Storm

It was the first time in clinical year that our HKO issued the storm warning that we didn't need to go to school.

But who would know if HKO did anything right after waking up. I was the one who didn't know. When I woke up, it was 8:10am. Damn. I told myself. I would miss the senior round in the gynaecology ward. Originally I decided to sleep more but my drive told me to get up and dress up and rush to the ward.

As I walked from the hostel to the ward, there was no rain or wind. I was even more guilty.

Of course, there was no senior round today, nor was there any classmate before I got there. The doctors there did notice my presence, but they preferred finishing their job as soon as possible so they can go.

After a while, VT came as well. He didn't know about the storm until he watched the television in the ward. "The HKO has issued the storm signal 8......"

The nurse wondered. "Why on earth were there some medical students today?"

"We didn't have television in our dormitory and thus we didn't know the message. Also, the weather seemed quite good now!" We finally gave our logical explanation.

Clock

This weekend was a tiring one that I kicked off with a 3-hour driving tutorial in the Saturday morning. After that I had the inter-year match with my medicine classmates. And today I had football in the rain with my friends. Finally, I ended the weekend with big shopping.

It was not really a big shopping after all, I just bought a watch from the Hang Send Clock & Watch Co. at Yu King Fong. What interested me to buy a watch after a exhausting game? It was because the company was going to close down and they decided to make a big discount on the watches.

I asked the owners while I was trying the watches. Why close down? Indeed I had an answer in my mind and I just wanted to confirmed it.

"It was because of the ever-interesting rent. We were a small shop and could not bear up with it. So we have to leave here and stay in the shopping mall there." I know they were talking about the Hop Yick Plaza. They could probably stay there for a while, but just a brief while. "It was not so remote so we can still make our business with the neighborhoods around here." Indeed, this was a old shop which was already established for 28 years. Much older than I am.

The old craftsman amended the length of the watch band for me while I talked to her wife. Well, it was a business of family. It was a small size business of course, nothing to compared with the Li Ka Shing stuff. But I loved the small size business much more.

The clocks on the wall were ticking while we talked. I started to understand why The Clock (鐘) had the same pronunciation of The End (終).

Pleasurable

In this morning, I had my driving tutorial with "German". Time is the thief to steal the happy moment since the beginning of the July. I really learnt a lot from this funny teacher and my driving skills improved a lot.

Today he looked a bit troubled and stressed. I guessed it was not because of my driving technique, for I did quite well today, not making a lot of fatal mistakes. (But whether it will still be enough for the examiners to fail me, we were not sure.)

"I missed the texts of my fiance!" His hand was holding his Samsung Galaxy I. He will marry his fiance 2 months later and she was pregnant. "She woke up so late that I leave home before that. Do you know why?" He knew that I was attaching to O&G, thus relied on me getting the information needed.

"She was fierce when she didn't hear my voice everyday. Sorry Mr. Poon but I need to dial her first......(He phoned) Hello Lo Por, I am teaching so I can't text you back...Are you all right now?......"

"It was a disaster." He told me when he finished the phone call. "If not I loved her so much, I will not able to endure her temper and requests. I need to make phone calls to her every time. I need to talked to her whenever she wanted to." I just recalled The Fortress.

"German. It was a pleasurable annoy, after all. Do you know how many people in this world long for a person to think about themselves?" I told him. "You are a lucky person."

P.S. It was of course a cliche. For me, it will be good whatever you are. The theory of the fortress doesn't apply on me. 

Elation

I woke up so early today. I was so conscious when I watched the clock. Oh, it was just 6 a.m.

Don't get me wrong. I am not having early morning waking like those depression patients. On the contrary, I was so elated by my dream.

Compared with the dream, I wondered, the real life was so boring. Yes Psychiatry is good. Yes O&G is good. But there is nothing compared with the dream. In my dream, I had everything that I wanted to and I could do everything I wanted to. There was no resistance and nothing can stop me.

It was as if I took a high dose of stimulant in the dream. It felt so good. Life is after all beautiful.

But after a while I realized it was but a dream. And more philosophical idea came to my mind. Do you still remember the scenes in Inception?

There was a place where people will get IV infusion of the powerful hypnotics so they could stay in sleep forever. And with the long term sleep, dreams happen. With the physiological support, they could stay in the dream forever.

"They come here every day to sleep?" Said Eames
"No. They come to be woken up. The dream has become their reality. Who are you to say otherwise, son?"

Rigid

"From my own experience, knowledgeable students were too rigid and were not able to make change."

This was not what I said. The words of wisdom came from my driving tutor, "German".

Despite that I was not knowledgeable, I do feel that I was one of those rigid students in his eye. "For example, they would not know how to coordinate in a different way when they got mistakes on the roads. Why always speed up during a turn? They should be able to to split the steps and do it one by one. Slow down, turn around and speed up. It is simple!"

However, I was pushy and often accelerate the vehicle during the turn. Thus my hands were busy to modify the path so the car wouldn't crash. It did anger German.

Sometimes, however, I was cheerful when I was not scolded by him because I had some beautiful turns.

