RRF to PPSP: Ep 4: The syllabli - PBL

McMasters' method of medical education was a deviation from the traditional medical studies norm that we usually hear of (at least in the 80s). In the old way, medical students were taught the pre-clinical subjects in the early years and were expected to integrate what they have learnt earlier in the clinical years at the tail end of their medical school and use them for the rest of their lives. The critics of this method argued that too much knowledge is learnt and wasted, not of clinical significance. In the USM model, this integration is done early via the problem-based approach of learning and their Holy Grail of community-centric teaching in the hope of producing community conscious physicians. It all sounds very novel and noble but in practice...

The powers that be decided that to reach the ambition of the Government determined race-based upliftment of society, they congregated a motley crew of students with variable academic capabilities in the hope of churning out the mush into something useful to society! (To quote Professor Charles Kingsfield of Paper Chase *- a TV law drama series in the 80s).
The enrolment of the class, after initial correction when the Dean gave an ultimatum for the purdah wearers to remove their facial veil and to do some alterations to their dull-hued shapeless drapes, was 96.

One of the pillars upon which PPSP was laid upon by the founding fathers - Prof Ong KH, Prof G Simmons. Prof Saidi, Dr Reddy, Dr Kyaw TS et al. - was PBL (problem-based learning). PBL would have (and shown its capability in many other countries) would have been just fine if students genuinely had the desire to learn through self-motivation minus the 'kiasu' mentality frequently associated with Malaysian students and the playing field of students' intelligence was levelled around an acceptable axis.

Now there was a joke among NUS (National University of Singapore) students. Everywhere in the world, the performance graph of students in a class would follow a bell-shaped normal distribution Gaussian graph except in Malaysia - where it would be skewed towards both ends resembling a dumbbell (the pun, the pun).

In PPSP, PBL (which is actually supposed to be a group discussion with all students giving input as a clinical case study is unveiled scenario by scenario and a resource person, usually a lecturer, acting as a facilitator) ends up as a staring contest! One group of students armed with all the knowledge was stingy to share whilst the other group had nothing to share as they were clueless on the topic. Some were just shy! Everyone was just pleased with 'hand-outs' - printed reading material which can be read at their leisure in the comfort of library or dormitory. One of us (TFLG) would say, "We have pride, we don't live on hand-outs!", but he would still take it anyway and studied that to pass the tests!

* ' "The study of law is something new and unfamiliar to most of you, unlike any other schooling you have ever known before. You teach yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush and, if you survive, you leave thinking like a lawyer."'
Prof Charles W Kingsfield Jr of Paper Chase. → →

Apollo 18: Was It A Cancelled Mission?

This must be the mother of all conspiracy theories, a hush-hush top secret to the moon organized by the Department of Defense of USA in 1973 during the height of the Cold War! The producers, after laughing all the way to the bank grossing $25 million for a $5million capital, insist on authenticity of the fact citing facts from leaked secrets on the internet via www.lunartruth.com. Repeated attempts to reach this website proved futile, however.
The thrust of this story is there was indeed another unmentioned manned lunar mission which nobody talks about. The story starts like in Apollo 13 where the good news comes in via phone during a family barbeque. Just that this time around it is top secret. So, the family members cannot rejoice!
The movie is made in a semi documentary format like in 'Blair Witch project' with fuzzy, sometimes grainy print creating an authenticity to the 'leaked' project.

Moonwalk!

Midway through the movie, we find that the two US astronauts found a dead Soviet cosmonaut on the moon during their moon walk. Hey, I thought going to the Moon was American's baby; Russian only went around the world with Yuri Gagarin! Then all hell broke loose with moon rocks (they are alive and are the bad guys who propagated under your skin) damaging the space shuttle. They (the 2 astronauts and the one in the mother-ship) are denied information and approval for any of their assistance. In the end, using the Soviet space ship to escape Moon, all 3 men perish in a direct collision. We are left with the impression that the moon rocks were alive and were out for vengeance and the US and Soviet governments were conducting human experiments to learn more about them.It also implies why there were no more lunar missions.
The movie ends with a caption that there were many moon rocks on Earth and that the astronauts' demise was reported as training accidents.

Glory days!

