A Case of Medical Malpractise

I have a case for you to ponder on. A 37 year old woman is undergoing a surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy in her colon. During the bleeding, she starts bleeding out of control. Her attending doctor is paged multiple times. However, he chose to ignore the calls and went home instead. My question is, Is this considered malpractice? Seriously. Think about it and tell me. Is that malpractice? I'll bet all my money that it is.

Okay. This is not a real case. I just watched it on House MD. Yes, its just a drama (a dumb one if you ask me. I'll get back to that later) If a REAL doctor were to do this in real life, would that cause him to be sued for malpractice? If you ask me, I say he's in a very hot soup.

Since its "Dr" House, he obviously does not get malpractice suits. How nice it is to be a doctor like House. Just be an asshole and never get sued. Come on, I don get it how people can watch this series. I can't take his nonsense anymore, and I only watched a handful of episodes. If i were to be one of his patient, there's 2 things I will do to him. I will either sue him or I will just blow up his big-fat-egoistic-head with a dynamite.

Regrets of The Past

As I look back at the past 21 years of my life, there are certain things that I wish I didn't do and some that I wish I did. Many are trivial issues that I can live with or can still do them in the future. However, there is 2 things that I regret most and can never achieve them anymore. They are but a permenant dark spot in my life.

The 1st is that I missed my chance to attend a World Scout Jamboree. This a get together camp for scouts from all over the world held every 4 years. It has been held for the past 80 years or so, every 4/5 years without fail except once in the 1940s probably due to WW2. I missed the Thai Jamboree which was held in 2003 (the year i was in Form 4) and again missed the London Jamboree held in 2007. The London Jamboree also marks the 100th year of scouting which adds on to the pain.

Why did I missed it? It somehow slipped my mind. I always remember it 3 years before the jamboree but forget it by the time it came. Aiding the slipping of the jamboree of my mind are the demands of my "over-enthusiastic" Scout Master, Mr S. In 2003, I was taking over the troop from Geoffrey Wong as Troop Leader (President). The amount of work and expectations bestowed upon me was crazy. Let me make this clear, My SM is way way way harder to please than any other SM. In fact, I think it is easier to please the District/State/National Commissioners than my SM.

I was practically the Barack Obama of my troop. I had to account to everything that occurs to my members, even when they skipped class. Yes, that's the job of a Troop Leader/President and I'm not complaining. Its the craziness of my SM that I cant take.

Im trying to find some consolation by attending the next World Jamboree at Sweeden in 2011. It will not be the same, but it's better than nothing. ;) I seriously hope it wont clash with any major exams as I will be in the final semester of medical school then.

The 2nd and more important as well as my biggest regret so far is not able to complete my King Scout Pentarafan and acquire my King Scout Badge. This is equivalent to a PhD in Scouts, an easy explanation to non scouts member.

As I mentioned earlier, my SM is "over-enthusiastic". This does not only apply to his expectations and demands but also on his syllabus for badges and tests. He had an impression that in order to receive even the most basic badge in Scouts, a Usaha badge we had to be "Super Scout" If King Scout was a PhD, I would liken Usaha as a High School gradation certificate only higher than a Tenderfoot badge or a basic membership badge.

You see, my SM felt that in order to become a king Scout, we had to be a Super Scout. He wanted us to be something like a Universal Soldier, a NAVY SEAL, a Delta Force, a SWAT team of scouting and that sort of thing. However, what was required from us was actually merely that of a National Service trainee. Do you see the extremely huge and colossus drift between the demands of the two?

And that was the start of all my badges problem. I regret to say that I only have 2 badges in scouts, not including my appointed rank badges.

1) Tenderfoot

2) Usaha

I'm such a sad case right. For all my enthusiasm and spirit of scouting plus the years I spent in scouts, I only have 2 badges. Don't judge me just yet. Have a look at my syllabus. Even a certified King Scout would freak out. I'm sure the commissioners would too. haha There's an insider joke to this statemtent. ;)

Back to my story. The syllabus was successfully in scaring me and inhibited any thought of taking, what more pass any of these tests. It's crazy and we all felt that achieving an Usaha was already considered a extremely successful feat. And this is indeed true as our Usaha test is almost the Level of a Jaya badge, 2 levels up.

