This is going to be a long one. It’s so long, I had to use MS Word to type it out before posting it here. This is what happens when you let too many thoughts ruminate within the brain for too long.
I got this quote from the movie “the happening”, “People are comforted by numbers, more precisely, percentages, even though it doesn’t reflect the actual situation.” Let’s run through some numbers. There are 8 weeks within a rotation. That’s 2 months, or 56 days, or 13444 hours, or 80640 minutes. Within this time frame, one is required to learn about a new topic that one have not encounter before. Quite large time frame if we are looking at that. However, 50% of waking time will be used for lectures, role-playing, ward rounds, on-calls and all the other official teaching; 10% of that spent on necessities like eating and hygiene, and 20% of that on sleeping (or 5hour/day if you want). That basically leaves one with about 10% of time through out the rotation to actually sit down and try to learn the new subject. You might argue that learning is done within that 50% of official teaching, but let’s be honest, just how much is retained during that period? Let’s not forgetting that official teachings only cover around 60% of the required knowledge, the other 40% needs to be self directed. Given all these figures, I suppose you can see where I am heading with this posting.
I don’t like the paediatric rotation. Don’t get me wrong, the kids are grand; the babies are cute but too much is asked for within too little of time. I am actually struggling at the moment. A MO in the department once told me that medicine school is based on knowing how to bull-crap at the right moment with the right nonsense. That is what I am doing now. If I get asked a question, chances are, I would have no clue to the answer. Sometimes I will just say I don’t know, other times I would just say something that sound intelligent enough to get me through although I would have no idea what I just said. It works most of the time, but not always. There is one doctor who seemed to catch onto the fact about me doing this and love to torment me on it. I had to spent 4hours in that doctor’s clinic experiencing the torture. Not forgetting too that she basically “implied” I am stupid in front of the whole class.
Which brings us to my second topic. What’s the deal with superiority and arrogance? This is something you only see in Malaysia. Everyone on the lower tier is expected to bow down and kiss the feet of the higher ups. Doing otherwise only earn you a one way ticket to oblivion since the high ups will ignore you, or worse, harm you; while the lower downs will use it as an opportunity to kick you out. The latter will not only stay away from you, but actually give you the extra shove to fall head first into the bottomless pit. This is the one thing I have not been able to recover from since coming back from Dublin. However, at the very least I still have the good sense to keep my mouth in check when there is a risk of harm. That doesn’t mean I am contented with things as they are. In actual fact, I am hating this very part of me. I can only imagine it’s going to be worse the next time in the working environment. Seems to me this whole country is run in that exact manner through out the whole system, similar to the medieval times of serfs and knights.
Anyone still read the papers nowadays? Rallies are illegal; “opposition” is bad; etc? I had to drive through a rally just the other day at botanical gardens. Youngsters as young as 18y/o were in it. What was the rally about? “Let’s together fight crime”. It’s exactly rallies like this which I despise. It’s one thing protesting about things that matters, like the ridiculous price of petrol at the moment; it’s another thing when you have to walk in a huge group for something so trivial. Rather than just shouting about it in the streets, why not use the energy for a solution? Simple things like crime prevention awareness projects and changing the mindset of people would had been more effective. Anyway, the rally isn’t what irks me the most. What really annoyed me was the amount of personnel deployed for this rally. There were a substantial number of RELAs and polices around the route. Traffic was still held up. Such amazing use of resource. That was spoken with a tone of sarcasm by the way. Interestingly, this rally didn’t make it to the front page or any pages after that for that matter. Seemed like the only rallies worthy of mention as those with a political motive. I shall not go on further, but I suppose you can figure out yourself my ulterior motive on this paragraph.
Speaking of politics, let’s go back to my favourite class again. One would just need a little observation skill and one will be able to enjoy a very dramatic play being unfold in front of you. You shall be the protagonist, while the antagonist will get hurt, get beaten up, be in severe pain, manipulative, and many more. A great drama to be watched on the dumb box, really pathetic to see it in real life. I don’t know about how the outside world works, as mine is only within the confinements of these plays, but I do know real life isn’t like this. I could never understand why do people play such politic games/ drama plays, even when there is nothing to gain from it. Is it insecurity? Is it for future gains? Is it in-born? Nobody will ever know.
One thing I do know is that this confinement is horrible. I am really looking forward to the upcoming Bangkok trip. At the very least, I will be back on the road travelling again, even if it’s just five days. With luck, maybe I will meet interesting people along the way again. It’s quite daunting that I can’t hold a decent conversation with people outside of medical circle. I have tried to hid the fact I am in this circle when talking to people outside of it, but the most I succeeded was five sentences before something related to medical will slip out. This was precisely the very reason I forced myself to go take as much photos as I can. While I truly enjoy photography, the will to go do there is hardly there anymore. Hence, “the force”.
Time is but a limited tool that no longer have spares.
Then again, if I think about it, this whole rant is just a repetition of the usual thing I call life. I shall end this with a picture of a cute baby with a bittersweet story. More on her another time.
