Entries Tagged 'Medicine' ↓

Sometimes the patients that we see are pretty unreasonable. I was on-duty at the accident and emergency department last night. Throughout the whole night we had a steady stream of patients seeking help. Around 3 to 4AM in the morning a woman came to the AED with abdominal pain. Her vitals were normal and stable and she was walking around without any problem. Anyway around 30 minutes into her wait, her husband came aggressively saying his wife’s in pain and he asked to be upgraded. The nurses explained the procedure and the that his wife was 3rd in line anyway. But he kept on pushing aggressively and then started verbal abusing the staff. Eventually the nurses had enough and caved in and bumped his wife up. I had just finished seeing another patient and was writing up the papers. This man kept on standing outside the cubicle and was staring at me writing up. Naturally, I was uncomfortable because this agitated person was staring at me. I politely asked this man to accompany his wife instead of standing outside the cubicle. Instead of accompanying his wife whom he claims to be in pain, he comes yelling at me telling me not to tell him what to do. I honestly don’t understand what these people are thinking. Anyway, these are not poor people. According to their address, they’re actually quite wealthy. After the examination during which her abdomen was soft, and I was unable to elicit any tenderness The woman asked if she could have an ultrasound (because she saw the ultrasound machine in the cubicle). Anyway, I’m not formally trained to perform ultrasound so had to say no. Eventually, I gave her a diagnosis of urinary tract infection which I don’t think she was satisfied with. I gave her the option of further investigation by admitting as an in-patient but she declined.

Honestly, I don’t know what people expect from the public health care system. Our waiting time is probably one of the shortest in Hong Kong already. She probably didn’t have to wait more than a hour. They seem to expect that if they’re in pain, they have to been seen immediately. Yet if they decided to be seen in a private hospital, they don’t complain when they’re not seen immediately even though they paid way more than what they pay at the public system. I can tell you that most of the people attending the accident and emergency department is probably in pain, so it’s highly unlikely to be seen immediately even though you’re in pain. I once had a finger fracture and I was told at the QMH AED that I will probably been see in 4 hours! They demand an extensive investigation even though they only pay HKD100 (around USD 12). They don’t understand that after a 10 minutes consultation, you can only have a provisional diagnosis.

I reckon we should just not subsidize healthcare, let people know that they’re really getting a great service! (That’s just the radical side of me talking)

• A friend had recently purchased a Xbox360. I tried it for a little while. I must say the graphics were amazing. The console was hooked up to a HD TV, so we were playing PGR3 at 1080i HD. The graphics were much better than those I’ve seen on the original Xbox and PS2. Anyway, after one night, I went out and got one for myself on Friday. At the moment, I’ve only got one game, PGR3, but I’m planning to get more later. Playing on Live! was great. Playing against the computer was no fun, and I wasn’t able to play with my friends all the time. Live! meant that I was playing against other humans from around the world. Most of those playing on Live! are relatively good, and I’ve found some pretty tough competition. I haven’t been winning much, but I think that’ll improve once I got use to all the different tracks.
• Saturday, we celebrated Harry’s birthday in advance. His family planned a boat trip for him and his friends. We fooled around the boat all afternoon. It was pretty cool. The boat was better than I expected. We took loads of photos, which will be uploaded pretty soon.
• I’ve had quite a few interviews during the last month. I finally got a call I’ve been waiting for. RH called me this morning, and offered me a job. So excited! On July 1st, I’m officially a surgical trainee. It’s going to be a pretty long journey, and probably pretty tough. I’m going to spend at least two years in QMH surgical. I hope it’s not going to be too bad.

Technorati Tags: HDTV, Medicine, moliu, RH, Specialty, Surgeon, Xbox360

I thought I was off the hook by lunch time Tuesday, but I wasn’t. I got the call I feared on Tuesday evening. Professor Ahuja called me and offered me a position at PWH. I asked how much time I have to decide naturally. Instead of getting the 24 hours as promised, he said I had to reply on the spot. It was a difficult decision, but I guess the fact that I had decide on the spot made it easier. I just wasn’t prepared to work in PWH. I rejected my first job offering. I hope I made the right decision.

