Mood: lalalaa~ (team in surgery & co-intern is not around..)

My colleagues and I were thinking of the ways to vent our daily angers and frustrations at workplace. It's definitely unhealthy to be angry every single day from 8-6PM. You might end up having peptic ulcer disease.

I suggested we play cards, as in poker, and bet over our on-calls. Talking as if I'm a pro already, I'm sure I'll end up losing and carrying so many on-calls on my back. She said let's just bet over IV cannulas or catheters. Good ideas. Another friend suggested we write in daily journals in a book, it'll be very interesting to read it at the end of the rotations. I silently said in my heart, did that (virtually that is). He he.

I realized I've created a very sour atmosphere here, or to be exact, blogsphere. So to cool it up a little, do enjoy this video. I thought the song is very soothing, the video is very beautiful and he is beautiful. Don't worry, I don't do toyboys.

Toodles!

P.S - Happy Thaipusam! Batu Caves rocks..

for those reasons I am now giving up on this hospital..

I officially did.

If I fight it I'll lose. If I don't I'll lose too. So for that I gave up. No more antagonizing, instead I'll just laugh and work whatever stupid way they want me to be. Lesson learned - work your a** to be in the best system you can get. Good system --> good training --> good doctors --> better patient managements. I'm too tired, can't cope with more frustrations no more.

I was dreading today's call. Instead of returning to Dublin on Friday I stayed over a friend's place here to avoid coming early for the call. So after work last night - I, sunk in dreadful on-call thoughts - made my way to the small town here for a comfort outing. To my surprise, there were good few designers shops with massive sale on. As they say, misery loves company. So what happened after that you go figure.

So I was calculating my bad maths - which put me into medical school in the first place instead of any business school out there - I will be working x hours for a weekend call, for the rate of y EUR per hour. But for each weekend call I'm dreading, I spend z amount for the counter-reacting comfort shopping. So am I really making any profits here? Still confused ~~

Life has been quite stale with the mounting frustrations. A friend of mine reminded how life felt empty these days when you go home and sleep, wake up the next morning and go to work, repeating the same vicious circle with no other inputs in it. She said we should start seeking. Yes you know for what (I was actually in blank initially).

She got a point. But it's hard to find a decent guy these days. The closest one was the German patient I did pre-operative work ups in A&E before he went for appendicectomy. Oh he reminded me of the German Psychiatrist in BH. (Damn hot). And that was yesterday only, today he's nowhere to be found. Oh he's not dead don't worry. I'm just too busy to look for him. So life is still crappy. And don't worry, my mum will kill me if I start bringing back guys who speak no Malay.

And those are the frustrations talking.

Cheerios lads.

all hail fast internet connection & digital tv..

I was contemplating which internet company would I use this time, since NTL broadband provides no service to the new place. Funny enough, as it is in the heart of Dublin's city where I live now. So I was calculating and juggling things in my head, between getting a decent home broadband but having to wait for at least few weeks for the installation date, or getting a quick plug and play internet with no guarantee of the service quality.

Nah, I was desperate too. As there's no internet in OLLH other than in the library, I was thinking what would I do when I'm on-call over the weekend in between times in the res? So what I exactly need now is - an internet connection small enough to bring around with adequate service to satisfy my digital needs. So 5 minutes before the shops closed a week ago, I stepped in the phone shop and 5 minutes later came home with this brilliant gadget. Yes, all hail to the latest internet technology!!

3DataModem

With the speed of 3.6mbps, one can now surf the internet with only this little modem attached to the computer via a USB cable. As long as there's 3 mobile coverage in the area, this mobile broadband will definitely work for you. I found 3 mobile provides the best service if compared with other similar mobile broadband rivals from O2 and Vodafone. The modem is slightly costly but with the winter offer it was down to the same price as O2. You'll only be paying EUR19.99 monthly with or without 3 mobile account, where else for O2 it is double without the account. And in few months time, 3 will increase the speed to 6.4mbps! Even better. The only probable downside is the download limit which is 10GB. Coverage wise, for my own use both at home and in OLLH I have adequate uninterrupted coverage so far. So to conclude, after 5 days of trial, this little mobile broadband technology is simply exceptional!

And today as well, the NTL guys came to install the digital TV into the place. Not that I'm a TV person, but 2 weeks without the usual norms of Friends over dinner after work is pretty much disruptive.

So I'm back to usual me; with fast internet connection, coffee and digital tv..

The problems with OLLH are..

1. They don't have proper heating, freaaking cold hospital!

2. The nurses are all local, the doctors are all 'immigrants' --> respect issues..

3. They don't have green butterfly needles, WE INTERNS USE GREEN BUTTERFLY NEEDLES, PLEASE! TQ V M!

a)

b)

Directions

Attach b) to a) with a special interlink connector. Draw bloods out once you've seen flashback of bloods.

Go to BH and smuggle out a box of green butterflies to OLLH, please do.

