Se7en Rantings

Professional hatred (part 5)

2012-02-05T17:20:00.002+08:00

Anything to do with finance

I mentioned I don't like accountants / bankers / stockbrokers in a previous entry of my blog. Yet with the economic crisis as it is around the world and what has happen since I last wrote that entry, I think I should elaborate more.

I, with about 99% of the world's population, don't know a single fact about high level finance. I just about cope with managing my bank accounts and credit cards. I know there is a complicated network out there to generate money but I'm just as ignorant about it as I am ignorant about quantum physics and art. Yet I can get by just managing my bank account, probably because my job pays well and I live cost free at home.

I don't really like anything with stocks or bonds. One of the reason's why I don't like anything to do with the stock market, apart from knowing next to nothing about it, is if your job's sole purpose is to make money, then you have to look at what you really contribute society. I judge people's occupation by how much it gives back to the community. If the world had to start again (for example after a nuclear war has wiped all technology on Earth or an alien invasion has decimated the planet), which jobs would be most useful. At the bottom of the pile are the jobs I hate (see any of my previous entries for details).

I'm sure that most of the bankers and stockbrokers are nice people in real life - I have one as a younger brother. Yet there are some, a minority, that just take things over the edge and screw up people's lives. Yet we value these people enough to given one million pound bonuses despite their bank being still in the red. That says more about our society than those people, on second thoughts

Let's just say this: I'm not against rich people. I'm more about distributing the wealth (yes, my socialist rantings are beginning to surface). It is just not me saying it. Even the wealthiest French people were saying they should be taxed more back in August last year. There are wealthy people who are willing to have their taxes raised to help society, in USA and around the world.

If we want these people's jobs to become poisoned chalices, shouldn't we do a little bit more like not be friends with them, throwing stuff at them when the walk in the street or just not pay for their services? The unfortunate problem is we do need banks. These people have become a necessity rather than an option

Round and round we go

2012-01-19T22:24:00.003+08:00

Since I've been driving regularly for two and half years, I have become more incensed with other drivers. I have gotten past the stage where I think only BMW and Mercedes Benz drivers are bad; now I know most people behind a steering wheel in Hong Kong don't respect any kind of traffic or moral laws.

One thing I cannot get is how people don't know how to use roundabouts. It should be easy. Let's assume we are driving on the left hand side of the road (i.e. British, Japanese), the roundabout has two lanes and you know which exit to take. If you are taking the first exit (i.e. immediately turning left), you should stay on the inside lane (i.e. the left lane). If you are taking any other exit, you should go on the outside lane (i.e. the right lane). This assignment should avoid any collisions. The only problem is if you don't know which exit to take. If you are such a cretin (no offence), then take the inside lane (the left lane) and drive until you know which exit to take.

Oh, and remember to indicate which I will be writing about later when I stopped steaming through my ears after typing this entry.

Altruism doesn't seem to exist

2011-10-23T21:29:00.002+08:00

I'm forever hearing Chinese people are the most kindest people in the world. This is mainly because I'm surrounded by Chinese people, who think that having a close family means that they are kind and nice. I tend to think this is bollocks. I have the belief that Mainland Chinese people are not that altruistic and I will explain why. Please note that all opinions are my own and if you don't like them, don't read on.

One recent story from Mainland China emphasis my point on Mainland Chinese people. It is the news that a two year old toddler was run over twice by vans and eighteen people walked by doing nothing before a rubbish collector did the decent thing by moving the child to the side of the road and seeking help. Here is where I become all Daily Mail and say the two van drivers plus the eighteen pedestrians should be stripped of all their human rights, face life imprisonments and have all material possessions taken from them.

Maybe I am overreacting to the situation. This could be an isolated incident and in fact all people in China, bar twenty people in Foshan, are good citizens. I really don't believe so. Whenever I meet Mainland Chinese people, most of them tend to be impolite, ignorant and selfish. They only do something to benefit themselves or their family. They are not kind to casual acquaintances or strangers. That is the hallmark of altruism for me. Anybody will help their friends or relatives. It takes true courage and decency to go out of your own way and help somebody you don't know or even don't like.

Maybe those eighteen idiots who walked past thought they might hurt the child more if the intervened, for example by moving the child they cause a neck injury leading to paralysis. Perhaps they thought if they helped out by performing CPR and caused my damage, they might be sued by the parents. Even with all these mitigating factors in their heads, there are other actions that can be performed. You can stop ongoing traffic from running over the child again. You can note down the license plate of the van who ran her over. You can call for the ambulance. You don't have to be intelligent or knowledgeable in CPR to do these things.

The selfish nature of people also affects another story concern Mainlanders. Recently the Hong Kong government have to limit the number of Mainland Chinese mothers giving birth in Hong Kong as they are stretching looking health resources. This has called an outcry from Mainland Chinese mothers who are married to men from Hong Kong, who say they have the right to give birth in Hong Kong.

This shows the ignorance of these people concerning the use of public facilities. Nobody has the absolute right to anything. Even the Hong Kong mothers have to be turned away when the obstetrics wards are full. The use of public facilities depend on their availability and resources. I have the right to use the sports facilities in Tai Po but maybe I can't use them when somebody has already booked them. There are hundreds of people awaiting a liver transplantation in Hong Kong but they can't get one because there are not enough donors in the territory. Not everybody in Hong Kong can be prescribed drugs to lower their cholesterol, even if their cholesterol is high, since it would bankrupt the Hospital Authority.

These women only want to give birth in Hong Kong so they can enable their children to have free education, health care and benefits. They don't care about equal rights, they just want a share of the pie they feel they are entitled to. Unfortunately the pie is not big enough to share.

TVB Pearl News hotties

2011-10-10T20:01:00.005+08:00

In recent years, news programs and channels have to become more competitive as news rapidly becomes more commercialized. Tactics used in their broadcast include become 24 hour rolling news with in depth coverage of major stories, ranging from the serious (Iraq, Afghanistan) to the biennial (any story involving a celebrity), to asking viewers to send in their stories / comments / photos regarding the current topics.

News channels have also been focusing on looks recently. In years gone by, the typical newsreader would be a middle age man with a receding hairline and glasses, reading the news stoically in front of a plain background. Nowadays, the people reading and reporting the news tend to be young pretty women.

Before people start writing in saying I'm misogynistic and only watch the news just because a beautiful lady happens to be on my screen, let me just says I have a great deal respect for journalist and reporters. Not the ones who chose to report gossip of minor celebrities but those reporters who report the important news, even if it means a disruption of your social life or having to go difficult situations.

I know these ladies have acquired the relevant degrees, attended the required courses and undergone the necessary training to reach where they are. So why can't I say she's a babe and I want to go out with her? So here's my tribute to my favourite TVB Pearl News hotties... I mean female reporters.

Sonya Artero
I hate to use the phrases "MILF" or "cougar" but you get my drift of how I'm describing Sonya Artero. I prefer her to Jenny Lam because she has a bubbly personality and tends to have an off-the-quip remark about the lighter stories of the day which end the news bulletin.

Phillippa Stewart
When Emma Jones left TVB News, I felt that there wouldn't be another beautiful English lady would ever report for TVB News again. How wrong I was. Phillippa has lovely eyes and a great smile, as well as being very dedicated and good at her job. She had the guts to try out for a Playboy Bunny in Macau. It's a pity there are no photos of her in the bunny outfit.

Priscilla Ng
Definitely the most beautiful TVB Pearl news reporter. She doesn't have to be a reporter. She could easily marry a rich guy and stay at home. But she chooses to go out and find news stories, as well as reporting the TVB Pearl news.