Then in the year 2004(when I was in form 5) I decided to challenge myself with the impossible and take the tests. By then, I was already having problems with the date line for tests (we must pass King Scout by 18 1/2), trying to cope with SPM and then A levels and not to forget trying to pass the test under the "grand" and "majestic" syllabus f my SM. Just to be clear, my SM feels that the syllabus set by Scouts HQ of Malaysia is too easy and decided to add stuff into it and increasing the requirement.

After a year plus of trying, I decided to give up. Maybe I shouldn't have. But at that time, I felt that King Scout was already way pass my time. It's like an old man chasing his long gone youth. Maybe I was also sick of the discrimination i received from my SM. When I told him I was interested to take the tests, his only respond was a chuckle, a smirk and "You? You cannot pass the test." How demoralizing. Thank God for my Assistant SM such as Ganesh, Book Aik, Prakash and Foo Hoe ( who has left us due to a dispute with my SM- doesn't it seem like Mr S is the root of all our misery and problems? I sure think so) It is these ASM that gave us a true sense of belonging and a sense that we belong to a family. They made us felt respected, cared and taken care of like an elder brother rather than a crazy "Drill Seargent". It is also because of them that I still wear my uniform every Saturday morning and return to my troop, 6 years after I passed on the troop my the next generation.

At that moment when I gave up on my dreams of obtaining my king Scout Badge, I made a vow to myself. I will help my juniors achieve what i could not. And that is what i have been trying to do. I somewhat to certain extend convinced my ASM to stop using our "Super Scout" syllabus and returned to a more sensible one set by the HQ. Of course, we still do alter the syllabus a little but only to make it more relevant to our troop. We even removed some parts which we felt was not suitable or required.

Next, I made it easier for them to take tests. All it takes is an sms and I will be there to take whatever tests they wish to take. I also encourage them to take tests and sometimes offer rewards (from my own pocket) to encourage them to pass their badges. And most importantly, I lowered the requirement to pass any particular tests. I went through the hardship, there's no reason my juniors should go through it too. In fact, it is relatively easier to pass tests under me than other ASM, as said by one of the juniors. To me it does not matter. We're not training them to be Universal Soldiers. We're training them to be disciplined men with integrity and honour and most importantly, we are teaching them to have fun. Fun is the key to scouting if you ask me, not some senseless tests. Having badges on yr sleeves would also boost self confidence and a sense of achievement.

What instigated me to write this long post about test taking and badges is the syllabus book printed by HQ. We call it the "Skim Latihan" book. As i flipped through the pages trying to prepare for a tests that my juniors have requested, I come to realise that I could have received many badges even without preparing for it. I have the required skills to pass many badges, including some of the 5 Senior badges. A set of 5 badges just before obtaining King Scout. This brought back memories of my years in scouts as well as a sense of regret for the things I have not achieved. It has brought out a sense of failure. Yet, it has also strengthen my vows to help my juniors pass their tests. It has given me a new breath of spirit and encouragement to help them achieve what I failed to achieve.

I know I have used a lot of Scouting Jargon throughout this post. To make it easier to understand the big picture, I shall include a flow chart of the route to King Scout as well as the appropriate badges required. (only the main ones though. We have hundreds of smaller "Proficiency Badges or skill badges in scouts.) =)

Anugerah Pengakap Raja = King Scout Badge/ Award

The sleeve of my uniform. Member of 5th Petaling Scout Troop

Today's Saturday? =p

Today's Saturday? haha My days are so similar that i have started loosing track of what day it is. hahaha

Today I'm gonna take a short break and go play Left 4 Dead with some friends. Blasting zombies into pieces with a shot gun is a great stress relief i tell you. ;)

Tonight, I shall drop back to uni for Finale Night.l The MEDT109 Orientation Committee have been preparing since 10am, so I bet it will be awesome. Last night's Variety night went well. The performance was really good. i didn't get to see all the performances, but among those i saw I really liked Group 9 performance as well as the group with Amos in it.