"Don' expect I will say Yeah YOU WERE SO GOOD when you finished it nicely. You should be able to do it!" German said.

It looked to you that German was a harsh teacher? Not really. He was a nice person most of the time when I didn't make big mistakes.

"Mistakes can be classified into tolerable and intolerable." German said. "If you make intolerable mistakes, you will really kill some people in real situation so the examiner will not hesitate to fail you. On the contrary, you always made tolerable mistakes, and yet the examiners might not fail you."

He was telling me how to tackle the driving exam as well as our OSCE.

Sharing

When I felt the terminology unbearable tonight, I decided to take a short break, going down to the common room to enjoy a can of coke and read some "newspaper", if it deserved its name in the night.

Coincidentally I met MT, who was exhausted with Anesthesia.

Both of us were not so enjoying what we were attaching. This was concluded at the first second.

"Anaes is not a good job. Every time they need to get orders from the surgeons." MT diagnosed. "Despite having seas of knowledge, they need to do what the surgeons want. Only women were able to endure it, perhaps." Not necessary. There were many successful Anesthesiologists who are men. "They need to get jobs from the surgeons. So surgeons were as though their bosses." I commented.

And then, I told him about my disappointing attachment in the labour ward. "I felt I was so bad when I could not set the stage for the midwives. I was incapable to set up the things requested by them. Also, I felt that my knowledge was fading after the attachment." I was as if a demented patient with an excellent insight.

"Don't worry." MT said. "You won't use the CTG ever." He was mentioning the Cardiotocogram. "It was the jobs of the midwives. Ah? They said that fever is defined as 37.5 degree Celsius? Let it be. It was written in the protocol." And protocol is bible in labour ward. Midwives were the believers.

"Yes. So the terminology is not so interesting. It is full of protocol!" I complained to my senior.

Then, what is the value of doctors if we only know the protocol?

Gynaecology

The heart of woman is like the needle in the sea. You can only understand one thing from them, is that you can't really understand them at all.

I started to attach to the gynaecology team in our hospital. Do you know the meaning of gynaecology in its Greek? It is the study of woman. Oh, it is the study of woman. They are so special that we need to develop a -logy for them. (In fact, there is a andrology in this world. You might just never hear this word.)

We had our ward activity in the morning and we took a few histories from the patients. The symptoms were mostly about bleeding. It looked like boring. However, the bleeding meant a lot to them. Will guys really understand how patients suffer when they had their pants and trousers soaked with blood for a few times in a day? Will guys really understand how they will suffer when they have to change pads 10 times a day for the sake of the bleeding? It was something serious undoubtedly.

In the afternoon we stayed in the out-patient clinic. It was something different from the clinic during Psychiatry module. The doctor was different. The patients were different. However, one thing that stayed the same was the approach of the doctor towards the patients. She must take the psychological aspect into the account when formulating the management. She must put herself into the shoes of the patients so she could understand how it will affect the patient. After all, we were sons and daughters from our mothers.

How I miss my mother when I made this entry.

Needle

After a tiring week I went back to home with special shorts.

These were my shorts that was without a button. One day I accidentally put itoff, leaving it unable to be worn. Of course, it was an acute on chronic damage, for my ever-increasing size of waist should be culprit.

Thus I brought the shorts back home and let my mother do the repair.

Concerning about the needle and the filament, it just struck my chord since it was pretty much related to Surgery. Therefore, I asked my mother to give me a tutorial on the special kind of suture before Prof. KH Lo gives his a year later.

She was so delighted to see me learn it. "After all, you need to know something when you become a man. Try to think how you look when the button is off." Indeed it was shameful if I could not get any help.

"From whom you learn the skills?" I asked as she tried to put the filament into the hole of the needle, unsuccessfully.

"Your grandparents, of course!" she handed me the filament and the needle, ordering me to put the end of the filament into the hole. "You know what, our family made clothing in the old days. So I learned things from the professionals. In fact, most people in the old days would know how to do it when they were just children." My face reddened when she mentioned 'children'.

"So am I also learning from professional?" I asked her.

She smiled.

Plan

As a hospital which mainly serve for the local people, it was special to find a foreigner here. It would be more interesting if you found a foreigner who was also a mother in the labour ward.

She was special not just because she was an obese Caucasian who need pressure stocking to prevent deep vein thrombosis, but also that she had a very structured plan for her delivery.

She printed her plan for the midwives. VT and I took a glimpse of it. Woo, she was a picky woman, my colleague said.

Why he would thought so? Please see the following. "I would like to breastfeed my baby right after the delivery and before all the cleaning and bathing process started." Also, she requested. "I would like to hold my baby after the delivery to the postnatal ward instead of keeping it in the warming box." Moveover, she asked us not to say more than 'enough': "I appreciate the encouragement during term but I didn't like shouting to me during it."

The midwives also dislike her behaviours. But then, it was good if we could do it to make her happy.

Whether it is picky, I am not sure. She didn't wake me up when I was trapped in all these protocol and procedures. Were there alternatives? Were they all suitable for all our patients? Were they all good?

We were institutionalized and didn't imagine for something different.