Mona Lam
I am so disappointed Mona Lam has left TVB Pearl news. She is the lady I want most to be my girlfriend. I am really afraid she left TVB Pearl news just to get married. I'm still holding out and crossing my fingers.

Nicole Tsang
Another beautiful, hard working reporter who has since left TVB Pearl news. Why do all the nice girls seem to go away...

Evelina Leung
... only to be replaced by another beautiful well-informed reporter. The most voluptuous reporter on TVB Pearl and I don't mean she's fat - she has the curves in all the right places, just like the Nurburgring.

Danielle Tran Another hard working reporter who works for both TVB Pearl and Bloomberg. Love the dyed hair.

Elmy Lung
Maybe not as beautiful as the other lot but she works for both TVB Pearl and TVB Jade news. Comes across as the cute girl next door.

Bo Leung
A very cute lady who had a brief time on TVB Pearl news. Sadly missed by me only.

Jacqueline P'ng
Another cute girl next door reporter who has tragically has left TVB Pearl news.

Honourable mentions: Jenny Chan and Rainbow Ngai help present the weather at the end of TVB Pearl news. Cute as hell.

Naivety about food

2011-06-13T20:36:00.002+08:00

This may be my last entry for a while. I really should be setting up trenches and digging into books for my upcoming exams in September and going to general outpatient clinics next month. So it will mean less time looking at Japanese race queens and US cheerleaders in the foreseeable future.

I also want to keep up my monthly rate of whining about not having a girlfriend.
********
In recent weeks, there has been two major news stories about contaminated food. In Germany, nearly 2000 people were infected with E. coli from tainted vegetables. I'm not here to speculate which vegetables they were since nobody seems to know the source. Taiwan has been embroiled in a food fiasco recently, with harmful plasticisers being put in a variety of products, from food to skin products.

I marvel at the naivety of people who think this shouldn't happen in today's society. I like to say to those people to wake up, since this has been happening every since we started mass producing in the middle of the 20th century.

With an ever increasing population and the need to cut costs in production, multinational companies will find any way to cut corners, even if those mean less quality assurance. To boost the food production, society has been injecting all sorts of chemicals into animals and vegetable to maximise the yield. Unfortunately no food can escape a contamination scandal.

The first food contamination scandal I can remember was when eggs in UK were contaminated with Salmonella bacteria in the late 1980s. This carried on into the mid nineties, with the BSE scare which made everyone go vegetarian for a little while.

China are not exempted from this kind of controversy. Everybody who lives in Hong Kong generally thinks the quality assurance is China is very poor. How can you account for the fact that most pirated goods come from China. The mainland has been embroiled with the melamine dairy product scandal and a ton more scandals since. Generally, I don't really buy anything from China, even if it is dirt cheap.

From feeding animals antibiotics and chemicals so they can grow bigger to pesticides on vegetables to heavy metal contamination in fish and seafood, everything we eat has something we don't want in it.

You just have to accept - do you want cheap food or do you want quality assurance. You can't have both.

As plain as fish and chips

2011-06-06T11:22:00.003+08:00

In the past few years, I've been more immersed in cooking and baking, now that I have more free time in the evenings and weekends. I should be studying but after spending nearly nine years working my arse off for my mediocre medical degree, I think I deserve the opportunity to explore other avenues of pleasure. Some of my friends and work colleagues may have noticed my new found choice of hobby, by the pictures I post up of my culinary creations or even sampling some of my experiments themselves. The most indirect way they have noticed my recent fascination in food is the increasing size of my abdominal girth and my ever expanding cheeks. Clearly it is easier to gain weight than to lose weight.

I have tried all areas of culinary cuisine, apart from Chinese since I have my parents who can provide many dishes in this area. From chicken tagine to miso soup and mostly everything in between, I've tried a fair few recipes with some disasters and some successes. I do go back to my roots (kind of) by trying out typically British recipes, which include fish pie, cottage pie and roast chicken.

Now for all those non-English people out there, I know British food has a reputation of being bland and unoriginal. Even though I don't like nationalism and patriotism, I think I need to stand up for the humble chicken pie and toffee pudding. British cuisine may not be as exotic as Thai or Indian, or as delicate as the French or Italian. It doesn't try to be that way. British food is simple food or what I like to call "comfort food". It's not for ordering at a fancy restaurant. It's suppose to be easy to make at home and fills up your stomach.

Neither do I like people calling British food 'roast meat and potatoes'. To the naive person, what they usually order in most British pubs and restaurants may be roast beef and potatoes with gravy but there is a wide variation of British dishes if you just explore. Calling British food just roast meat and potatoes is like calling Chinese food just rice and noodles, Italian food just pasta and pizza and calling Indian food just curries. Each cuisine has its own variation and it is up to the eater to explore for him/herself the diversity.

So please, give the humble fish and chips a chance. Just don't try the pickled egg.

The green, green grass of home

2011-05-27T19:34:00.003+08:00

I have been back at work for around a week, after having a staycation of nearly two weeks. I'm still at the stage of my career where I cannot store up my annual leave to take it all in one go. The longest time I can take is one week plus any extras I get if I'm on duty on public holidays.

Did I use my time creatively? Of course not. I spent most of my time festering at home, going on the Internet and sleeping. I was not productive, which meant I was not reading any books, studying any medical material or preparing for the two presentations I had to give when I returned to work. I give two reasons / excuses for staying at home.

1. My dad was away on a conference in Northern China, leaving my mum to take care for the two dogs we have. Naturally being a loving son, I had to stay at home to keep an eye on our two adorable mutts.

2. Since late April, the decorators have been disassembling our house to renovate certain portions. The smaller bedroom, the living room and the garage are getting a new look, meaning most of the furniture and items within those three rooms have been shoved into the two remaining bedrooms of the house. My bedroom looks like it belongs to an obsessive-compulsive patient, as most of the open space is occupied by small cupboards, dining chairs and storage units.

I will be thankful when the decorators leave. Not only is it tiresome having to wear slippers all around the house since most of the floor is carpeted with a thin layer of plaster dust, like a really sick version of an indoor Christmas, but I really don't like having all these items in my room. I do miss my open space, and so do my dogs since they have less floor to lie on.

I do miss the open space, which is a reason why I live out in the suburbs. It's also a reason why I don't go out that often. I don't really like the crowds of Hong Kong. All that jostling and pushing in the streets leads me to yearn for large pastures and wide fields.

Now I'm not only counting the number of on-calls I have left (five including the one I'm on now), I'm waiting for the decorators to leave so I can finally have my room to myself instead of sharing it with my parent's ornamental furniture.

The bottom half of the internet

2011-05-05T19:05:00.002+08:00

Many events have taken place in the past week: the royal wedding of Prince William Windsor and Catherine Middleton, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the introduction of the statutory minimum wage in Hong Kong and Arsenal finally beating Manchester United to blow open the Premier League title race. I wanted to write about these momentous happenings but I thought better of it, as there are far too many opinions floating around anyway.

Everybody has an opinion of everything in the world, whether you think you do or not. Some choose not to express them, which can be a good or a bad idea depending on the issue that is being commented on. The people who do express the opinions have now more ways than before to make their ideas heard. I'm not just talking about the internet, with the comments section that appears at the end of an article and blogs, but other types of media want people to interact with them, such as the news asking people for pictures taken on the day of the royal wedding or radio programs who have listener phone-ins regarding whether it was lawful to the moral leader of al Qaeda.

For the most past, having this medium to express oneself creates more good than bad. The common person has the ability to influence events on par with the giant news corporations. Just look at the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. The governments of these two Arab nations were not brought down by arms or companies but by the average Joe (or would that be Muhammed) in the street with Twitter accounts, Facebook messages and blog entries like mine, although they had much more influence than my blog.

