as what people have been telling me till every morning the housemen would be having rounds-induced diarrhea. Haha. Bebudak ni exaggerate betul lah! First week in Surgery dah kena maki bagai. As usual, I put up my poker face whenever I get scolded.

Some of the surgeons are super nice. But most of them are not. I just have the feelings that surgeons, generally speaking, are arrogant. They only see what they wanna see. They know that once patient will not be healed medically, surgery is the only solution available.

Whatever it is, Medical for life! :P

Still alive!

Yes, I am. LMAO.
Work has been tough. Life as well.
It's been 5 months since I  started working. Survived my Medical posting, Alhamdulillah. Currently doing Paediatrics. I don't enjoy Paeds that much. Medical is actually far more interesting despite the workload but I don't think I'm capable of being a Medial specialist. Idk. So many things to master and I obviously do not have the knowledge. It's literally EVERYTHING about medicine.

Paeds? Meh. Boring. And I don't like handling SICK kids. I love kids but not sick kids. They'll just cry and scream at you whenever you're near them. They'll scream their lungs out when you're about to poke their small precious veins. God. By the end of the posting, I might actually end up being deaf!

Too much ranting eh?
I don't know if I'm enjoying my work or not. There are times where I feel like I don't have a life.
I LOVE MY JOB. I LOVE MY JOB. *hearts hearts*

Heh.

Less than a month

InsyaAllah, there is less than a month until I am no longer carefree.
Less than a month until I start working.
Most important of all, less than a month until I am responsible for my patients.

My patients.

Gulp.

Of course I will still be working under the supervision of medical officers but the responsibility that I have to bear is huge compared to when I was still a medical student. During my clinical years as a student, we ought to clerk patients, do reviews, perform procedures, etc. Yes, they're almost the same thing as what house officers do but everything that we did was mostly instructed by the residents. And now, I need to make my own decision before consulting the MOs.

"You'll learn more from mistakes". If it's a minor one, that might have been forgiven. What if it's fatal? Will it still be okay?

The lives of your patients are in your hands now. Welcome to the real world honey.

Home sweet home

I'm definitely not much of a writer. I suck at composing and that explains the long absence of any new blog posts here. I write whenever I feel like to. Even if I did feel like writing something, the thoughts ended up being lost somewhere in my brain and I just couldn't find them back.

Yadda yadda. The truth is, I'm just l-a-z-y.

Dah genap dua bulan pulang ke Malaysia. I officially ended my degree on 13th of July. Took some time to shop for my family, packed my stuff, and got ready to end everything for good. Real good.

It still feels surreal that I've actually completed my years in medical school. Six years is definitely not a short period of time. I'm finally a doctor. Percaya? Entah, kadang-kadang saya sendiri rasa tak percaya. Dulu masa first year, bila tengok final year students, rasa kagum. Bila masuk clinical phase, tengok doctors rasa kagum. Sekarang, bila dah jadi doktor? Rasa serba kekurangan. Tak rasa pun saya tahu semua benda sebab dulu saya ingat doktor mesti tahu segala-galanya kan.

Housemanship. One thing that scares me. Semua fresh medical graduates pasti akan menempuhi hal yang sama. Kalau orang lain boleh, kenapa tidak saya?

Harus kuat semangat. Semoga semuanya berjalan lancar seperti yang diharapkan. Amin.

Save the date!

Alhamdulillah. :)

No, I'm not getting married. Not me lol. Another friend of mine is getting married this December and I'm so happy for her! Congrats dear! I'm not allowed to mention her name openly so let it stay as a secret, shall we? All I can say is we've been friends/classmates for 6 years long and even shared the same bedroom! :) When I first heard the news, rasa terharu sangat. Serious sangat happy for her. I know she's gonna be the first one to get married among the seven of us. I should've known earlier coz she's been dropping hints here and there. I did suspect but I wasn't too sure so I kept teasing her "bila nak kahwin?". She would then give me the same answer everytime I asked her, "Hujung tahun. Boleh jadi hujung tahun ni, hujung tahun depan bla bla bla.." Sekali bila dapat undangan, betul-betul hujung tahun ni. Ahaks!

People have been asking me. When will I get married? Like seriously. Hampir semua orang tanya. Even my Indonesian friends from the Regular class kept asking the same thing too. Aneh. I'm just gonna be honest. Yes, I do feel a tinge of jealousy. Not a bad one though. Haha. Yes, I wanna get married too but definitely not now. My elder sister got married at the age of 27. I'm 25, still young lol~

We did talk about this earlier. Me and him. About marriage. Get a job, buy a car, have a good financial stability and then only we can think of marriage. I told my friends and they think it's a valid and well-reasoned point. We're both doctors so it's gonna be very challenging. Coping with time is difficult since we're gonna be working in a different hospital. :(

As the Malay saying goes, kalau dah jodoh, tak kemana.