Technorati Tags: Hong Kong, Medicine, Radiology, Specialty

So the race began a few weeks ago. Department heads are lining up potential trainees for interview. I’ve had a few interview already, and a few coming up soon. Last weekend, I had an interview with PWH radiology. I was pretty relaxed going into the interview. I didn’t think they would give me an offer anyway, plus PWH was pretty far away. It was so far that I was pretty sure even if they gave me an offer, I wouldn’t have taken it. I basically went to the interview to learn and practice. The interview turned out to be a group interview, and they asked some pretty interesting question. Most interviewers ask pretty standard questions. They asked questions like “do you think the radiology service in Hong Kong is enough to service the society?”. There was a lot of room for great answers. Anyway, I answered the questions being myself. I wasn’t too concerned about what the interviewers thought of me, because I wasn’t expecting a job. Anyway, later that night, they called me again and offered me a 2nd interview. I was surprised, and a little bit nervous. The idea of getting an offer from PWH frightened me a bit. Mainly because they require you to commit within a very short period of time (24 hours). I had to decide what I was going to do if they offered me a job. Am I going to accept the offer or reject them? PWH is a pain to get to. Accepting the offer meant I’m going to be there for at least 6-7 years maybe even more. I would have to move to Statin leaving Hong Kong Island. To be honest, I’m not keen on that. Another problem is I’m not 100% sure I want to do Radiology. I’ve really never been 100% sure about what I want to do. I wasn’t 100% about medicine when I got into medicine. Now, I’m not sure what specialty I’d like to get into. I envy those people who is 100% sure. Some people know they’re going into Surgery or Medicine. I can’t really decided. I’m interested in two or maybe even three specialties, and I can’t really decide on 1. Anyway, I went to the 2nd interview. Because I was a bit nervous, I don’t think I was as fluent as I was during the 1st interview. We had some pretty good discussion about issue about funding and also training opportunities. The interview lasted around 20 minutes. At the end they told me that they will decide right away and let us know immediately. It’s been almost 20 hours since the interview. So I probably didn’t make it. I’ve never been this close. The fact that they didn’t choose me kinda sucks, but looking at it the other way, they didn’t force me to decide. For the moment, I’m off the hook, but I’ll still have to decide eventually, and the decision won’t come easy…

Technorati Tags: Hong Kong, Medicine, Radiology, Specialty, Surgeon

Patients can be a real pain in the ass. The health care system in Hong Kong is already in a pretty bad state but these people really know how to abuse the system. The other night a pregnant woman came in because she had uterine contractions and was worried that she was about to give birth. Anyway, she had her ante-natal checkup in QMH, and she wanted to give birth QMH. She came to our unit to have a check-up in the middle of the night to see if she was about to go into labour and if she was, she would go to QMH. She even ask us to call an ambulance for her to transfer her there. She should have went straight to QMH instead of coming to us. She didn’t even want to stay here and asked to be discharge right after she was admitted. She wasted our time admitting her, wasted resources in PYNEH when she should have went straight to QMH. If she want to see a doctor, she could have gone see a private doctor instead of wasting taxpayer’s money.

I had another lady admitted because of suspected ectopic pregnancy. She had a bit of vaginal bleeding and her pregnancy test was positive. Ultrasound didn’t see an intra-uterine pregnancy, so ectopic pregnancy was not ruled out. 10 minutes after admission, she requested discharge because she did not have any abdominal pain. She didn’t want to want to stay overnight to let us observe her symptoms. Why see a doctor when you’re not going let doctors do their job? OG doctors are nice. They discharge their patients. If it was me, they wouldn’t be simply discharged, I would make sure the were discharged against medical advice. What happens if they die in the middle of their way home? Their family would come back and blame us. Why did we let them go?

Every night at least 1 or 2 of these patients are admitted. They are wasting a lot of resources. Remember when you’re a patient, make sure you listen to what the doctors have to say and listen to them…

Technorati Tags: Hong Kong, Medicine, Patient