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caffeinatedNow Playing: Mawarnita
HO years
Dearest all,
I was flipping through my collection of old photos. Mostly taken during my HO years, mostly using my Nokia 3650 0.3MP camera. Guess, I m one of those doctors old enough to start a story, reminiscing "good times", with, "When I was a houseman..."
Well, when I was a houseman officer, back then in 2003/2004, there were only 36 of us in the whole batch. Let me emphasize, ONLY 36. Ok, do the equation. 5 postings, Obgyn, Surgery, Medical, Paeds, Ortho. So how many housemans in a posting? Something wrong somewhere with the hospital management during the recruitment of HOs.
I would like to share my experience as a surgical HO. Why Surgery? I m a bit biased because I like surgery. Why I like surgery? Maybe I spent too much time & effort throughout the posting that the habit developed. Hence, the decision to pursue surgery as a speciality. Oh, not forgetting the great influencing factor, Mr Wong Leh Ming (that's another story). Heheh... I came to Surgery after being brainwashed by Dr Kuan & Zainah in Paeds (my 1st posting) and after going through grueling hours in the labour room & CDS (my days in Obgyn wasn't really great either since there were only 8 of us covering the same workload which is currently being carried out by 14-15 HOs). My idealism of being a respectful, great doctor was still there (which was invariably lost during the completion of my third posting).
You know the saying, "Keluar kandang harimau, masuk mulut buaya"? A very unfortunate me had to go through surgery with only 3 other colleagues. Yes, only 4 HOs in surgery for the whole of May 2004 & half of June 2004. There was me, Rozaime (currently in Hosp Alor Gajah), Alhana (currently in PKK Alai) & Nyon (the current Anaes MO). No kidding... I was incharge of 4-4, alone. Nyon was next door in 4-2. Rozaime & Alhana was in 1-1. They were also incharge of peripherals ie. 1-2, 1-3, onco wards & admissions. Bear in mind, we had the same rules & workload as the current HOs in surgery ie elective surgery, daycare etcetera.
Let me start with 4-4, my ward for 6 weeks rotation. My MOs then was Tee CS & Nasrul. Back then, Tee was less ‘kalut' because he had only 1 daughter & he wasn't in the masters programme yet. Nasrul? Same old, same old. To those who had the opportunity to work with him as a HO would understand. My ward specialist was Mr Safian. For your information, he is very much the same. Just that, he wasn't the HOD yet so he can afford to come at 7 am every morning for ward rounds (OK, to be honest, at times he'll come at 7.15). So I would do rounds with him alone till my MOs arrive to the rescue at around 8am. By then we would have completed rounds & my MOs wouldn't know a thing. And they would tend to ‘forget' certain referrals & when reminded, they would be busy in SOPD, so I would end up doing the referrals. Shish..I still didn't know how to complain back then.. Just ‘buta-buta' do everything.. But Sr Norlida & the staff nurses were really helpful. They will carry out everything that was planned out. Maybe because they are efficient, or maybe they were simply afraid of the consequences... They knew Mr Safian longer than I do & they assured me his temper was a lot worse back in his younger days.
The best thing I remembered during the ‘dark period' was the cooperation between colleagues. Nyon would come & help out with my admissions & ward work if she finished hers. I would do the same if 4-2 is the active ward. Since we were so efficient, we can also go down to 1-1 & help out Alhana & Rozaime because their ward is active everyday. There was an incident though. I was fined RM30 for leaving a needle on a patient's bed. Who else was there to blame? I was alone in the ward. Guess, I wasn't really that perfect, huh?
Dr Nizam & Dr Rozaime during CME
Oh yeah! On-call arrangements. We simply don't need on-call schedule because we were doing EOD calls for the whole of May 2004 right up to mid-June. Serious! (And we weren't paid for all of the calls because Jabatan Bendahari said it was too much. Pergh!!) My partner was Rozaime. Nyon paired up with Alhana. 1st HO on-call will cover male admissions. 2nd HO will cover female admissions (and onco admissions and PCU deaths) and go to OT (HOs aka. Retractors were still needed in major cases). Oh yes, 2nd HO will also be sent to KL to accompany patients. And if 2nd HO was in OT or sending patient, 1st HO had to cover both male & female admissions. Really tough job! Clerking within one hour?? Bullshit! We did learn to prioritize between stable-enough-patient-that-could-wait-to-be-informed or dying-patient-MO-to-come-review-stat! We did learn to intubate patients because our on-call MOs had to intubate other patients. We do fast TD&S because the MAs in A&Es weren't as kind to complete the task downstairs. We were efficient Houseman officers & our MOs trusted us completely. Chewah! But it was a really tiring job. And we still had TDS rounds. 1st HO on-call will do rounds in 4-4 & 4-2. 2nd HO on-call will do rounds in 1-1, 1-2, 1-3. It wasn't difficult since we knew all our patients. Post-call HOs (the other pair) were excused from night rounds... Hellooo...we're still human...
One embarrassing incident was when I passed out in OT in the middle of a laparotomy with Mr Yong CW (current private surgeon) & Dr Ong MJ (current Eye MO). I was ‘kind' enough to substitute Rozaime at 12 midnight since he was too tired & doesn't mind clerking admissions instead. So I scrubbed in for the 4th laparotomy of the day. I couldn't really figure out the chronology of event but I ended up sitting on the floor holding a Morris retractor. I remember everyone's face then. More of astounded rather then pity, I remember. I was given time out but it was a really long surgery. I scrubbed back after couple of hours rest. Muahaha..
Surgeons of GHM 2004 (from left)
-Ms Ava, Mr Safian, Mr Tan, Mr Wong (HOD) , Mr Yong, Mr Azali, Ms Grace
I would also like to point out that the other pair, Alhana & Nyon got help from their respective MO boyfriends (now husbands) during on-call. You would see Akbar's handwriting with Alhana's seal/cop in clerkings. Then the easily distinguished Liu CY's handwriting with Nyon's signature. (Akbar's in ORL Master programme currently & Liu is current Anaes MO). Sigh... too bad I was dating an engineer and Rozaime's wife is a dentist. If not we would really appreciate that extra pair of hands...
Those were the highlighted moments of my surgical housemanship. As daunting and uninspiring as it may be, that particular chapter of my life is the most enlightening. New HOs got recruited in June which marked the end of the ‘dark period', but what I learned will never got substituted. Mr Wong offered me to stay on as an MO but I reckoned I need to do Medicine to complete my housemanship. Medical posting as 4th posting is another story... maybe next time...
Assistant then...
Surgeon now...
My 1st crush in Hospital Melaka.. He was an Anaes MO, hence the mask... I don't remember his face not wearing a mask though... heheh!! Nope, he s not around anymore..
Would you believe it? Tee was my favourite MO during housemanship because he taught me a whole lot...
The other 2 surgeons who also taught me & inspired me throughout housemanship right up to MOship. Inside story..These 2 are rivals.. Heheh!!
The 2 new HOs recruited which did not really help better things...You know what I mean.. One is in Hospital Alor Gajah, the other is in PKK Jasin. Names not revealed!!
Sincere regards,
Sairatul Mawarnita Ishak, MD (USM)
(The photo are too big (>6MB)...Please readjust the size to be able to load it here next time)