Yet there is that minority who are no longer silent but start to type away in the comments section to prove to us they are either idiots, racists, fascists, xenophobes, etc. The internet and social media allow these people to have a voice, which is detrimental to the human race. Yet sometimes it is a good thing. If we didn't have these avenues for them to vent their spleen, we wouldn't know they thought Hitler was a hero, black and white people shouldn't mix or that the woman's place is at home. It does weed out these people into the open and gives us the opportunity to ignore them in the long run. If we didn't have these ways of people allowing to express themselves, they might try to express themselves in more physical rather than verbal ways. Think of the mass killing sprees that people go on - usually they had posted a video or a diary entry expressing their views.

You don't need to think of the bottom half of the internet as a place for lunatics or morons, just think of it as flytraps or a red flagging system to warn us of these idiots.

Dignity in dying

2011-04-18T17:56:00.002+08:00

When you are studying medicine and particularly if you are an internal medicine specialist, you get drilled a lot about "quality of life". It's not about curing a disease or saving a patient's life. It's about the quality of life the patient will have after a doctor has intervened on him or her.

Being alive is not necessarily a good thing. As medicine and technology progresses, the life expectancy in the developed world is getting higher. The quality of life gradually decreases as you get older for most people, mainly due to age and the deterioration of the bodily functions but also due to the long term medical conditions people have. Society also suffers in the long term. There will be a higher percentage of elderly people living in society. The situation creates a burden on the public health services in recent years, as doctors have to treat their chronic and recurrent illnesses.

I know I have a tunnel vision view of the situation, since most of the elderly people I come in contact with have such medical conditions which require hospitalization. I know there are many elderly people who enjoy their retirement years, looking after their grandchildren or doing leisure activities which they never had time for when they are working. Yet there are a lot of elderly people who lying in beds in old-age homes, unable to feed themselves and requiring a nasogastric tube for nutritional supplements. They are unable to communicate to the outside world their bedsores are hurting or that they need to go to the toilet.

At this stage I would like to bring the people who advocate against euthanasia. Do they really think there is any dignity or quality of life in this kind of person - the bedbound, non-communicable, double incontinent, old-age home resident? I know doctors are there to save lives but we also have a duty to the people under our care to ensure they are comfortable and pain-free. Maybe death is a release for these kinds of people.

There is a whole spectrum of what the doctor can do to "hasten" a patient's departure. It can range from not actively investigating for a condition if you know that the treatment would be futile. Doctors often find some abnormality in blood results or radiological examinations, which will require further tests just to make sure what they mean. Most of the time elderly patients don't want to know or find the investigations too invasive for their liking to proceed any further. One step up from that is knowing what is wrong with them but finding the treatment to gruesome or harsh to endure, rather opting for "palliative" treatment.

Now we head into murky waters with the next phase, when an elderly patient is an acute deteriorating condition. Doctors often say in those conditions, that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (also known as CPR) or intubation is futile due to the patient's advanced age, poor medical history, current condition and grave prognosis. Doctors at this point usually talk to the relatives with these facts in mind and nowadays both parties agreed not to actively resuscitate the patient, issuing a "Do Not Resuscitate" (otherwise commonly known as DNR) order. This is very commonplace, especially for cancer patients and elderly patients.

The extreme of the spectrum will be euthanasia. Most people would have some idea of the policy in the Netherlands or have come across the news of the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Naturally some people are appalled we can do this to our fellow human beings but we have no problem putting pets to sleep or killing people in the name of war.

I think in the 21st century, when people are living longer with more chronic disabling conditions, that firm guidelines needed to be laid down for euthanasia. Sooner or later people will opt for this rather than wait for the natural death that will never come. There are those from the religious right who say that life was given by God and only He can take it away. However not all people believe in a religion and the arguments against euthanasia now have to be universal and appropriate for this day and age.

I think most of the rules for euthanasia are pretty self evident. The person has to be coherent enough to give the order that we wants to die and there has to be good evidence he or she gave that order. Often this is difficult for people who are lying on the bed, unable to communicate to the outside world. The problem could be circumnavigated by signing a piece of paper with witnesses or even better a video of them giving explicit instructions that they want to die if they turn into a vegetative state.

The other big rule is that they are either dying with very little time to live or that their quality of life is so severely poor that continuing living is equivalent to Hell on Earth. All of this is very subjective but there are some aspects we can put a rule or number on, like how long the patient has to live or which diseases we can allow the person to have to meet the criteria.

I know some people are appalled that a doctor can write about this subject but we are not making the decisions, the patients (or the patient's relatives) are. We just give the facts and often our opinions and it is the patients or their relatives that decide. I often come across a few relatives who insist on CPR, even though we know it would be futile. And in those situations, we don't say no - we actually respect their wishes and do what they ask.

We have to acknowledge the preciousness of life itself but also that there is some dignity in dying.

Road rage

2011-04-07T20:20:00.002+08:00

I have been back at work for the past week after being on leave for about ten days. I didn't really do much. Most of the time was spent online and watching old episodes of "Mock the Week" and "QI". I must really spend some of my waking hours doing something positive.

I have been transferred to a new hospital which focuses on convalescence and rehabilitation. Many other colleagues says the working hours are supposed to be easier but I just find the work just as gruesome as ever. At least there are fewer calls to have - just the four per month.

After spending most of the time at home during my staycation, I'm now back to driving to work. I've been driving regularly for the past year and half, so I hope I have enough experience to comment on other road users. I'll leave my thoughts about BMW drivers to another day but I do have many complaints about other drivers.

The main complaint I have is other drivers not using their indicators, either to change lanes or when they are turning. I know it is a minor thing to focus on but I really do not like drivers who don't indicate when they changing lanes or when turning right / left. It is such a small task to be performed yet there are those out there who don't do it. Not only it is an inconvenience to other vehicles but it can also be a hazard.

Another irritation I have is people jumping the queue. You know the scenario - you're lined up in traffic when some git drives in the exit road or adjacent lane to cut the queue. I really do hate those people. They intentionally do it because they know they can get away with it. My dad those it often and when I'm in the car when he does it, I chastise him until we get to our destination. Thankfully he does it less, or at least not when I'm riding with him.

To all drivers, there are other road users. Just because you own an expensive car like a BMW 5 series doesn't give you the excuse to drive like a prick.

Reflex charity

2011-03-16T22:06:00.002+08:00

Christchurch - 21st February 2011
Haiti - 12th January 2010
L'Aquila - 6th April, 2009

What have these places and dates have in common? They were major earthquakes that have happened in the last few years. Yet most of them have disappeared from most people's minds, especially to one person who I was catch a lift who totally forgotten what had happened in Christchurch just under one month ago.

I'm using this point and the recent earthquake in Sendai to emphasize what I call reflex charity. Most of us don't think about the disasters in the world until it is staring us in the face and affecting our own lives. Only when it is in the news do we feel compelled to do something about it and not at any other point in our lives.

The case in point is the Sendai earthquake recently. Most of us acknowledge that it is a disaster and send our condolences and prayers to the people in the area. But what are most Hong Kong people concerned about from the Sendai earthquake? That Japanese milk formula powder will go up in price or even worse not become available, despite a whole range of other choices available. We also have the media scaring us into the belief that the radiation will be swept from Japan to Hong Kong from the exploding nuclear power plants. We have this belief from the media, despite the facts...

1. Sendai is more than 3000 km away from Hong Kong.
2. Radiation is not "contagious" although there is a rare possibility radioactive particles could be deposited on objects such as food and clothes.
3. Authorities would obviously check most imports for radiation.
4. The prevailing winds around Japan will tend to blow the radioactive particles towards the Pacific Ocean.

