Piece of Mooncake

I was a bit upset today because my application to use the auditorium was rejected. In the first place, I think this lady who was in-charge was not very helpful.

When I first went to see her the other day, she was reluctantly wanted to entertain me and she asked me to mercy her because it is Puasa Month. She gave all sort of reasons why it would be inconvenient to her.

So, is Puasa "tai sai"?

Just step your foot into the office between 4-5 pm and you'd see why there are only 50% of the staffs working and this happened to the first time when I wanted to meet her. I checked in twice and she wasn't in her place.

She was at the food stores buying food for breaking fast, during office hour. What kind of attitude is this?

Venue for our upcoming course

Anyway, me going to enjoy a piece of Mooncake. The Moon is the roundest tonight.

Mid-Autumn Festival

1K richer

Reason to celebrate these weekends, cause I got a 1K cheque for 'excellence in service'.

Reflection

Today, I practiced to be a total herbivore for a meal.

Got a sms from a guy, though didn't expect it, he wanted to give a lunch treat and brought me to a place I didn't know how to describe.

It is located in residential area but sells vegetarian organic food. There is no sign board indicating that it is an eatery place, but a word 'reflection' is printed on a glass door.

Most of the people got to know about the place by words of mouth.

There are only five tables in a quite small dining area.

Anyway, here was a weird and tasteless brown rice cooked below boiling temperature with pak choy, pumpkin, cabbage and vermicelli, all cooked with very minimal salt and oil.

Even the drink tasted very weird.

However, the most unpalatable one was this raw Tou Miao salad. I literally had to force swallowed all, cause I didn't want to embarrass myself.

The owner later came to our table to chat, and I asked her what kind of style her cooking is based on. She told us there is no particular style but 'mixed' and 'organic' style. But she said, organic food is very healthy and it can detoxify our body.

There is no menu but everyday there is different set.

For today, the lunch set cost RM8.50.

I don't think I would come back for second time, unless someone wants to give me a treat again. I don't really mind free meal.

Free Mooncake

I am a real stingy b******, cause I 'kebas' this piece of mooncake from the pantry today for my breakfast tomorrow. Nowadays, mooncakes are so expensive. Anyway, it is going to be weekends mah.., otherwise it grows fungus.

Mooncake Festival, 4 more days.

Confirmed dead

I am so outraged to learn that the effort in search of a missing girl ended up in a horrified death!!

Reported the Star.
More: http://www.nurinjazlin.blogspot.com/

Counting

If everything goes according to plan, today would deemed be my last day doing General. I am looking forward to a new chapter in life after these years, to do something I have been wanted to do.

Despite some discouragement and negative comments earlier on, I am determined to pursue something I am passionate for.

My days seem counting, and I cherish every single moments I have.

People who really knew me well, would realized that I am a serious, fussy and obsessive person who wanted everything to be ideal or as perfect as possible.

People who really knew me well, would realized that I still fond of doing things in General though I am in a different ranking.

You still see me take blood, set branula, perfoming procedures where people think only the lower ranking would do, as well as doing discharge summaries until my last day, something you would not see or expect a specialist doing.

Well, I still love General, but I need to get myself adjusted to what the culture is shaping us to.

I will have no regret.

Imported diseases

Traditionally when taking clinical history, we often ask whether a patient had recent traveled to jungle or a malarial endemic areas, e.g. Gua Musang or Jeli in Kelantan.

Pahang, Sarawak and Sabah are also known to be a malarial endemic state.

What about Penang? Considering there is no thick jungle here, having to do with the Anopheles mosquito as a vector.

Yet, another latest add on to statistic this month, we had a Myanmar national been detected to have malaria. He hardly speak or understand a word of Malay or English, and we had no idea how long he has been in Malaysia.

According to the latest State Health Department's statistic from January to June 2007, Penang registered a total number of 28 cases of malaria, out of which, 22 or 78% were foreigners.