Wow! Malaysia beat Australia 3-2 in extra time after being a goal down twice in the recently ended Sultan of Johor Cup junior hockey tournament. En route to the final clash, Malaysia in the early rounds lost to Australia initially. They went on to beat teams like South Korea, Pakistan and India with convincing margins.
I am sure all the teams sent for the tournament must have been their second, third or fourth stringers. It still feels good though. Just like England's soccer team must be on cloud nine after beating Spain's B-team 1-0 in the friendlies yesterday. They must be thinking that they have won the World Cup especially after also winning the right to wear the poppy flower after the fiasco with FIFA recently.
Back in 1975, when I was Standard 6, the most happening event of the year in Malaysia was our hosting of the Hockey World Cup. Heavyweights of those days, Pakistan, India, West Germany, Netherlands and others were there in this extravaganza. Our class master, Mr Chan Teik Huat, took it upon himself to set up powerful sound system (Toshiba Bomb Beat or something like that) in our classroom for us to listen to the live telecast of Malaysian games on the radio. In spite of being devoid of visual stimulation, we could actually feel every dribble, every pass, every fall, every miss and disappointment felt by the spectators in the field. Our team achieved its highest achievement to date by capturing the fourth spot. 1975 was also the year when the big mouthed 'Fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee' Muhammad Ali came to town. In those days, every heavyweight boxing match was a fiesta. Malaysians of all walks of life watched the match live on Malaysian TV and work generally came to a standstill and the dual lane highway was empty. One acquaintance took 6 hours to drive from KL to Kota Bahru at that time! It used to be like this for all boxing matches until Ali retired. Mr Chan brought in a TV set us to watch Ali encounter with Joe Bugner where Ali won by points.
Then an era ended.......

Faux Pas*

We all have our foot in the mouth moments in our lives. One that comes to mind is an incident that happened some 20 years ago at a time when spaghetti was a carbohydrate filled meal (not an outdoor outfit) and visible bra-strap was dented modesty (not a fashion statement). And values were values... And this is after the time when subtle remarks like "Your Monday is longer than Sunday" were passed between girlfriends when their petticoat was visible.
One Monday morning, the operating theatre staff were excited to welcome the newest addition to their army of married women. with their heckling and giggling. It was common knowledge that a colleague got married recently and had just returned from her widely publicized honeymoon. So, there I was, after finishing with my work, bumped into newly appointed Mrs X. She was sitting in a corner feeling distraught and retching away. Being the joker that I am, I joked, "Wow, just came back from honeymoon and you are having morning sickness! Fast worker".
To my dismay, she sheepishly answered, "Actually, you are right. I am 2 months pregnant!"
Suddenly I felt the flushing of blood to the back of the neck and occipital region and the tingling sensation of my wriggling toes at the back of my palate and uvula!" I shrivelled up into a ball and disappeared from the scene with my tail behind my back after expressing, "Congratulations!"

faux pas ( /ˌfoʊˈpɑː/ plural: faux pas /ˌfoʊˈpɑːz/)

 a slip or blunder in etiquette, manners, or conduct; an embarrassing social blunder or indiscretion.The term comes originally from French and literally means "misstep" or "false step".
This expression originated during the time of Louis XIV. During his reign, dance was so important in the royal courts that to make a false step in any one of the many dances could get you thrown out.


N.B. Just for the record, Mrs X's unabated precocious love life did not last long. Mr and Mrs X went separate ways after 10 years and 2 kids later.

No child's play!

In the footsteps of Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible), Jason Bourne (Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity fame), Jack Ryan (Tom Clancy's hero), Jack Bauer (24) and of course the legendary unforgettable James Bond (martini, shaken but not stirred), I found another quick thinking, invincible, away from danger without a scratch type of a hero in the form of Jack Reacher in Tom Child's Gone Tomorrow. All hail Jack Reacher! I bet it will be made a movie soon. The last time I heard, Tom Cruise has been rumoured to be casted in the leading role. (Oh,no!)
I just completed reading this book which I bought from my last holidays! It is just another thriller with an ala-John McClane (Die Hard) type of a hero who could get away from any situation with his thinking cap and nerdy type of knowledge of plethora of issues. Nerdy book worm, he is not. Reacher is an American ex-Special Forces army personnel with expert know-how on weapons, ammunition and combat. He appears to be a drifter now with no permanent address (that is what I assume from my reading) and no family members to moan for him if ever anything happens to him. The enjoyable part of reading this book is the soliloquy manner of writing in the first person where the hero thinks aloud his thoughts. His reasoning and deductions to coming to a conclusion is much like Humphrey Bogart's role (Sam Spade) in Maltese Falcon! 

Bogart and femme fatale
in Maltese Cross

The story (see trailer below) starts with Reacher travelling in the subway train at 2am (don't ask why) when he notices a suspicious lady in the same coach who fits the description in his book of experience of a suicide bomber. The only problem was that she committed suicide alright, she shot herself, but no bomb was around! That started a snowball of events with him being on the run. Suddenly, he is wanted by everyone - the NYPD, FBI, an up and coming Senator's henchmen and a mother and daughter team of Ukrainian / Afghan descent.
The benefits of reading a book versus watching the film (as I mentioned before) are the small itsy-bitsy information which are mundane and of doubtful use in daily life that you get from books that no film will ever mention. For example, people are the least alert at 4am in the morning, so if you are planning to attack a nation (like Japan did in Pearl Harbour), that is the best time and the best time to break in to rob a house! The book also educates us of ways to get a fresh shower from a medium range hotel by tipping the home keeping men and to get a good nights' sleep at a hotel by checking in late (very late, past midnight) into the hotel and tipping the front desk for a fragment of the regular cost! And the technical facts about the subway which was not too challenging for a mentally challenged person from a non-engineering background like me.
Reacher's escapade is the result of the hunt for information allegedly held (memory stick) by the suicide victim in a form of sensitive photographs involving Osama Bin Laden and the Senator during his tour of duty. After all the swashbuckling, as usual, the good guys (also known as Americans) came out as victors but the memory stick with all the sensitive information gets run over and crushed in the streets of New York (the big Apple)!
Posted on 11.11.11 @ 11.11am
To commemorate Remembrance Day which is observed on 11 November to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918; hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice ("at the 11th hour" refers to the passing of the 11th hour, or 11:00 a.m.)

Act of God through Man!

As long is everybody is happy - the men for heaven on earth at demand; the women for answering to God's self made decree (through men's scriptures) to satisfy men at a drop of a hat even on a camel back. (As mentioned in this mocking documentary!)

Traders and shopowners have become good friends over the years (Star)

Thursday August 25, 2011
By YIP YOKE TENG
teng@thestar.com.my
Photos by LOW LAY PHON

Naina Mohamed took out a black and white photograph kept carefully between the pages of his thick accounts book. The stall with a wooden rack fitted to the wall was neatly lined with toiletries, cigarette packs and books, much like how it is today. A young Indian boy manned the stall, sitting at the very location Naina sits every day.
At first glance, the boy in the photograph looked like a young Naina but he was quick to point out that it was his father in the picture.
If there is anyone who is most familiar with the day-to-day life in Jalan Sultan for the past decades, it is none other than Naina who mans his bookstand attached to the 83-year-old Hotel Lok Ann from Monday to Satur­day, and watched how the face of Jalan Sultan changed bit by bit.The bookstand has been there since 1955. Naina’s father took over the business from a friend and they had never left the spot since then.
He narrated how the place had changed from a bustling but dust-free area plied by tricycles to a perpetually congested hub now.

Naina Mohamed manning his bookstand in Jalan Sultan.
– By LOW LAY PHON / The Star

Rich history: Ng showing old photos of Yan Keng

He had witnessed some of the major events in the country’s history, including the funeral of Botak Chin at the nearby Chik Shin Tong funeral parlour amid a strong police presence.
“I have spent my whole life here. This stall helped my father raise me and my siblings and helped me raise my three children who are now successful in their careers. All my friends are here and I meet interesting people every day who come to visit Chinatown, this is my life,” said the 56-year-old who speaks fluent Cantonese.

He said he could not sleep well in the past weeks knowing that the pre-war buildings in Jalan Sultan had to make way for the Klang Valley MRT project, adding that a small stall like his would surely be washed away by the waves of development.
He is now grinning from ear to ear, upon learning that the building had been saved from the bulldozers following a meeting between MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek and the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD).
“All of us are very happy, the traders and shopowners here are very close friends. We really do not want to be separated from each other,” he said.
Dr Chua, who brought the good news to all on Tuesday, said the decision not to demolish the buildings was important to maintain the identity of Chinatown.
“The area is also an important tourist and historical landmark in Kuala Lumpur,” he said after leading a delegation of Jalan Sultan traders to meet SPAD.
Fashion accessory wholesaler Daniel Wong, who is one of the three who heads the committee of traders and shopowners in Jalan Sultan affected by the project, said they were delighted that the government had heard the people and saw the value in these heritage buildings.
However, he said the committee hoped an official letter could be released to nullify the Form E issued under the Land Acquisition Act 1960 and to ensure that the acquisition of the buildings would not happen.
“We feel relieved that the government had taken the people’s voices into consideration but we need assurance as we still feel threatened by the powerful Land Acquisition Act,” he said, adding that they needed to learn about the project’s engineering plans and hoped that the stronger buildings would not need to be vacated.

Saved from demolition: An aerial view of the popular Jalan Sultan.

“Also, we hope that the government would compensate the traders and owners on the loss suffered during the period of six months they have to be moved or more if there is a delay,” he added.
The Selangor Yan Keng Benevolent Dramatic Association’s secretary-general Ng Siak Wing and Lok Ann Hotel’s operator Stephen Yong had expressed gratitude that the old buildings would remain intact during and after the MRT project’s construction.
“Yan Keng was formed in 1920 but the building was already there when we moved in. It is a priceless structure of more than 100 years and we cannot afford to lose it.
“We are very relieved that the government sees its value and has saved it even while development moves on,” he said.
Yong, who had invested a handsome sum in refurbishing the interior of Lok Ann for the comfort of backpackers, echoed Wong’s concerns.