I hate this kind of reflex charity. People from these disaster stricken areas will have to live on through the hard times, long after the camera crews have gone home. Remember the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami? Touristy areas such as Phuket will recover quickly but impoverished areas such as Indonesia, which have had numerous earthquakes since, still have yet to recover.

Everywhere there has been a major humanitarian crises. Barring earthquakes, there are other natural disasters. Remember the 2008 Cyclone Nargis which swept Burma and killed more than 100 000+ people. Do you really think the military junta will be helping the impoverished there? What about human rights disasters such as the ethnic cleansing that was going on in Darfur, Sudan.

And don't get me started on other humanitarian and natural issues. People in the developing world are constantly dying from hunger, poverty and diseases. We constantly are demolishing are earth and wiping out species just so we can have a better lifestyle.

What I am trying to stay is we really shouldn't have this reflex charity. We really shouldn't need TV charity programmes such as Comic Relief and Children in Need to constantly remind us about giving to the needy. We should be doing this on a regular basis. I know a great deal of my friends are quite well off and can afford to give a little bit to charity. What everybody should be doing is just setting up a Direct Debit or whatever else you call it. Just donate a little bit of your money to a charity of your choice every year. It doesn't have to be a lot, just a little bit will be nice.

Because charity shouldn't have to be a knee jerk reaction, it should be a constant action all the time.

A modern day Chaplin?

2011-03-10T19:56:00.003+08:00

When I'm not on call, I catch up with a lot of British TV. My current fad is watching "Fast and Loose". From the creators of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" and "Mock the Week", it's a bit like the former program. Fans of the American version of WLIIA will be happy to see Wayne Brady in "Fast and Loose".

One of the highlights of "Fast and Loose" is the interpretative dance segment performed by David Armand. In this section, Armand mimes a song using its lyrics as the inspiration and the other comedians have to guess what the song is, without listening to the song itself.

If you don't know who David Armand is, one of his most famous interpretative dances was at the Secret Policeman's Ball 2006 for Amnesty International. During that event, he mimed the lyrics to the song "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia, who later joined him on the stage - first singing and then miming the words herself.

He does the same in "Fast and Loose" using such classics as "Eternal Flame" to modern day hits such as "Hit Me Baby One More Time". You have to watch it to fully appreciate the comedic value plus the entertainment on show.

I know I might court controversy by comparing him to a great comedian such as Charlie Chaplin in my blog entry title but the comparisons are worth noting. Charlie Chaplin was famous for using physical gestures and facial expressions to get his comedy across the the audience. David Armand uses the same techniques in his comedy routines. Armand may never get to the same level of fame or fortune as Chaplin but his technique with the great master are quite similar.

But you have to see it to really believe it...

A mid-life crisis?

2011-02-06T22:28:00.002+08:00

I think I reached a point in life when a significant amount has already gone past by me and I haven't achieved much. It was my 30th birthday recently. It was supposed to be a free evening for me but unexpectedly I was asked to be on-call when the original doctor reported in sick. So I was spending my birthday making sure people were kept alive, at least until the next day.

That day seemed to sum up my life. I'm now thirty years old, still a virgin and single (in the order of priority I think are important). Most people I know are in the process of becoming specialists by taking their exit exams, are married or in the process of walking down the aisle and some of them even have the cheek of bearing children. To top it all off, my younger brother has just proposed to his girlfriend, thus making me look like the older brother loser that I probably am.

It's often hard not to compare to your friends and colleagues, but it is difficult to ignore when they post that they've passed their exams in their Facebook status or display fifty photos of their daughter from exactly the same angle on Flickr, despite the fact that they already uploaded photos of her doing the exact same a day before. I often thought I should emigrate to somewhere to avoid comparing my own life to the life of my friends but I would suffer the same problem elsewhere and my own friends' life would haunt me over the medium of the Internet.

Look, I'm trying to correct these things. I know I'm not going to accelerate my career path anytime soon, so I just try to ignore what my other doctor friends/colleagues are doing. I just wallow in the truth that in six months time I won't have to be on-call ever again or have to work during weekends. That is some small comfort to me.

I try to ignore that people I know are having kids, even though it is nearly impossible to do so. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for these couples. Yet honestly I really cannot picture them having sex. Not that it is totally gruesome but they are just some of the most conservative people I know. Sex for them would be a chore to get to a baby, not something wonderous and enjoyable.
Most of the time, I think they would do the task missionary style and have it done with in five minutes. I don't think the female part of the couple even orgasms.

I'm trying dating websites at the moment but the ones in Hong Kong are not very good. They offer very minimal service and if you want to get much better coverage, you have to pay exorbitant amounts. Only one website seem to be adequate, meaning I have had one correspondence. The others are just not worth it.

The options at work are not that great. I've only met a few ladies I would like to date. Yet it is often so hard to engage whether they are interested in you or not. I have one in mind. We often chat over the Internet but I don't know whether she likes me or not. I probably wimp out and won't ask her out on a date, primarily because I don't know where to take her or what to do on a date. That's how pathetic I am.

A new life

2011-01-27T18:05:00.003+08:00

For the past four weeks, I have been slowly adapting to a new life in my new hospital's Department of Medicine and Geriatrics. After staying six months in my previous hospital's Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, it has been difficult changing ways. I used to be in a relatively small department in a small hospital. Now I'm in a large department in a very busy hospital.

Slowly but surely I have been getting use to being a internal medicine resident. I am thankful that there have been a number of changes which occurred before I came which makes my life a little bit easier. Firstly I only have to do a ward round once in the morning and that is it. Sometimes doing an afternoon ward round doesn't help and should only be done if there have been any new cases or changes. Secondly there are protected hours for the doctors on-call to sleep, otherwise they would never sleep.

At least the people are nice here, when they have a chance to speak to you. I'm grateful that my seniors are not very harsh on me when I make mistakes or ask for help/advice. I'm learning a lot and I hope most of it stays in the brain.

Busy at Christmas time

2010-12-20T23:05:00.003+08:00

I'm currently on leave from work until after Christmas. I still have plenty to do over the next week. I've got two presentations I have to prepare which will be presented next week. Also I have to sort out my Annual Practising Certificate so that I can continue practising medicine and I have to sort out what I'm doing in the next three months at the next hospital - especially my car parking space.
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My brother is back for the Christmas holidays. My mother asked me to take my leave from work at this time of year to be with my brother but to be perfectly honest, I don't know why she asked me. I don't talk to my brother much and I don't need to go out with him. Also he's pissing off to see his girlfriend in Malaysia after Christmas is over and his girlfriend is visiting us afterwards as well. Sometimes I do feel like an appendix - an useless appendage which nobody notices
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I still hate weddings. At first I do get annoyed when friends don't invite me to weddings but in the end, I'm grateful I don't have to go. I just find it miserable and depressing all the time. Perhaps it just reminds me of my own martial status, the fact the weddings I have been to have been filled with doctors talking about boring doctor stuff or the whole sycophant affair is not benefiting the bride or groom but everybody else's benefit which I hate about weddings.

I just like to say a big 'Thank You' to all those who don't invite me and a big sorry to those who do for being such a miserable git.
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Well done to AP McCoy for winning BBC Sports Personality of the Year. He's getting some due recognition for such a marvellous career and year, after winning the Grand National. I would have voted for Phil 'The Power' Taylor or Graeme McDowell. Amy Williams should also get a special mention as well.

I loved AP McCoy's last words to Cesc Fabregas in his thank you speech. I think he echoes every Arsenal fans' thoughts when he said it.

Dumbed down news

2010-11-28T23:12:00.003+08:00

Two recent events have made me thing the news media has dumbed down in recent years.

I was on holiday in Koh Samui when Prince William announced he was going to marry Kate Middleton in 2011. Let me state I am happy for William and Catherine. Naturally this piece of news is a delight to hear and I wish them all the happiness in the world.