Other notable high percentages among the foreigners were, 21% (12/56) with HIV infection, 42% (3/7) with Typhoid and 19% (86/436) with Tuberculosis.

Therefore, it comes to a question on how stringent is our pre-employment health check-up among foreigners.

Ho Sam Mo Ho Po

In Cantonese translation, it means, being kind-hearted, but never get rewarded back with kindness.

Probably as a result of going to too many drug talks, my lipid profile had gone haywire.

Last checked three months ago, my total cholesterol was 6.9 and my LDL was 4.2.

I prescribed myself Lovastatin, cheap-cheap, but sadly (as a physician) that is the only statin I could prescribed here. The rest of the statins need our head to counter-sign.

Despite on Lovastatin, my cholesterol level went up further.

Now, I am really scared it would clog up all my arteries.

I had wanted to prescribed to myself Lipitor, but the pharmacist refused to give me because apparently, the "quota bullshit-thing" for Lipitor has finished, and no more available for new patient.

I felt a little upset, because, as a specialist, I used to help my patients by prescribing them good medicine, but when it was my turn, who the heck in the MOH would even care.

Damn it!

So, I got an idea, though I had to travel across the strait, I asked a friend to prescribe to me the Lipitor which is freely given without question asked.

Balik Kampung

I went back to Ipoh on Sunday to attend a relative's wedding dinner and spent a night at Gopeng.

Before coming back, got to follow mom to market.

I don't know why, market seemed to be the only place in women's minds.

This is Lawan Kuda's market.

It was the last day of the Hungry ghost month, but the mooncakes were already widely sold.

Well, not enough of that, we headed to the Peanut town of Menglembu and shopped more.

Budget 2008

Well the only budget concerning the medical community, concerns only the medical specialists.

More about budget as summarized by Palmdoc over MMR.

Sungai Pinang

Captivating view from the dirtiest and the most polluted river in Penang.
I wouldn't have ventured into places like this if it was not Celine who brought me there.

Being a Penangite, I do admit I am less adventurous, especially in going to places I am not familiar with, and especially so if there is no reason for me to be there.

Here is a seafood restaurant, at the bank of Sg. Pinang river, apparently is very popular with seafood lovers.

I am not particularly fond of seafood, but it was Celine's BD.

And here was one of the weirdest dishes I've ever had. It tasted real "geli", ...shudder.....

Well, if one likes seafood, don't need to go all the way to Tambun. Penang island has got even more to offer.

This time we shine

Our medical ward has never received any compliment. It was well understood, our ward is the 'hellest' of hell in the hospital.

Smelly, extension beds, overcrowding, rude nurses, bad nursing care,... everything bad one could ever imagined.

We received most of the complaints, especially from publics.

But this time, we do have some consolation.

And yes, we have been awarded the BEST merdeka ward decoration!

Well, why wouldn't we won? 'Cause that gigantic poster of Malaysia's prime ministers cost a whopping bomb-hell of RM500!!

We attributed all this good work to our new ward sister and the staff nurses.

I met one sister from the other ward who enviously congratulated us for grabbing the top prize.

She wondered how we could have done it. I asked her back, how much she spent for her ward's decoration. She answered, RM60. I asked her back, "Do you know how much ours cost?".

Although different individuals may have different perception, I personally don't think we should spend so much money just to get the attention.

I would rather prefer we spend money to upgrade our ward's facilities and also to improve on the quality of our nursing care so that we received praises based on our good services and not on the appearance of our ward.

But anyway, well done. We shine.

Last one

Such a tiring day traveling. My five days in KK were enjoyable one though I didn't venture further, like go islands hopping or visiting the national parks. Meeting still a meeting, I hope to go back there one day, and this time really explore Sabah.

This was probably the climax of all the outstation conferences I got to go for this year. I may not be going for more of these once I am in the sub-specialty program.

More pictures from Sutera: