It's just another day!

When no midwives....

Just like a wave, every few months once, just like the durian season, the main stream newspapers will be glowing with letters from concerned parents of pathetic junior doctors who are at wits end after being bullied, overworked and underpaid in the public hospitals. Just like clockwork, will materialise news of housemen dying due to some mysterious circumstances. Like this one!
http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/houseman-found-dead-1.73153
Then like watching a P Ramlee film re-run, the next course can be predicted. A national referendum will be initiated which will start every politician and wannabe scrawny leader to insert his 2-cents of worthless buffoonish talk until the whole news dries up like yesterdays' rain.
It appears like the practice of medicine is not cut for the new generation of youngsters whose mind is always inquisitive and expect instant gratification, less on the talk and more on the action. After years of being mollycoddled and care for by their parents and maids, perhaps taking care of somebody else for a change and inundated with decisions and pressures is not their cup of tea (or Coke) or coup de grâce.
They should realise that patients do not stroll in to customise to your clock-in clock-out schedules, following pre-set rules. It is a tedious monotonous lonely job like an angler in the middle of an ocean but for some it is just fine!
It may be with filled thankless duties laced with movie dialogue pleads which is all but forgotten as fast as they are strong to sing and fly, and the people who really need your real help with real problem will only be able to shower you with gratitude which may feed the soul but not the body, not the showers of the ka-ching type.

The wig

Nobody gives a damn whether you had a bad day, sleepless night,  having a ureteric colic or dysentery after eating food laid out for hours (but could not eat because you were settling other people's headaches!) But who cares. They would growl of their own ailments. You are the medicine man, heal thyself. You chose this profession, do not complain, deal with it. If not move on, there are others who can easily fit into your shoes.
Once you misstep, their friendly shark spirited lawyer friends and not so quite law savvy but self professed guardians of principles will start sharpening their steely knives to go your jugular or at least only strip you in naked in the coldest subzero winters of Saskatchewan if they are kind enough.
So housemen must grow up, medicine is not your passport to entry to your country club or Tattler's magazine. Your contemporaries will be lifeless, dull, unattractive, your workplace will smell of grime, excrement and urine but your playground will be the ever precious human body and life. You will not just be red-carded but have to pay a heavy penalty for to be a killer conversation piece in the next party and to colourise tomorrow's headlines!
Hey, with great powers come great responsibilities and bigger law suits!
These days, housemen have to take of 2 to 4 patients per day but they throw in the towel and call it stressful. They hide under the blanket of neuro-chemical dys-synergia and beg for prescription.
I started housemanship on that faithful day of 1st August 1988. After running around doing the administrative work in the state health office, I showed my face at Klang Hospital. The moment my group of housemen showed up at the Consultant's door, he just took me in like Doc in 'Back to the Future1' and roped me in to take of a ward of 40 over medical patients and conveniently do a 24 hour call on that same day. It was like throwing a waddler to the deep end and to tell him to swim  or die! And swam we did with all the intrinsic muscles of the whole body to stay afloat.
I remember how I survived the whole night without a single wink but without feeling tired the following day. Patients made sure I never slept. Just as I finished settling all the new admissions around midnight, a slightly mentally unstable patient threatened to end his life by standing on the railing of the 8th floor. I had to play negotiator coaxing him to abandon his plan like Mel Gibson on 'Lethal Weapon'. Just that, we both did not take the plunge!
Then came a supposed upholder of law handcuffed by the law from the house of correction (gaol) professing to be bogged by myocardial infarct. A naive straight thinking simpleton in me (like Mitch McDeere in John Grisham's 'The Firm') went through the whole nine yards to ascertain his true condition. Even though not warranted, he pleaded for him to be placed in Intensive Care Unit. A few calls here and there illustrated his true precarious situation. His real problem was his gut or his manhood! Gut? Manhood? He (a lawyer) was due to appear in front a wig (magistrate) the following day for criminal breach of trust case- misappropriating his clients' funds and he neither had the gut nor was man enough to face his destiny.
And a few early morning wheezers and new admissions, a new dawn came around and morning was broken. After a quick shower, another day and a new set of problems to see and rectify. Slipping into a white coat, donning a stethoscope....It's just another day.....

Happy 24th year anniversary to myself! FG.