Yet can I move on after this announcement was finished? No, I couldn't since the media was relentlessly following this gold nugget for the next few days. The only news channel I could receive whilst I was in Koh Samui in my resort was BBC World News. I know the Beeb would report this piece of fact as the priority news bulletin, since it concerned the BRITISH Royal Family. Yet I'm disappointed how they treated this piece of news like a piece of tabloid gossip. Just read out the fact that Prince William and Kate Middleton are going to be married next year and move on.

But the BBC couldn't move on. I think they used every single reporter that was available to cover this story. From the University of St. Andrews, to RAF Anglesey to Kate Middleton's home to Kenya, there was constant speculation and gossip of what essentially what I class as a non-story - it doesn't really have an effect on the normal person and doesn't concern the long-term stability of the world. I'm very disappointed with the BBC News. You would think the BBC News, with its reputation of impartiality and credibility would now stoop so low to cover this story as a major news item. I know it is a piece of good news but really, after the first 24 hours, the Beeb should move on.

(Before you point it out, I know there is an irony of me writing about a non-news story which should be covered as news.)

The other story is Barack Obama getting a split lip in a Thanksgiving basketball game. The same rules apply with this story. It is a non-news story that has no major effect on the world or me.

I honestly think we as a human race have dumbed down enough to consider these two events as news. We should take a bit more interest in politics and economics but instead we are more concerned about celebrity weddings and world leaders getting injured. Doesn't this reflect the times?

I believe Stephen Fry is right...

2010-11-07T20:01:00.002+08:00

Stephen Fry, acclaimed emperor of Twitter and aficionado of all things great and beautiful, recently got into trouble with the opposite sex by claiming that women do not enjoy sex. That statement seems ironic coming from a gay man, which has been pointed out by critics. "What would a gay man know about women and their sexual desires?" cried out feminists.

Yet I believe Stephen Fry is right, in some sought of way. There will be women in the world who would have a sexual drive which would put rabbits to shame. On the whole though, women are less sexually driven than men. I don't blame women for that attitude, since it is just the way they are wired. In all species, it is the male who tries to sow as much as seed into as many females as possible, so they have to be as sexually aggressive as they can. That is what their genes tell them to do. For the females, their chromosomes tell them to pick the best suitors with the most desirable characteristics - strength, intelligence, etc. So females have to be selective in choosing their partners and tend to hold out until they are absolute certain their partner is the best.

Nonetheless, shouldn't humans have progressed to the stage where they shouldn't be listening to their DNA and control their own lives? Yes we have but still women still have a "conservative" view on sex. As I stated before and I will state again, women then to attach sex with love, which I don't believe is true. You can have sex without love and love without sex...

Sex with love = the perfect relationship
Sex without love = one night stands, prostitution, fuck buddies, etc.
Love without sex = Most marriages after a few years
No love or sex = single

For most men, I am frustrated there are fewer women who have the same attitudes towards sex as I do. In UK and US, the situation is better. There are ways to link up with people who like straight cruising or fuck buddies or one night stands through reliable means. In Hong Kong and I reckon most other Asian countries, the attitudes towards sex is still in the Dark Ages. Trying to link up with a lady who likes sex as much as I do is nigh impossible.

Of all the ladies I know in Hong Kong, I can only think of two women who I reckon will like sex as much as men do. One is a doctor and one is a nurse who does wear very sexy clothes outside of work.

Yet dressing up sexy and being interested in sex are two different things. For some women, dressing up sexy is not an indication they want to have sex. Sometimes they want to feel powerful, that they captivate men and put them underneath their thumb just because they are showing a bit of skin. Other times, they just want to spite other women by attracting more attention from men.

Before you say it, I'm not frustrated about women having these attitudes towards sex. I'm just frustrated I can't find the women who have the same attitudes towards sex like I do.

Dating

2010-10-16T18:58:00.002+08:00

I went out for a date on Thursday night. It is only the second person I went out with a date with. The girl I went out with, we had three dates before deciding that our relationship wasn't going to work out for various reasons and we ended the relationship amicably.

This time, the date was arranged by an English radio programme, which would be highly unusual in any person's life. All we did was have a nice dinner together. I think the date went well from my perspective. Yet I have no idea if she thought the same as well. I'm just a bad reader of women in general. I think the major sticking point is the age difference. She is older than me. I don't find that a problem (which may mean I'm desperate) but I think this issue stuck in the back of her mind.

Generally I find it difficult to find dates. I have very selective criteria. I do want to date somebody with a Western background, which limits my options in Hong Kong. I find Hong Kong dating websites not generally helpful. They usually have to pay a fee to use their full services, which is annoying and their scope is limited. I may even have to resort to asking my friends for suggestions.

There must be a way for somebody like me to find a date, isn't there?

Professional hatred (part 4)

2010-09-20T20:45:00.002+08:00

Accounting / bankers / stockbrokers
If you have anything to do with finance, I hate you. I just think you are the parasite sucking on the life blood of the earth and draining the world of any vitality it once had. Your primary aim in life is to make more money. You just don't want to make money to buy a house or a car, or to fund your parents' retirement or your children's future. Basically you are driven by greed and no other motive, which I think is dangerous. In my mind, you will do anything and screw over anybody just to squeeze out that net profit, even if it means selling your own grandmother.

Not only that, you make finance incredibly difficult to understand. Once a upon a time, what you did with money is either spend it or save it. Now you have to invest the money you earned into a whole variety of schemes - shares, bonds, options, real estate, etc. Where did the habit go of just paying for material goods, like bananas, shoes and screwdrivers?

As it turned out, those bankers didn't really know what they were doing. Lending money who couldn't possibly pay it back? Please, I don't have an economics degree and I could have told you that was a bad idea. Worst of all, once the governments bailed out the banks, those in the banking system did sod all. Bankers didn't apologize for what they did and did nothing to help out the economy either. They still got paid the absurdly humongous wages they have and even had the cheek to have bonuses as well.

Society should revert back to a system where people should be rewarded for their usefulness. People like farmers who provide food, nurses who provide health care and police officers who provide protection. These jobs are vital and we would miss them. Kill a million bankers and you would bat an eyelid.

At this point I should point out I'm a socialist. Even though I am paid quite well as a doctor, I accept that I will be taxed quite heavily to contribute to society. Actually when I saw my tax bill for the upcoming year, I frightened my dogs when I shouted out the amount. I accept that taxes are necessary to pay for many things, and actually it pays for my salary. However I don't like people who avoid paying tax. That is where my hatred for accountants come in. Most of them I believe (which I know is not true but please satisfy my ego by continuing this line of thought) try to help their clients avoid paying tax. If you don't contribute to society, you should get anything out of society.

This is where I don't like my uncle. According to my father, he doesn't pay tax in Hong Kong since his business is in China. I don't know if he pays tax in China but I'm suspecting he really doesn't. And he still lives in Hong Kong, sending his son to school here and using the health care system. Even though he's a resident here, I still believe that is wrong.

I know he is my uncle but that doesn't make him immune to my vitriol. The same applies to my brother and a number of friends who work in the finance sector. I love my brother very much but I hate his job as an employee of UBS, another bank who had a bailout. I am jealous of his wages and his benefits. I have the capabilities to become a banker. Yet I don't have the soul for the job or rather I do have a soul which I am unwilling to sell to the devil.

Gordon Gekko once said, "Greed is good." If that is the case, why is greed one of the seven deadly sins.

Professional hatred (part 3)

2010-09-07T21:09:00.002+08:00

PR / Marketing / Advertising
The sophisticated science fiction author H.G. Wells once said that, "Advertising is legalized lying" and I'm inclined to agree. I can't stand anybody who works in the field trying to portray something that isn't there or more likely trying to hide the truth from being known.Ever since the growth of media and the need to sell material items, the role of public relations has essentially made people not what they are.

