Category Archives: All in a days work

as a medical officer

Sports Day – sluggish, adult version at the clinic

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I am 39. I am not a sports fan but still in a position where I have to participate. urgh. lemau. I still do it for the sake of my friends, the camaraderie and all. Although I would definitely choose to just sit at the side if I have the luxury of such a choice. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, October is National Sports Month.

My clinic had a few tournaments going on. Staff are placed in 5 teams. I am in the blue team. Some of the games we had included badminton, volleyball, netball, ping pong, congkak, carrom and Explorace. We were in 4th place, overall. The closing ceremony was yesterday. And we had a blast. I had lots of kambing golek.

I feel that the blue team could improve more on leadership next year. We were a boat sailing without a proper captain. Perhaps then members could give their cooperation and participate more next time round. Since this will probably happen again next year, might as well practice ping pong for next year.

This is me enjoying the song. I love dancing. And singing. That’s more of my thing. Than sports. Ha ha.

I will find who you are and make a complaint!

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That was what the lady doctor said.

I wanted to answer back by saying “you don’t really have to go into much trouble, I am always here at *insert place of practice*” but since she sounded so pissed off already, I decided to keep quiet and let her have her moment over the phone. I think she had an audience beside her – I hope she has a good, uneventful shift today. Silence is not a sign of retreat. I still respect her for her knowledge and all. Besides, I did not really have anything nice to say in return. A wise senior doc once said, if someone is on fire – you become the water. Giteww. TQ Haji Karim. ha ha ha ha

To be honest, I knew that the referral would not be smooth sailing. It was one of those moments when you’re just stuck between an obstinate patient and doing what is best for her within the resources that you have. I welcome the lady doc’s complaint in the future if it will make her feel better. Although I know I can still sleep well because I know I did everything by the book.

I advised the patient. My nurses re-emphasized my points. We actually asked her multiple times if she changes her mind. She still wanted to follow her head.

I consulted my specialist. I followed my specialist’s plan. She had 2 plans. The best and the alternative if the patient remains obstinate. It was just unfortunate that plan B involved a third party and the 3rd party hated the plan. So, the 3rd party got really pissed. Since it was easy to just launch a verbal attack towards a junior colleague, that was what happened. I think the lady was super pissed when I sounded too calm over the phone. Yelah.. kita ni bukannya housemen lagi – we kinda realized that kat dunia luar, rambut pun sama hitam. furthermore, when you are a medical officer approaching the 40s, you kinda dun give a shit to all the irrelevant dramas. Meaning if I was given feedback by another person, I try my best to focus on the content and less on the emotions.

For example, if an angry patient comes to the clinic and start to maki2 people like

babi lah korang, P***** Pu*****.. kalau hari ni bukan hari ambik darah, kenapa bagi appointment hari ni? ingat senang ke nak amek cuti…

I will deafen my ears to the pig and vagi–nah part and focus on the problem mentioned after. Removing the emotion, will in a way, make you less reactive to the remarks and less likely to respond in a manner that you will regret later. But does it always happen that way? Is it always successful>? Of courselah tak.. I do not have the patience of a Buddha. hahaha.

At the end of the day, we can only advise and it is up to the patient to make an informed decision. Plan B did not go through which leaves plan C, the least favourable. The patient took her own discharge at her own risk with a snigger, not knowing that I paid for her transport to get the supposed treatment. Thankfully, the transport person returned a portion of the money as a goodwill gesture.

Aiming for 50% coverage of vaccination rate

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I am keeping this here because they got my name right. Not Yasmeen or Jasmine.

So far, Melaka is at 48% of completed 2nd dose of the vaccine. Once the state reaches 50%, we could hopefully slide into the next phase of the National Recovery Plan. As someone working behind the scenes, the situation is not as rosy. Meeting targets means stretching ourselves short. Working on weekends and public holidays. It got to a point when my daughter told me one day to stop going to work. But I still had to leave after a lot of reassurance. I am still thankful that I could see her waking up and tucking her in bed at night. Some of the front liners do not have such luxury.

I am all for vaccination.

However, the current policy of mandatory vaccination to enter public premises and all, is something I feel needs to be scrutinized. The problem with such implementation at the society level is such that it can be too ‘strict’ so much so that it is not accepting isolated cases where members of the public who are not fit for vaccination. Which leaves the MOH again in figuring out a way of how to certify the medical conditions of these individuals. Do we have them assessed by certain specialists? Do they get a special certificate or memo regarding their health status? So far, since I am part of the mobile team, I have yet to come across these ‘special’ cases but I am sure I will encounter them in the near future.

My 2nd reel on Instagram

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I don’t know how the youngsters do it. Doing a tik tok/reel one after the other. Such genius beings! How do they get the timing of the video and audio in sync? I had to refer to a tutorial to do the #add27photoschallenge. It took me about 3 trials to finally get it right, somehow. This 2nd reel is a snippet of how the district’s vaccine mobile team (technically, my team) goes about. I am still shooting and collecting videos to edit and make it into something I could put on Youtube. Aiming to upload a 10-minute video.

Our little team

A medical officer, a vaccination (nurse) and a driver. Sometimes, we have a medical assistant to help or NGO’s.

There are 2 medical officers – I take a turn with my colleagues so we could rest.

Mobile CAC in prison

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An ad-hoc CAC mobile team was deployed to assess the well-being of prisoners diagnosed with Covid19. The team comprised of 6 medical officers with another 10 supporting members of medical assistants and nurses. The team was already gathered by 0830am. All ready to go by 0900 but was met with unforeseen circumstances. One is the limit of mobile phones to be brought inside the cell despite providing the clearance letter. We use mobile phones very heavily during CAC for consultations with specialists and entering data. Hence, the hard work only started at 1000am.

I was curious to know what each coloured uniform of the prisoners means. There were white, red, green, blue and purple. Interestingly, during each interaction, they appeared well-mannered and non-hostile. Perhaps it was because we were on the other side of the barrier. Lols. Most of the prisoners were well and at Covid Category 1. A few needed an admission at the Covid hospital. Transferring them is not an easy feat as they needed prison officers to guard each of these convicts.

I don’t really know how much these correctional officers earn. But I hope they are paid handsomely for the responsibilities they are shouldering. It’s like menjadi bapa yang penyayang tapi tegas. Tough love.

We wrapped things up by 1830. Everyone was exhausted, sweating and wrinkled from dehydration. No food, no water and no toilet break. That’s about 9 hours in PPE under the warm, tropical weather. I could only hope that in the near future, there would be better communication between both agencies. And that we have a commander on site who could help foresee the flow of things and keep the ball rolling. On top of making sure that the well-being of the team is well-taken care of. Although we were told that there was a musolla on-site, being a visitor there, it does feel a bit awkward to just doff out of our PPE and berkeliaran at the prison’s complex. It would help to have some sort of floor manager saying things like, “ok, table 2, doffing, gi makan, solat. come back in 20 mins”. Takdelah rasa bersalah sgt doffing while your friends are hard at work.

All in all, it was a great experience to do our jobs in a different environment. I wonder what other adhoc things we would be expecting in the future.