Crawl...Walk...Fall...Walk Again

A baby learn to walk is no easy feat. It will start with a small steps, small and uneasy steps. The gait is waddling, the toes are in-curling. There will be numerous falls and bumps. Numerous bruises on forehead, scratches over limbs and endless cries. Given enough time and practice, small steps become big steps, uneasy become steady, then there is no more falling down, Walking become the second nature.

Isn't it the same with life? House officers learn from experience, numerous failures, many ups and downs, to become a safe doctor, and a better person?

New ruling created by the day to help these 'underpriviledged' group of people. First come the rule of house officers not allowed to follow in ambulance. Then came the shift work system to cut back the working time to 60 hours. Now there are hospitals that won't allow them to clerk case and examine patients! Looking at all these rules, it follows after certain events.

First, there were an incident of a house officer in Melaka Hospital involved in road traffic accidents while transporting patients. While we cannot predict the future, shit does happens to anyone. I witnessed a case of a staff nurse sustained a fracture of the radius bone while transporting a pregnant mother to general hospital for delivery because the new ambulance driver hit on a wild boar and the ambulance go turtle. Do we bar the nurses from sending patient? Certainly not! While I cannot say the ambulance is the safest ride home, even a fully registered doctors like us cannot prevent any untoward things to occur.

Then, house officers complaining of long working hours in the hospital. Hospital basically become the second home. There is no social life, love life or party life next to working. Then came the shift work implementations. Initially was full of glitches, but thing smoothed out in the end. The draw back is the oncall claims was with held. Then complaints starts again become there is not enough money to cover the car installment and side expenses, so another 600 bucks given on top of the shift work. What they didn't realized that without the adequate exposure, there is simply a disaster in the making. Not only more officers will be extended for the lack of skills and knowledge, they will be less equipped when sent to places that has no senior people to back up. The situation is similar in most of the government hospitals.

Are we doing them any good? Ask yourself, in years to come, will you want to go to any government doctors when you fall sick? If the answer is no, then please review the system again. For me, to be a great person, one have to fall many times, then when he stand up one day, he will be standing up tall. The scar is to mark how resilient you are, and prove to the world that you are not a weak doctor! 

Rising of The Phoenix

I don't like to write about advice. In fact, I am poor at teaching people, guiding them. There are a handful of juniors under me that seems to have not benefited anything at all after they left from my department. I just like story-telling, narrating of the whole event, from the beginning to the end. 

I was sitting by the beach, eagerly waiting for the sunrise. It was a long time that I didn't find my 'inner peace'. Despite they said I am fortunate to live in this town that has beautiful beaches, scenic mountains, and a peaceful river carved the beauty of this small town, but I didn't see it. The sound of the waves hitting on the white sands attracts tourist from far far away, but I didn't hear it. The coolness of the rushing waterfall on the skin that washes away all the troubles, but I didn't feel it. These few years I had been severely disconnected to the environment.

Watching a sunrise is a good chance to think about our life. Every sunrise is like a hurdle in life. It gets dramatic in the early part, and became very hot and difficult to manage during its peak and when the sun settle to the west, so does the problems. With time, things will work their ways. When a new day starts, the cycle repeats again. There is not a day without sunrise, nor a day without sunset. Similarly, there is no life without problems, nor solutions to every problems.

I am making comparing this to my education. When I first step into the primary school, I were so elated. When the happiness wears off, left with hard facts of life. Homework, co-curricular activities and exams... Then came the UPSR examination. The hard work put into preparing the exam till I faced head on with the exam. Finally, I passed the examination and moved on to secondary school and the vicious cycle repeats itself, again. Fast forward till now. I had just crept out of my comfort zone as I have been accepted into Masters degree program in internal medicine. And its all rise and shine again. Time to wake up!

KongMing Lantern

Saw this KongMing lantern today. If you never see one, it is a sight to behold. A seems to be very simple mechanism brilliantly brings a lantern up in the sky. What is more surprising is the design was made way back in the ancient Chinese, by non other than the brilliant Sir ZhuGe KongMing.

Its basically a tightly sealed lantern, exposing the bottom end. The fuel of the lantern will create a hot air inside the lantern, expanding it, and bring it airborne. Used in ancient war time to pass messages, now Chinese use it for prayers, writing the wishes on the lantern and hopefully it brings the message to the heavenly place.

Simple, but brilliant.