Let's take a recent case study. The News of the World, one of the most trashiest tabloids (I'm not even going to call them 'a newspaper') in Britain, has recently published a story that Wayne Rooney, the England and Manchester United football star, had sex with a prostitute whilst his wife Coleen McCoughlin was pregnant.

Firstly to continue my hatred of tabloid journalism, this is a story that nobody needs to know. Not the general public, not the football fans, this is a private matter between a husband and a wife. The News of the World are just wasting everybody's time in order to sell newspapers by publishing a non-essential story.

However it has come to this stage where footballers and any other stars are required to be portrayed as wholesome members of society in order to sell products and remain in the spotlight. This is where the PR / marketing parasites come in. They have been whispering in Wayne Rooney's ear that essentially he has to be something that he really is not. I'm not saying I approve of Rooney's behaviour but if PR / marketing didn't exist, there wouldn't be such an outcry of this story. We would just leave Wayne and Coleen to sort out their own problems.

The same idea applies to any other major celebrity. I don't care if Tom Cruise is a crackpot who believes in Scientology and is married to somebody more than 15 years younger than him. If he makes good movies, that is all I care about. I don't really care if Amy Winehouse is a drug addict either. It's her choice and if she dies - so be it - but if she kicks the habit, good for her. I don't care if my local politician is gay/lesbian/black/white/rich/poor, as long as he/she can do the job honestly (which would rule out Tony Blair).

And to be honest, I wouldn't buy Twinings tea just because Stephen Fry advertised it. Nor would I buy an iPad just because Stephen Colbert whipped the device out of his suit pocket at the Grammys. I buy products because of their use, not because of their association.

Which leads me to advertising. I don't mind inventive TV adverts, which are mini films in their own right. The advertising I most hate is the inaccurate use or misuse of science in their campaign.

I have long hated any adverts selling formula milk. Any TV advert seems to claim that the formula milk has added substances to help children be smarter, forgetting to add the fact that most of these substances do occur naturally in your diet and there is no need for supplementation. Also advertising seems to portray drinking these brands of formula milk will instantly make your kids brainier, without mentioning the need of a stimulating environment, good schooling, an appropriate social group and parental involvement.

I often thought that parents should be drinking formula milk more than their children, since obviously they blindly follow anything advertised on TV.

Professional hatred (part 2)

2010-08-30T21:26:00.004+08:00

Recent events have brought up some another profession I despise...

Tabloid reporters
I respect most reporters who uncover stories of corruption by government officials or tales of deception by big companies. I have great admiration for the journalists who go to dangerous spots in the world like war zones or areas of high crime to highlight the plight of the oppressed and the underrepresented.

There is one branch of journalism that I don't like: the tabloid news. Basically they publish news which will make them the most money, rather than news which should be relevant to the people reading or watching it. They drum up ridiculous stories, such as celebrity gossip. I can't stand celebrity gossip. There is a primetime half hour show on TVB Jade, the local Chinese channel here in Hong Kong, devoted to stories about popstars and soap opera actors. Thankfully the evening news is on the other channel at the same time, sparing me from having to watch that trash.

There is also news that is totally irrelevant and doesn't have an impact on me even in the slightest. Such stories include, "I found a picture of Jesus on my toast!" and "Tortoise found with two heads!" These stories have a definite interest but they should displace the economy or the war in Afghanistan or the plight of flood-stricken Pakistanis from the front pages. These are stories that swarmy git Piers Morgan would put on the front pages of the newspapers during his time as editor of "The Sun" and "The Mirror". If there had been a face of tabloid journalism, his face would be it... and I would never get tired punching it.

There is one aspect of journalism that I don't like. In the recent tragedy of the Hong Kong tourists dying in Manila, I was really pissed off when journalists, with their microphones and cameras surrounding the survivors like a pack of vultures. All they wanted was to get the story but would they consider their feelings? These people have gone through the most horrific trauma of their lives, being shot at and seeing their loved ones die right in front of their eyes. At least give them a day or two before asking them how they feel (which is a bit obvious).

Professional hatred (part 1)

2010-08-22T18:47:00.004+08:00

There are some professions I despise. Mostly it is a generalized stereotypical hate, born out of their reputation than actually meeting anybody in that career path. Yet I have met some people working in these areas and they just confirm my prejudices. They are blood sucking parasites and their cull would benefit society. I apologize for any of my friends who are in these jobs. Once you are outside work, you're generally a good human being. Once you start talking about spreadsheets and euros, you start to become a prick.

Lawyers
Generally I haven't encountered a real lawyer. I met some law students whilst I was studying medicine and they seem OK. It's just the one's who seem to represent the scum of the earth and bill their clients into bankruptcy I have a problem with. One of those law students (who was pretty fit) justified to me that everybody has a right to representation. I tend to agree with that (and not because she was fit). But the lawyer also has a right to refuse to represent the client. I generally couldn't represent the client knowing he or she was guilty.

Also lawyers are the ones who make the law so monumentally difficult to understand that you need to employ a lawyer just to get past the contents page in the law books. If the law was much easier to understand, most people would respect it more rather look at it as some secret code ruled over by an occult society.

Right-wing politicians
I think most of the general population hates politicians. Actually I tend to think most politcians are decent folk. Yet it is the ones who come from the right wing who irk me. Most of the ones from the left wing tend to enter the field so they can do some general good. If you think of all the prominent politicians who have done good in the world, they tend to have left wing politics. Naturally there are socialist leaders who haven't done that well, such as Josef Stalin.

Most of the right wing politicians come into the field to protect their own - the businesses - and nothing else. These are the ones who tend to abuse their power by employing their friends and family into prominent positions. These are the ones who are the most likely to put everything they use on expenses and get the taxpayer to pay for their holiday in the Caribbean.

Before you ask, I am a socialist / left-wing favourist. I do acknowledge there are left-wing politicians who perform these heinous crimes as well. Yet in the grand scheme of things, it tends to be the right wing politicians who seem to come out of these scandals smelling of shit.

Anyway, I do have more professions I hate but I think that is enough bile for one blog entry...

Cause and effect

2010-08-15T21:18:00.003+08:00

I don't listen to much music anymore. Most of the time I download radio programs and podcasts, nearly all of them coming from the UK. One of the radio programs I like is "The Infinite Monkey Cage", a BBC Radio 4 program mixing science and comedy. One of their episodes was science and religion - always murky waters to dive into. The priest who was representing religion believed that science comes across as having all the answers. The scientist representing, eh, science (a bit obvious - he wasn't exactly going to be representing religion, was he?) replied that science doesn't always have the solution and that is why there is science - to look for the answers. That same concept applies to medicine. Doctors and medical experts don't always have the answers but we continue to pursue for the answer.

I don't think the main population realize this concept. They believe medicine is this magical science, that one pill will cure all illnesses and doctors are wizards who can miraculously make people better. Yet it is not like that. The miracle should be the human body, which can repair itself despite some horrendous injuries and damage. Most of the prolongation of life expectancy is not due to the invention of antibiotics & medication or the advancement of medical technology but due to the improvement in hygiene and sanitation.

The main parents' question, "Why did my son/daughter get infected or get this disease?", doesn't have a real concrete answer. Yet there are a lot of questions they ask which is borne out of not stupidity but ignorance or the lack of proper education at school. Why don't you use antibiotics in this viral infection? My child has had a fever for two days but it isn't down yet - why? Is there any particular brand of formula milk which will make him cleverer, prevent him from getting infections or make him able to fly? Why can't parents remember the time when they were children and constantly having colds and runny noses all the time?