4. 85% of the surgical interns are carrying XX genes. Too much hormones going on. Can't take them. Overloaded. Seriously.

5. There's ONLY 2 telephones on each wing. 1 is for incoming calls only. Another 1 is for the nurses. That's the protocol. Doctors have to abide. The protocols. (Where the feck should we answer our bleeps?)

6. After being bleeped few times and you don't answer them, main telephone room will make an announcement to the whole hospital like this. "Dr ___, Dr ___, please call main telephone room now." Or "Dr ____ .. Dr ____ .. (then silence and never continue. What the..). Almost like the one in the supermarket for the missing kid.

7. For the reason we didn't answer our bleeps on time, please refer to no 5.

8. They just don't have good looking/hot stuff staffs here. It's ripping us slooooowlyyy by the day...


P.S - Still keeping the positivity.. (pulling my own hair out each day)

longing to travel again

One of the best moments experienced in traveling happened on top of the Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore in Firenze, Italia (Florence). There were nearly 450 stairs to the top of the dome and it was a brave act climbing up the spiral steps in the narrow tunnel. But it's always said that the end is sweeter if you work the hardest for it.

True enough. It was one of the most breathtaking view I've ever had from the top. The city felt so far away yet so near. You can hear the traffics echoed through the dark night. The city lights were bright in between the buildings and from the moving vehicles but it was pitch black on the skies. The night was so cold but so pretty you just want to freeze the moment alive.

I let go of big sighs, partly from the huffing and puffing from climbing up so many stairs, but mostly from just being engulfed by the magnificent view in front of my eyes..

Firenze, Winter 2007

P.S- Salam Maal Hijrah 1429H. Hijrah inshaAllah..

It's snowing in here...

The colleagues walking in the snow at the break of dawn..

OLLH was all beautiful and white on the second day of work. At first I thought it was only gonna be typical Irish snow that will never stick, it did eventually, for couple of days. So there goes my first real snow experience locally, though I'm still planning to go to Switzerland for the real deal one fine day.

Going from a big national referral hospital to a smaller peripheral one is a big change. Everything seems so different; the people (doctors, nurses, pysiotherapists, porters), the utilities, the patients, the food, the library, the doctor's res, even the littlest thing like bungs for IV cannulas are different. I went from all-computerized system to manually fill-in order forms and walk-to-the-lab-yourself type of jobs. It's a big change, more like a backward change; which is kind of sucks. On top of that, doing surgical rotation is not helping the acclimatizations at all. Yes I detest surgery and I think it has surfaced now if not from before.

But as per the new resolutions, this year I'm gonna look at things more positively and make use of the chances available. If one thing I love about OLLH (of other bad things I whined about secretly in my heart while doing jobs) is it can be so relaxing at times. So since I started not a week ago, I have managed to call in the banks, tax office, credit card office, tv cable company, my mum, you name it; which I could never do when working in BH. I was let home early today on a post-call state (with a terrible Sunday on-call that was), when in BH I would just continue the day till the end nauseated and tired. It's a bliss really. And I can start studying and finish my audits and research also, which is another bless.

So when looking at things broadly, the benefits weigh out the loss. After a long time, I can finally start thinking about things other than work. And it's a perfect time of the year too.

I figured the most grateful person is the one who makes out benefits from deficiencies. And I should be one of them really.

On another note, please welcome the little girl Batrisyia Safiyyah who was born on January 2nd. My heartiest congratulations to the happy parents Azlan & Shu for your little bundle of joy. Be prepared for the coming on-call nights, now you'll know how I really feel the past 6 months. He he.

Aku pulak yang excited ha ha..

P.S - I need to find a new hobby..

moving in

Happy New Year 2008 dear readers.

A LOT has happened in 2007. Mostly life changing. I don't know whether it would be wise to list them all here, maybe I should just keep them to myself. Maybe I shouldn't. (See at the end of another year part of me is still the same old me; indecisive, secretive (source doubtful?), lack of confidence in oneself, the list goes on.)

I'm not a good person. If one thing I would mourn about 2007 is the decreased performance of amal, good deeds and remembrance of God. I know I could've done better than what I did. I don't know what went wrong. Maybe it was me all along. So I thank Allah SWT for still loving me by giving all of the nikmahs which sometimes I think were too good, considering my very poor performance all along. I always think it was my parents' du'as which made the difference, if not for them I don't know what would happen to me really.

Come to think about it, life goes around in circles. From birth to death, young become old, poor to rich, and poor again, or rich, you might loss what you have in your hands, and one day they return, one time you're up on the top next day the bottom, what you do today affects tomorrow, and most importantly what you do in life affects your after-life. Life has been too busy sometimes you forget the very basis of it.

I'm thinking of using the new year as a marking point for self-corrections. They're not new resolutions really, I don't know what you should call them. So here's to the better me in 2008, inshaAllah..