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! ;)

It irks me

It irks me when people are trying to sound angelic when they're not.
It irks me when people are trying to act like they're innocent and all when they're obviously not.
It irks me when people are looking down at others when they themselves are nowhere near good.
It irks me when people are saying about other people when they're doing the same thing too anyway. They're at the ones at wrong too so what the hell with saying bad things about other people?

Hypocrites. They're everywhere.

Okay. I should stop now before I start becoming one of those people. I admit I myself is no better than other people. I'm trying my very best to become a better person than I am now. InsyaAllah. :) Minta-minta saya dijauhkan dari golongan sebegitu. Nauzubillah min zalik.

Ps. Masih mencari-cari sesuatu. Semoga saya menemuinya. :)

Coz I'm lazy~

Been neglecting this blog for ages. Honestly, I have nothing interesting to blog about. Hari-hari mengadap benda sama je. Haha.. Just finished my elective posting at the Renal-Hypertension division of Internal Medicine Department. I gotta say, I learned a lot from my elective posting. We mainly focused on Hypertension. Do you know there are so many guidelines for the management of hypertension. The guideline that has always been mentioned excessively is The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection,
Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC 7) but there are several others such as the ones released by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), European Society of Hypertension (ESH), and Canadian Hypertension Education Program (CHEP).

Next week, I'm gonna enter the last posting of my final year, SURGERY. Seriously, tak sabar nak habiskan everything here then be back home for good. Back to my beloved family and friends in Malaysia. ^__^ But before that, I'm gonna have to go through the very last obstacle for achieving my medical degree, the Comprehensive exam and integrated OSCE. T__T My examiners for my comprehensive exam will be from Pediatrics and Neurology departments. I am so dead. Pediatrics was my first posting for final year and I had Neurology during my 5th year. How am I supposed to remember the things I've learned? o__O Need to brush up my knowledge a bit since their questions are gonna be so unpredictable. I mean, they can ask anything. ANYTHING.

So yeah. There's no score for the exam. It's either you pass or fail. If you fail, that means you're gonna have to re-sit for remedial. -__-" Hope I don't have to! Bismillahirrahmanirahim..

Yuk studyyyy! Macam orang tu cakap, "Mira kan kiasu". Heh~

We're not Gods.

Chi-ku-ngu-nya.

Just in case you people find it difficult to pronounce it. Sila menggunakan sebutan baku ye. Anyway, Chikungunya is an insect-borne virus that is transmitted to humans by Aedes mosquitoes. Yep, Aedes tidak hanya membawa penyakit demam Dengue tetapi juga Chikungunya (cuba sebut Chikungunya banyak-banyak kali dan laju-laju. Boleh jadi tongue twister dowh~ :p) Dengue dan Chikungunya ni boleh dikatakan hampir serupa gejalanya sebab dua-dua adalah viral infection.

Okay, I'm not gonna blab what Chikungunya is all about. Rasanya lebih banyak medical sources yang lebih valid di luar sana untuk anda baca. :) Even one of the patients that I met in the clinic read BBC Health yawww~ Mantaps!

We had mini CEX with the doctor in-charge at the clinic today. She's a GP, I think. Or family medicine specialist? Idk. Socializing - I'm not good at that. Jumpa satu patient ni. Seriously sangat educated. He knows everything about his condition, from A to Z. Pastu dia ada cakap dia pernah kena Chikungunya dulu. The first thing that blurted out from the doctor's mouth was,

Dr. X: Di rumah banyak tikus pak?
Pak Y: Iya, banyak sekali...*awkward silence*
            .............. eh, tikus? bukannya nyamuk ya?
Dr. X: Iya, sama aja pak. Bisa aja tertular.
Pak Y: *kebingungan, poker face*

 Okay, tak tau nak gelak atau apa. Entah kenapa saya pulak yang rasa malu time tu. The first thing that came to my mind was, "doctor ni cakap pasal leptospirosis ke"? Obviously, the patient was not stupid and obviously, the doctor did clearly aware of the topic that the patient was talking about coz she repeated the word "Chikungunya" herself before asking that ridiculous question.

Saya bukan nak mengutuk ke apa. Yes, we are from the medical team. We thought we knew everything. Of course we do know more than what the patients know. Enam tahun bergelumangan kat medical school yaw~ But we're only humans. We make mistakes. Tapi kalau dah salah tu, lebih baik mengaku je. Tak yah nak tunjuk pandai. Coz in the end, if we ended up giving false information to the patient, it might be harmful to them. Saya sangat respek kat doktor yang mengaku "secara jujurnya saya belum pernah baca/ saya tidak tahu". We don't have to pretend like we know everything. Be humble. Kalau tak tau, cakap je tak tau. Kita cari maklumat lepas tu sampaikanlah maklumat yang benar kepada patient kita. Senang je kan? ;)

Ingatlah medical ethics yang kita pernah belajar dulu.
First, do no harm. 

Ps. Tapi agak ridiculous kalau doctor tak tau cara menular Chikungunya tu.
Pps. The doctor was from a private clinic. Not from the national hospital where I have my clinical years at. The doctors there semua sangat pandai okay. :)

Quote #2

Worst birthday ever

I blew up yesterday. You see, the cumulative effect of having to wait for YOU irresponsible people has done its damage. Yes, I might laughed it off for the past weeks but my patience has reached its limit. NEVER in my life I had such problems with my groupmates. I said, NEVER. Being late for once in awhile is totally acceptable but for every single freaking time is definitely NOT OKAY. How casual of you to ask me to WAIT for you yesterday after what you had done for the past few weeks. Aku bukan orang gaji kau nak tunggu setiap masa. Kau ingat masa aku tak berharga? Kau ingat?