Ps. Happy Ramadhan Kareem to all my Muslim friends. :)
Pps. This is my 100th post! Woot woot~! ^___^

You left me in this hurricane

Currently in love with this song. :) The lyrics have nothing to do with my life thankyouverymuch! 

There was a thread of love
I didn't think it'll come
What was I thinking of
I don't know, I was good
on my own
Then I threw caution to the wind
When I decide to let you in
I fell so hard, so fast
I'm seeing stars,
they lead us through the dark

(Pre-Chorus)
Now it's gone and clouds
are forming
everybody tried to
warned me but I didn't
listen to what they said

(Chorus)
Now that the rain is falling
I should've seen it coming
I can't believe you're walking
walking away, away
You left me in this hurricane (x5)

(Verse)
I wanted so badly to believe
that you would brave the storm
with me
fair weathered friends got enough of them
thought you'd be here for me

(Pre-Chorus)
Now my eyes have
started pouring
In my heart it's dark
and stormy and it
won't stop cause you
wrecked all of me

(Bridge)
Now it's gone and clouds
are forming
everybody tried to
warned me but I didn't
listen to what they said

(Chorus)
Now that the rain is falling
I should've seen it coming
I can't believe you're walking
walking away, away
You left me in this hurricane (x5)

Sexism

According to the dictionary,

sex·ism
n.

1. Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women.
2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender.

In this modern world, there is still a whole bunch of sexists. Well, the discrimination against women that we can see now isn't really that obvious or extreme and it is usually done in a very subtle way. Even sexism occurs in my very own educational institute.

There was one time where we were supposed to have a lecture with this very "infamous" consultant doctor. The moment when it was his time to deliver his lecture, all female students moved to the back rows, leaving the male students in front (I sat at the back from the start :p). I didn't really know the exact reason to this sudden peculiar act. As soon as the consultant doctor entered, it struck me this was the lecturer that they were talking about. Most female students dislike him for his negative perception towards women becoming a doctor. YES, he thinks it's best for all women to stay at home and look after the family.Or even if we would like to work, we should have chosen other career instead.

What bullshit is that? 

During his lecture, he would stop momentarily if there was anything that he could relate to disagreeing on women working as a doctor. Gosh. It annoyed the crap outta me so much that I felt like leaving the lecture hall that instance. What craps did he have against women? He then asked some of the girls questions and if they could not answer, he pointed out his idiotic notion over and over again. -__-"

Seriously doc. Seriously. Are you from the Paleolithic era? Other times, I got the same treatment from the public. For example, whenever I have my night shifts at the Emergency Unit or the wards, the patient's family would call me "nurse". At first, I thought it was due to my blue scrub since I did not wear my white coat. But even when I wear my white coat, they still call me nurse! Isn't that obvious?? Please, don't take me wrongly. Nurse is a very important and noble job. Without them, the doctors won't be able to carry out their jobs optimally. It's just that, they call the male students "doctor" whereas the girls are called "nurse" most of the time. It's not very apparent but that kinda gives you the idea of sexism, don't you think so?

I wanna become a doctor and nothing can stop me. Boohoo!

Soon-to-be doctors from University of Indonesia, Jakarta. Wish us luck! ;)

Wordless Wednesday #4

Ps. I made these when I was back in Malaysia last year. But of course with my mom's help! Rindu makanan Malaysia! T__T
Pps. Not so wordless eh? :p

Hello June

It's June already! That means it's gonna be less than 2 months to home! I will be back home for good in end of July, InsyaAllah. :) Is anyone excited about me going home? Hahaha. So siapa-siapa nak kahwin dalam masa terdekat ni, silalah kahwin masa saya sedang cuti nanti ye. I'll be there for your reception. Kalau korang nak jemputlah kan. :p

I was thinking to go for induction in either December 2012 or January 2013 and start working soon after the short course. I hope it's not too late. Seriously, dah start jadi house officer, manalah sempat nak jalan-jalan or manja-manja dengan mama ayah kan? Hihi~ :p

I'm currently on my last clinical posting, Surgery. Hope everything goes smoothly and I'll be able to go home on time. Had my Comprehensive exam. The only thing that I need to worry about is final OSCE and of course three mini clinical examinations (mini CEX)! Including final written exam and OSCE for surgery! T__T My first mini CEX will be on this coming Monday and a day before the exam (Sunday), I have weekend shift at the hospital. *sigh*

I should start studying realllll hard and stop playing around. Hahaha.

Wordless Wednesday #3

Shopaholic much?

Am I a shopaholic? Of course, a true shopaholic will NEVER admit she/he is one anyway. The thing is whenever I wanted to go shopping at the mall, I always ended up buying nothing by the end of the day. The day when I only wanted to catch a movie at the cinema, I ended up buying something while I was on my way to the movie theater. LOL. I am weird that way.