路上行人欲断魂

破晓

神明

妖魔

幽灵

狱火

诚心

扫墓

 世界上真的有天堂、地狱吗？
人死了，又会到另一个世界吗？还是一切归于乌有？
难于理解

草草了事

要简简单单，还是隆重？
要花花绿绿，还是朴素？
要不懈重本，还是节俭？
选择，实在让人头疼。

他们说，不在于结果，只在于过程中的点点滴滴，
而我却在苦中作乐。

马马虎虎，草草了事；
仔细挑剔，隆重复杂。
一切随缘，快乐就好。

The Dog-faced and The Dog-breathed

Someone to hold your hand

Last night, another kid try to take his life.

He is the dog-faced. We (the semi-alert on-call doctors) are the dog-breathed.

He is an 18 years-old. He had met his hurdle in life, and I am sure this might not be his first. There is always a mixed feelings when examination results were released. Yesterday was SPM results announcement. He is unhappy with his results. And he took a total of 50+ tablets, containing a mixture of paracetamol, loratadine, cinnarizine, and maxolon. The mother found him 4 hours later, in severe abdominal pain, but luckily he is not intoxicated.

I could remember how elated my feelings were when I get hold on to the results slip. It wasn't because my results were that good, just seeing that what I had worked for bring fruits and what I prayed for were answered. It is a relief that is beyond words. It is a feeling of putting down a stone from the inside your heart. But soon after that, another stone will starts to grow and the cycle repeats again...

There are many ways we can choose to handle the critical situation. He might had flung his examinations, but there is always a way to go about it. He can ask for help. He can talk to his friends or parents or his teachers. He can share it out. He can get self-help, or learn to forget. Is there something wrong with our society's support system that makes it difficult for young adults like him to get help?

I try to talk to him, to peel into his self defense. Unsuccessful. He choose to keep it a secret. Or he is too shy and regretted to what he did. All his vitals were stable and blood parameter were luckily normal. IV's were pumped in to rehydrate him. He survived, at least for another day.

If we try to see our problem from different perspective, or just stand back and looking at the problems again, the matter might just shrunk and disappeared after all. There is always a way to every situation and there is always something good behind things that seems so bad. For example, you fall sick, very very badly and recovered from it, you will develop immunity and become stronger.

For me, the best way to overcome a problem is with a song. Singing put away all your stress. It is as good as any tranquilizer. And there is just the perfect song for all troubles. "Let It Be" by The Beatles. My all-time favorites.

The Voice of a Nanyang Chinese

Malaysians

Often, i came across teachers who made headlines by provoking the students in class,
usually involves racial issues. "Kamu orang Cina balik ke negara China!" means you
Chinese go back to your home country, China. This is really regrettable, especially when
nation unity involving multi-racial and diverse cultural background is at stake.

Truely, majority of Chinese were immigrants during the rise of industrial age during late
19th and early 20th century, to fulfill the job vacancy such as miners, traders and manual
labours. Those jobs were regarded as unfavorable by the indigenous then. The influx of
Chinese and Indian were fueled by the ambition of our previous colonial rulers to gain
their foothold, making profits and the race to conquer South East Asia. Many of our
grandparents were from China, or their parents originated there. Many travelled south in
search of better future and hoping that one day will bring the hard-earned cash to feed the
hungry ones in China.

This trend took a major turn during the World War II, when the rising if the Communist
party, taking over the whole China. The motherland become a place of desolate. Many
Nanyang Chinese had forgone the idea of going back, had choose Malaya and Singapore
as their new settlement. They married and lay roots here since then.

What about those Chinese who migrates early (around 1500 a.d) during the time of the
rise of Malacca as the entreport? They had long been part of the society and blended in.
This is what you see in the Baba and Nyonya culture, distinctively in Malacca. Are they
considered as the indigenous people?

My story is about how my rgrandparents came about. My paternal side grandfather
originated from China, came to Malaysia as manual worker, to built houses. My
grandmother borne in Malaysia. Her father came from China, settled here early. My
maternal side is complicated. My grandfather is a mixture of Thai and Chinese. My
maternal grandmother is borne in Malaysia. Siamese people roamed the northern part
of Malaysia, blended in to the local people. It was used to be Thailand territory, until the
Britons made a deal with the King of Thailand, and the 4 northern states became part of
the Malaya. So can he (my maternal grandfather) be considered as the indigenous people,
or the most important question, can I be considered as indigenous?

It doesn't matter anymore. The newer generation already regards Malaysia as their home
land. They never get to know what happens in China or India that much now, all they care
is about the land they set foot on. Like me, I had never been to China yet, and my root is
deep in Malaysia. If you ask me to go back to China, I will be like an Indonesian coming to
Malaysia. This puzzle piece don't fit anymore.

This is what 1Malaysia means to me.