The thing that upset me the most was when you asked us to do this and that but YOU have NEVER made it on time. "Cakap tak serupa bikin", as the Malay saying goes (I think? Does such saying formally exists in the dictionary? Haha.. Whatever!) Susah sangat ke kau nak tepati masa, tepati janji? Selama kau hidup, kau selalu break promises ke? Kasihan sungguh.

After being with you guys, all I can say is that you don't freaking have any remorse! If you do, you would have apologised. Most importantly, you would have tried to avoid being late ever again. Oh well, who am I kidding.  I guess you have never felt remorse before and I feel sorry for you.

Congratulations.

You've just made me realise how lucky I am to have my daddy and "him". They're my most perfects guys in the whole world.

One week to go!

It's been ages since I posted an entry here. My life has been boring and I have the same routine every day so basically there's nothing to be blogged about.

Wait, then why the heck am I even here? LMAO.

Seriously I can't wait for Internal Medicine to be over.

No, Mira! It will never be over for you. This is a life-long learning process so deal with it.

Ps. Gilakah aku bercakap sorang-sorang camni? Hoho~

Life is..

Internal Medicine

The reason why I haven't been blogging for the past few weeks is this..

 Internal Medicine posting

I hatechuuuuuu! Okay, dah tak boleh besar lagi ke font ni? Haha.. Seriously, separuh mati rasanya mengharungi posting ni. We basically learn everything yang ada dalam tubuh kita, the internal organs. Tau tak berapa banyak organ ada haaaa? T___T *cries*

Seriously depressed. Having to write 3 portfolio papers in a week is torturing. Mind you, it's not the normal portfolio okay. Imagine if the patient has 13 problems, I have to discuss all 13 problems one by one, how I establish the diagnosis, my diagnostic plan, treatment plan yadda yadda. As for the follow ups, one problem should include all the explicit details on SOAP
S: subjective (patient's complaints)
O: objective (physical exams, lab exams, supporting exams)
A: assessment
P: plan (diagnostic, treatment, education)
If you have 13 problems, you're gonna have 13 SOAPs in a day. Since I have to follow up the patients for a week, I'm gonna have 4 days of follow up. To make it worse, multiply that by 3 since I have 3 patients.

THIS IS MADNESS.

Ps. We can't complain since the Internal Medicine residents are doing the same thing too. No wonder the medical records are so freaking thick!
Pps. Tell me why do I wanna become a doctor again?

Never judge

A very heartfelt story. I almost cried when I read it. Got it from a friend on Facebook.

Seorang doktor meluru masuk ke ruang hospital dalam keadaan tergesa-gesa selepas mendapat panggilan kecemasan dari pihak hospital..
Dia menukar pakaian dan terus meluru ke blok pembedahan..
Dia mendapati ayah kepada budak yang berada dalam bilik pembedahan sedang berdiri menunggunya..

Apabila si ayah melihat doktor itu, dia terus berteriak..

"Kenapa kamu ambil masa yg lama untuk datang..??
Kamu tahu tak anak saya dalam bahaya sekarang nie..??
Kamu tak ada rasa bertanggungjawab ke..??"
Doktor tersebut tersenyum dan berkata :

"Saya minta maaf, saya berada di luar hospital & saya datang sepantas yg mungkin selepas mendapat panggilan kecemasan tu.. dan sekarang, saya harap anda bertenang.. jadi, saya dapat buat kerja saya.."

"Bertenang kamu kata..?!
Kalau anak kamu berada dalam bilik tu skrang nie, bolehkah kamu bertenang..??
Kalau anak kamu mati sekarang nie apa yg kamu buat..??
Kata si ayah dgn marah..

Si doktor tersenyum lagi & berkata :
"Saya akan kata bahawa Allah telah berfirman dlm kitab-Nya yg suci
"Daripada Allah kita datang dan kepada-Nya kita kembali"..
Doktor tak mampu utk memanjangkan hayat seseorang..
Insya-Allah kami akan cuba yg terbaik utk anak kamu.."

"Memberi nasihat bila kita x mengalaminya memang senang..!"
kata si ayah..

Pembedahan tu mengambil masa beberapa jam..
Tak lama kemudian, si doktor keluar dengan gembira.. "

Alhamdulillah..anak anda selamat..!"

Dia terus berjalan tanpa menghiraukan si ayah

"Kalau kamu ada sebarang soalan..kamu boleh tanya jururawat..!"

"Kenapa doktor tu sombong sangat..?! Tak boleh ke dia tunggu beberapa minit supaya saya dapat tanya beberapa soalan tentang anak saya..?!

"Komen si ayah selepas melihat jururawat..
Jururawat itu berkata sambil air mata mengalir di pipinya :
"Anaknya meninggal dunia semalam dlm kemalangan jalan raya.
Dia berada dlm upacara pengebumiaan anaknya ketika kami menghubunginya utk pembedahan anak encik. Dan sekarang dia telahpun menyelamatkan nyawa anak encik, dia tergesa-gesa utk menghabiskan upacara pengebumiaan anaknya..

" Moral : Never judge anyone because you never know how their life is & what they're going through..."

Quote #1

It's a sad day when an actor pretending to be a doctor makes more than an actual doctor.

Damn, it's true!