Feeling Happier through Paediatrics

Ok it has been a really tiring time for the past 2 weeks .. I cannot remember which is the day where I had a good night's rest with all the interactive sessions ending at like 7.00 pm plus. What's more the tutorials cover topics so broad and far-flung that it is really difficult to concentrate and lend focus to any discipline in Paediatrics in particular. It's like one minute you are clerking a case with all the florid signs of thalassemia , and next you are scrambling down to ICU to auscultate some cardiac murmur with Dr. Terence Lim and in an hour , Prof Low is expecting me to discuss all I can about asthma and angioedema.

The plus side is that you get to meet all the wonderful kids , and it was such a joy to play with all of them. The one thing great about kids was their eternal innocence, and it was certainly much more fulfilling to play with them than to see all the glorious signs.

This week's low was making Dr. T Lim pissed off with us , and it could have been really avoided. We ended our tutorial with Prof Low at 12.30 pm and we had a tutorial with him at 1pm. We bumped into him while in the ward , and he asked us to get our lunch first. I was worried we won't make it back , and just like our previous encounter with Dr. Jeanette Lee at the Family Medicine tutorial , I sort of had a hunch that he would be veeeeeerrry pissed if we were late. To my surprise , the rest didn't really seem to bother that we were going to be late. That said , it is very very difficult to get food within half an hour in NUH, but I knew excuses like this almost never work especially when you are dealing with time-pressed clinicians. It's like there's this assumption that he would be nice , and just happily wait for us since we needed our lunch. I mean what kind of freaking assumption is that ?? True enough , we got ticked off by him, and the most horrible thing was that Dr Lim called me directly and I was the first to have to explain things. DAMN. Thankfully I have some experience from , and just kept apologising and keeping my head low , like a geisha who had spilt a nano-ounce of tea on the tatami mat.

Some highlights were eating with Henry and Val at Chinatown on Friday evening .. As usual, we ordered the Big Prawn mee ( which we always faithfully patronise at Old Airport Road ) , and even paid 10 bucks for the largest bowl. It was to my horror that the soup was bland , the prawns not even comparable to the size of the prawns offered for the medium , cheaper bowls at Old Airport Rd , and the mee was tasteless. I was so disgusted that I ordered another bowl of porridge to wash away my disappointment. We were joined by a family of loud-mouthed ( but amicable thankfully ) members who were all interrogating me for the location of the porridge stall so they can buy their "ji zha" porridge.

Another highlight is when I went out with family + Robert/Ling for a buffet at Sakura Restaurant. This was a Japanese / Western buffet for just 26 bucks , and I had really my doubts when I heard this place was at the Singapore Science Centre. I mean who the f***_*_)_() eats at the Singapore Science Centre ??! We all drove there in two cars, and I was pleasantly surprised that there was free parking at least. True enough, there were a lot of yao gwees who were swarming around the buffet counters. No orderliness or decorum like that observed at Meritus Mandarin Buffet I had with Lil' and CT during the post-Xmas period. Just mad crowds of obese , Diabetic Idol-wannabes. I was pleasantly surprised to know there was oysters and a spread of sashimi available like in Mandarin , but to my horror , when the woman brought out the oysters , a swarm of Diabetic Idols started a prong-fight with one another , jabbing wildly with the metal prongs just to get the best oysters. The suckiest thing was that the oysters were all those huge kind , and the bigger the oyster , the yuckier and more vomit-inducing it tastes. Of course, i ate all the oysers anyway , and soon went to the toilet 12 times after that , passing out pea-soup meconium.

I hope the rest of the Paeds posting will go smoothly , and the dreariness of having to wake up early in the morning just to know I will be on my feet for 12+ hours , will soon fade. As Kossie says , there's no easy road to becoming a doctor. Hurh hurh.