Clearly what is needed a change in the education system. More of this basic information should be taught in children at an early age, along with social issues such as what is a government and why do we need to pay taxes, etc. If we had education like this, I would see less cases of kids coming in with a gum infection because his mother did not bother to brush his gums every day but every week.

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Still looking out for potential girlfriends. Just hoping one of the beautiful women from TVB Pearl News to notice me. Keeping my fingers cross. There are a few cute ladies who I am working with. There is a fellow Family Medicine trainee who is cute but she is one year senior than me (not, should I emphasize, one year older than me) - don't know how that will work. There is also a cute student nurse working in the paediatrics ward. The paediatric doctor I'm working with is also very cute. I love her look with the those secretary/librarian glasses.

I shouldn't mention anymore - she could be reading this :P

Insurance and financial plans

2010-08-11T20:46:00.002+08:00

There are a number of jobs I hate, which will be a topic of a later blog entry. One of the people I hate are those trying to sell you insurance or financial plans. I have been ambushed three times and have been asked out to talk about buying a financial firm's scheme to make money for me and more importantly for them. When they approach me, I'm just too nice to turn them down. I smile politely and answer their questions. Now I just resort to not taking their calls. Thank goodness for caller ID.

I just want to say this to all people who have to sell stuff like this. If I wanted a financial plan, I would have bought one already. If I needed insurance, I would have already acquired it. I don't need to buy something I don't need or have no intention at buying at this moment. I'm not reliant on my parents or anybody else for money and vice versa. I'm quite happy to stay with the Hospital Authority for my health needs at the moment. If I die, it would be a travesty (in a financial sense) to my family.

So please, stop pestering me.

A sinking ship

2010-08-01T20:57:00.002+08:00

You know you have an unhappy work environment when many of the employees leave in quick succession. Naturally people change jobs, going from one company to another. Yet if a significant number of people quit the department, you know there is something wrong.

One department that I used to work in, which shall remain nameless, had one associate consultant, two resident specialists and one resident leave in quick succession. This left the department short-staffed for some time before it could recruit people to join their team. Many of those left behind may have complained of the situation there were dealt with but if you know the circumstances and reasons why so many people left, you would probably understand.

Many doctors in the Hospital Authority want to go into the private sector, sooner rather than later as they want to control their own working hours and conditions. Others don't like the working conditions they are dealt with, mostly the rules and regulations they are imposed with. Some are dissatisfied with the boss they are working with. Others just want to change their specialty having found out they don't like the current specialty they are working. Some doctors, mainly women, start to work part time so they can take care of their kids. There are a whole variety of reasons why people leave.

What people don't want to be is part of a sinking ship.

Being hounded

2010-07-24T17:23:00.003+08:00

One of the reasons why I don't like going out is when I go into a shop, I am immediately accosted by a shopping assistant, asking me whether or not I need any help. This is even before I decided what I want to buy.

I just don't like shopping assistants in general. When they come over to me and ask me what I want, I always answer, "I'm just browsing". I always feel pressured to buy something when that shopping assistant starts to talk to me. I know they want to sell their products but have they ever thought it might turn some people off.

What I would like is to shop in piece without being hassled. When I do decide to buy something, I will bring it to the counter and pay for it. I don't need assistance in doing that. I might need assistance if I can't find what I'm looking for or I need help - that is when I will find a shopping assistant.

So please stop hounding me. Not every person in your shop is looking to buy something. Sometimes browsing is a good thing.

How a guy thinks

2010-07-11T12:54:00.002+08:00

School friend: Hot, curves in all the right places. Has boyfriend though.
University friend 1: Beautiful, kind, generous. Boyfriend status unknown. Probably scared of my liberal ways.
University friend 2: Nice, very artistic minded. Don't know her that well.
University friend 3: Nice friend. A bit more liberal minded than most people.
Doctor 1: Beautiful, nice. Has boyfriend though.
Nurse 1: Totally hot. Should wear make-up more.
Doctor 2: Cute.
Doctor 3: Cute.
TVB Pearl newsreaders/reporters: All very beautiful. Thinks TVB Pearl is using them as window dressing. Not complaining though.

In the middle of nowhere

2010-07-09T22:19:00.002+08:00

A few months ago, I was listening to a radio program called "Mark Steel's in Town", where the stand-up comedian Mark Steel visits lesser known towns and villages in UK to perform a half hour show using material regarding the town's history, famous people and historical landmarks. In the latest series in April/May, he went to the two most furthest points in the whole of the British Isles. The comedian went to Penzance, in the far south west of England, and to Kirkwall, which is the capital of Orkney - the island north of Scotland.

In the show Steel remarks how isolated and far away these two villages are. Most people would think these places are a nightmare to live, in the middle of nowhere and remote. But these are exactly the places I want to work in and stay in.

I hate crowds to begin with. I rarely venture out into the metropolis of Hong Kong, with the highest population density of any country in the world. The hustle and bustle just doesn't fit me. This is probably the reason why I continue to live my parents in the countryside, because I dread living in the middle of the city. I know it is very convenient, next to shops and restaurants, yet there is the constant noise and air pollution. It is not for me.

Which is probably why I yearn to be in places in Kirkwall and Penzance. I probably be happy being a doctor in Cheung Chau or Lamma Island here in Hong Kong as well. I also pondered whether or not I can be a doctor in the Australian outback as well. And I have actively said before I wouldn't mind being posted to the Antarctic.

The only thing I would probably need is fast broadband connection and my MacBook Pro. I self sufficient enough to cook and clean for myself. Family? I would miss them but they would miss me more. Friends? I hardly see them that often as it is.

No, I would be perfectly happy in the middle of nowhere.

From gynaecology to paediatrics

2010-07-04T21:11:00.002+08:00

I just finished my first year of residency in family medicine and I feel I am as stupid as ever. This is nothing to do with the departments I've been with. They have been very helpful and very nice, especially the gynaecology department I have been attached with for the past three months. I learnt quite a deal of gynaecology in my past three months. Hopefully I will retain all that wisdom and knowledge when I return to the general outpatient clinics and during my exams.

A part of me is relieved to be leaving gynaecology. The only aspect I don't like about the specialty is the patients. Women can be very troublesome, which is probably why I have been single for past 29 years of my life. I honestly believe women have far more somatic complaints than men, so they have to see the doctor more often. On some occasions this is a good thing as if they have a severe condition, they can be treated earlier. However nine times out of ten they complaint is usually very minor. For men, they want to appear strong and their ego prevents them from presenting to the doctors very early. This can be troublesome later if they have a severe condition which should have been treated earlier if they presented earlier.

Also I will be thankful never to perform another gynaecology examination again. I don't mind staring at vaginas all day long but, as Hong Kong women never shave that region ever, it can get wearisome if you have to look at something that looks like a Venus flytrap or when the Predator from the Predator movies takes off his/her helmet. Hundreds of patients and only two shaved pussies. As you probably guess, those two women were foreigners.

So now I'm in paediatrics and hope not to cock up too much. Also I want more fulfilment in my life so I've started exercising to reduce weight and studying for my examinations next year. Hopefully the next few months will be OK.

Weekend driver!

2010-06-20T23:43:00.004+08:00

For nearly six months, I have driven constantly to and from work on a regular basis. Added with my previous experience of one year weekly commuting between the medical hall of residence and home, I think I am in a position to comment on the state of the roads today.

I'm not stating I am a perfect driver but I have improved over the past half year. Regularly driving, even if it is the same route at the same time of day, does help improve your driving skills. I also drive quite economically, trying to get the best fuel economy out of my VW Golf. That means driving a bit slower than I previously did and knowing when to switch to the left hand lane to allow other road users to overtake me.