Ayah saya cakap saya sangat cerewet when it comes to shopping. Semua benda pun tak berkenan. Kalau dicari-cari lagi susah. Shopping bagi saya macam jatuh cinta padangan pertama. Macam semalam. We were strolling at the mall just to kill some time before having our dinner and suddenly my eyes fell on this gorgeous Polo shirt. It was on sale! The original price was Rp 499,000 and it went down to as low as Rp 179,000! I tried it on and the next second I knew, I was already in front of the cashier. Hahaha~

Pink bebeh!

It has reversible design. I can wear it either way! :D

After paying for it, I joined my friends at Kickers. And I INSTANTLY fell in love with his pastel-coloured shirt. There was like a big sign saying "50% DISCOUNT". I knew that I might regret later if I didn't buy it so I decided to buy it. Hoho~ There goes again my debit card. Rp 139,000 was charged.

So pretty!

In love with the pattern!

 OMG. I spent a lot on shopping this month. I even bought shoes online! I bought these at UP, a shoe-line by the famous fashion blogger Diana Rikasari. They sell pretty wedges and sandals! Yes, I had  a hard time to choose which one I should bought and decided on these. The rainbow stripes wedges are mine and I bought that other pair for my sister! :)

So, am I a shopaholic or what? You tell me. :p

I need to be more kiasu

Had a discussion with an Orthopedic consultant this morning. Each of us was given a topic and asked to find a patient related to our own topic. Mine was Degenerative Disease and of course, I couldn't find any patients in the ward. The only choice is to find them in the Orthopedic Polyclinic. Honestly, I would rather find a patient in the ward for case presentation since you could always go back and forth to the patient whenever you missed something (history-taking, physical examinations). Well, you can't do that in the Polyclinic, obviously! I had a very limited time to do history-taking and physical examinations since there were soooo many patients waiting to be examined. I couldn't take my own sweet time, you see!

The consultant asked me to present my case unexpectedly today. It was supposed to be tomorrow so I didn't really prepare much. My case was about a 71-year-old female with bilateral knee osteoarthritis. She already had total knee replacement in her left knee and was scheduled to have another knee replacement in the contralateral knee. I was being shot a lot of questions from A to Z and most importantly, he asked me why I didn't do a complete knee examination. I only performed the usual Look, Feel and Move but totally forgot about the specific knee examinations such as Lachman test, anterior and posterior drawer tests, patellar ballottement and the list goes on.

Well, you know, being ME, I told him honestly that I didn't perform those examinations. Anddddd he started to give a long lecture on how I should be more enthusiastic and comprehensive in handling a patient. Seriously rasa macam orang paling bodoh kat dunia ni. Okay, exaggerates pulak. Hihi~ I hate "the" feeling. Like I'm not competent enough. After the long lecture, he stopped and said that he liked my honesty and he said it's okay since I'm still in the process of learning. Maybe he thought that I looked as if I was about to cry kot? Hahahaha.

Baiklah doktor! Saya akan cuba menjadi lebih kiasu dalam proses pembelajaran saya. ^__^

Ps. Some of my group mates didn't even see their patients. Their presentation was solely based on the medical records written by the residents. Well, at least I did everything on my own and I'm proud of my own hard work even though it was nowhere near perfect. :)

Internist vs Surgeon?

I'm currently in my last clinical posting, Surgery. Tell you what, I don't like Surgery. I find Internal Medicine is far more interesting. The knowledge and all, you know. Internists; they think a lot. They really dig down regarding whatever is happening to the patients. Surgeons; they don't really think. They open up human bodies and then only they know the diagnosis. I asked one of the Surgery residents on why they took up Surgery instead of other medical fields. His answer was simply because he feels like he doesn't need to think much. Not much of studying etc. All you gotta have is skills! Not sure that is true or not because as a patient, you definitely would not want to be under the knife before the diagnosis is established!

My friend once told me, "be an Internist and marry a Surgeon". Well. I think Surgeons are cool. And most surgeons are male doctors. During my night shifts, I was surrounded by male doctors. Seriously rasa awkward. And they tend to be of good-looking too! Ahem. :P My boyfriend did mention that he would either consider to be an ObGyn specialist or a Surgeon. Oh, jadi Surgeon please! :P

But in the end of the day, surgeons and internists don't go along very well, you see. They blame each other. They hate each other. During one of my night shifts, one of the internists got mad because a patient was referred to her by a surgery resident with a vague diagnosis. Yes, coz they don't think, that's why! They argued about how the patient should be managed medically and surgically. I didn't really get the whole picture but I can see, they don't work well together.

Well. I still think Surgeons are cool! ;)