"It is legen...... wait for it.... dary!!" -Barney Stinson-

Community health Survey - Day 1

After the 1st day of community survey, I can conclude certain things.
1) The Malaysian sun is crazy
2) Tan people like myself can still get sun burn
3) Malaysian are not very friendly, especially when someone knocks on their door to do survey
4) It is not a smart idea to do survey door to door
5) It does not make sense to make 3rd year medical students do survey door to door
6) There are Malaysians who are nice and hospitable but they are very rare. most are just cold and unfriendly. It's surprising that the hot weather here has not warmed their heart yet.

Alrite. Today was the 1st day of our Community Health Survey. From the start i didn't think highly about the whole thing and my experiences today only confirms my speculations. First, the bus driver didn't know the way. He drove round and round the same road, taking us on a tour of Cheras, up hill down hill, in and out many lorongs as well as demonstrate how to make a 3 point turn with a bus several times. What was suppose to be a 20minute journey became 1 hour and 20 minute. I really wanted to just drive the bus away when he went down to find directions several time.

Next, we walked around Cheras Baru and Cheras Utama from 9am- 3pm. Yes. We walked like complete dungu for 6HOURS!!! We went from house to house shouting Hello!! Uncle!! Aunty!! Selamat Pagi!! and anything we could to get the residence attention. The results?

For every 10 house we asked, 6 responded 4 didn't on average. 50% of responds we got was only from a barking dog. That leaves 3/10 human responses. 2/3 of the people we spoke to said Don;t want, Not Free. No one at Home?!?!? or Don't Want to Buy!! Do we look like salesman to you? Damn it. We're 3rd year medical student ok!!!!! Right. so for every 10 houses we only get to interview 1 person. That's on average. We completed 92 surveys today. That means we knocked on at least 920 houses. Waliau!! No wonder they don want to open door for us. We were like idiots going from house to house leh!!

We have a quota of 200 completed surveys. So tomorrow we have to hunt down another 1000 houses. Shit. This sucks man.

The only nice things we had today was that lunch was in a shady place and there was one man who was hospitable to us. At first he looked like he was unfriendly. But he invited us into his house and asked us to sit. He even offered us guava juice. We nicely declined but he insisted so we (Me, Xi Yan and Joanne) accepted half cup each. hehe He even showed us his family picture, allowed us to use his toilet and switched on the fan for us to rest awhile. haha what a nice old man. He's about 70 years old with a big family.

I was quite cautious at first since we were in the house of a complete stranger and I had 2 girls with me. Lucky he was not trying to spike our drink or something. haha. Then I was thinking, "This guy is not afraid we harm him meh?" Maybe he was more relaxed because he saw the 2 girls.. haha Moral of story: Always partner girls for survey. People treat you nicer. hahaha

Tomorrow will be another long day. Better sleep earlier tonight. I shall be better armed tomorrow. Shades, sun block and umbrella. Bring it on!

SPSS

Today we had a 3 hours course on data entry and statistics using SPSS. The practical class was conducted by Dr Nagarajah Lee and Dr Tan for 40 of my batch people as we will be using SPSS to analyse the data we'll be getting from our Community Health Class.

I won't say SPSS is bad or the class was boring. It is a good software and makes data analysis much easier. I used Microsoft excel for my selective data and it was a pain. everything had to be done manually which was extremely cumbersome. This can be done automatically with SPSS so it's a good software. I guess the problem was that I just don't like statistics. Like most of the others present, we generally didn't like statistic very much. We ended up reading blogs, facebooking and playing games. haha sorry Dr Nagarajah. We tried our best. =p

Yes or No

Yes or No? Yes or No? Yes or No? Someone please tell me yes or no.

You know what, just go for it. Yes.

Community Health

For the next 2 weeks starting tomorrow, we will be having our Community Health Course. This course would consist of a few lectures and mostly of health surveys. We would be required to prepare a questionnaire of some sort and conduct a study for 3 days at various health clinics. After that, we will have to prepare a report on the findings. As well as this may sound on paper, it does not sound too good to us, especially with our exams just round the corner.

For 3 days, we would be at a clinic. Thank God transportation is provided. Preparing the survey will be a pain. The report will definitely be even more painful. With our Integrated Medical Seminar or IMS over last week, I hope the Community Health Module would be good. Nevertheless, not having any real substantial lectures for 2 weeks means we will have some time to catch up on studies. Now, Community Health Module suddenly sounds much appealing doesn't it. hehe ;)