New Posting!!!

There are a few dates that are important in the medical health system in Singapore aka... dates to avoid getting sick/dates to go to private docs if you do fall sick. These dates are not very known to the public, but are some dates that all docs (esp mid level seniority docs) dread. These are the changeover dates (other then exam dates, larr). It's basically when there is a changeover of junior docs around the hospital. Last one was on the 2nd of May... where all the new House Officers/ Interns are released into the real world.. with almost no practical knowledge whatsoever, and still dreamy-eyed about how real-life doctors work.

Let me straighten a few things out first. In medical school, we are only taught THEORY stuff and PROPER BUT ALMOST UNPRACTICAL ways of examining patients. We are NOT taught how to take bloods, set IV cannulas, do wound debridements... etc etc etc ... In other words, the first time we do all these are probably on the first day of work, with minimal, if any, supervision from seniors. :) so in other words... we're very much on our own most of the time, when we first start out... yup... so all of you out there can imagine the horror that happens on the first day of work as an intern. :) so....err....not a good time to go to public teaching hospitals, larr...

But anyways, that doesn't concern me now... did that a year ago, and don't ever want to repeat it again. Now I'm in MI - Medical Informatics. It's quite a new field, and it's about managing information systems in Medicine... Can hear all the hah??? coming out now... hehe... ok, in short in means trying to merge in Medicine with IT as most doctors will alw be IT- illiterate and IT ppl have almost no idea what doctors are doing most of the time (and so do most of the doctors themselves, anyways). MI tries to bridge the gap between these two, and in short tries to prevent any breakdowns in communication and workflow processes in the hospital. So for this posting, very minimal, if none at all clinical work for me. But, I'm kinda liking it in a way,where I get to think up scenarios and play them in my head while trying to see where things can go wrong. Though I don't think I can ever beat Murphy's Laws, but at least try to minimise mistakes so that most patients will not die of some sad failure of the system.... :) The only thing I don't like so far are the late evening meetings. They usually end at 8-9pm... sigh... which then makes me too tired to do my trainings for my events. I'm still adjusting to it, so might take a while before I get into late late night exercise routines. Either that, or start waking up at 5am just to go for runs.

Well, that's all the updates for now.... still at work, testing out the new system that we're rolling out in at the end of the year. Just hope I'll survive through this posting and come out alive... :)
Well, slightly dead-ish wouldn't be too bad either... hehe

Trudge on....