Also by being more efficient, I have to be more aware of other drivers and the road conditions, leading to be a much safer and more self-aware driver. That cannot be said for all drivers. You would expect the more you drive, the more courteous and safer driver you are. It does not necessarily work out that way. I think the drivers with the worst manners on the roads are the professional drivers. These are the drivers who are on the roads most of the day as their job dictates it. These include people who transport goods, minibus drivers and taxi drivers. However they are the least likeliest to give way when other cars need to merge and break every known traffic law.

There are a few acts on the roads that I really hate which I will go into much detail about:

1. Using indicators

Whether it is to turn right or left or to change lanes, everybody should indicate with their lights where they are going. It doesn't take much effort and it doesn't wear down the batteries. So why don't more people do it? It is probably down to sheer laziness.

It is a matter of courtesy for other drivers to let them know where you are going. Also it is a matter of safety. You don't want a car suddenly pulling in front of you from the next lane. For pedestrians, you would want to know which way the car is turning or going so you can safely cross the road.

2. Giving way

I hate people who don't give way. Whether it is two lanes that are merging into one or to allow somebody out when they have been waiting for quite some time, you should be courteous enough to allow other cars out when it is necessary. I do believe in karma and I do believe it will bite back or reward you later.

3. Tailgaiting

Maybe not quite a great offence but it is bloody frightening if somebody is following your car pretty closely. Especially if the vehicle is a heavy goods lorry. You dare not brake, you're more likely to increase your speed and you spend more time looking in your rearview mirror than looking at the road ahead.

4. Queue jumpers

My dad those this a lot. When there is a queue on the highway/motorway, he uses the other lanes to queue jump. I hate these discourteous drivers. You should get in lane like everyone else.

5. People who use mobile phones

A lot of Mercedez Benz / BMW drivers in Hong Lok Yuen do this. Just because they think they are driving at a slow speed with little traffic in the vicinity, they think they can talk on their mobile phones. But there are still other road users, there are still pedestrians around and the traffic laws of Hong Kong still apply. Just wait until you get home to take the call.

Remember, not only you are using the roads - there are other drivers on the motorways.

Stuck inside

2010-06-12T21:26:00.002+08:00

I cannot believe my luck. Not only am I on-call on a Saturday - the worst day of the week to be stuck inside a hospital - but it happens to fall on the day England play USA in their first group game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Thankfully I'm only working in gynaecology, which means we don't have to admit patients after 17:00 and the wards are relatively quiet during the evenings. I can sneak out to watch the match but it is a late evening kick-off. Currently mood leads me not to watch the match. I just cannot be bothered to wake up at 02:00 to go and watch the match.

As gynaecology is relatively quiet at my hospital, it gives me too much time to ponder about my life. I should be getting on with a presentation that I have to give on Thursday but yet I'm thinking about my existence. Currently I'm not depressed but not totally happy either. I'm just stuck in a rut and cannot get out. The best way to describe my state is dissatisfaction and ambivalency. I'm currently in a good job which is not that demanding. I'm dreading the next year as I will be in Medicine and Paediatrics plus I should start revising for my HKCFP exams. Apart from that my job is OK yet I have an itching feeling I'm not totally comfortable the position I'm in. I cannot complain about the pay or benefits. I have enough cash in the bank not to worry about my financial status, since my parents are not dependent on me. I also don't spend huge amounts of money like dining out or buying DVDs since I can control myself to buy what I only need.

I know I still live at home with my parents at the age of 29 years old but that's normal in Hong Kong and I don't really want to spend money buy or rent somewhere to live when I can save up the money later and economizing by staying with my parents. I currently have an aim to make try to lose weight by eating less and cycling about half hour per day. Maybe that's driving me crazy - the hunger cravings for desserts which I cannot make since I stopped all after dinner snacking. My mum is not helping matters by constantly buying food despite my pleas not to since I won't eat all of it.

I'm not looking for a relationship at the moment, not after the last "relationship" I was in. I am meeting my friends this month, which means I'm not totally isolating myself at home. Maybe all of this is just in my head and is the depression talking to me. Maybe I should say to myself that all is fine, there is nothing to worry or be dissatisfied about. I need to tell myself that once I've lost weight, maybe I can go out and meet women.

Right have to go back and start some exercise...

It's not complicated anymore

2010-06-09T23:08:00.000+08:00

One of the features Facebook should put on the website is a notification of when people defriend you. That's what happened to me recently. No sooner had I written my last blog entry and posted it up, the lady in question immediately defriended me.

Am I hurt? A little bit but in the long run I will be OK. Did I do anything wrong? Maybe, by posting up my thoughts on the aforementioned girl so the public could read it. Yet I was careful not to mention her name and none of my other friends know of her. Also everything I mentioned I had discussed with her before, so it is not like she didn't know about it. Also if I did anything wrong, I don't know what I did wrong. All that I mentioned was that I don't want her to be my girlfriend but I was perfectly happy for her to be my friend. If she is reading this, I apologize for what I did.

So now I don't even have to write why I don't want her to be my girlfriend.

Now I'm going through an "episode" right now. I self analyze my life too much. I'm approaching thirty years old. I still haven't had a girlfriend or had sex. When women go about their biological clock, men go about losing their virginity. It's a male ego thing which I would gladly want to shed but cannot. It would be perfectly fine if I was isolated from the outside world. Yet the evil that is Facebook is a constant reminder of my misery.

People younger than me are having relationships, getting married, having sex and having kids!!!! I would be perfectly happy with this state of the world, if it were not the fact that these people are the last you would expect to perform nookie. These are the people who save themselves for sex after marriage because it is the right thing to do and then only roll around in the hay to have babies like it was a national requirement so you can have tax benefits. Don't get me wrong - I'm happy for them. It' just makes me more miserable about my relationship status and it's all my fault.

Once upon a time back in secondary school I accepted that it was perfectly fine to stay not married. I knew the chances of finding a partner were slim, with my complicated upbringing, high standards and my depressive background. I still think that but it is constantly on the back of my mind, gnawing like what my dogs do to their bones - generally eating away until there is no resistance.

So now I'm gone to desperate measures to make myself presentable to the opposite sex. I've started dieting, but only a little amount. It is difficult to diet when other people cook for you and you have to go out to eat with other people during work. I've also started cycling nearly every day to lose weight. However I'm not losing weight quickly enough, so I think I have to start running again.

Oh the things we do to get somebody to love us. Sooner or later I'll probably be crazy enough to start diet pills or prescribe myself thyroxine* to lose weight...

(* I'm joking of course - none of my friends should take it seriously and especially any doctors reading this.)

It's complicated

2010-06-07T19:57:00.003+08:00

For all the criticism Facebook has received in redesigning its layout or having its privacy policy attacked, one thing I have got out of Facebook is the best way to describe most relationships - "It's complicated." I never heard of an easy relationship between a man and a woman, or even between a man and another man or between a woman and another woman. You catch my drift - romance is difficult at the best of times and outright insane during the worst of times. That is what I'm in at the moment.

Over a month ago, a lady whom I didn't know asked me to add her as a friend on Facebook. Naturally I had to ask why she wanted me as a friend. She reads my blog and found me an interesting person with quite some unique and thought-provoking ideas. So we struck up a relationship, chatting on Facebook and getting to know each other a bit more. Facebook chats turned to long conversation on the phone and before long, we finally met face to face. So far we have gone out three times, what most people call "dates".

"So what's complicated about this relationship?" you might ask. A lot of things in this relationship are a potential mine waiting to detonate.

First of all, she is really interested in me. I don't know if she is in love with me but her enthusiasm for me is more than my interest in her. I like as a friend but I don't love her as a girlfriend or potential partner for life. I get to the reasons why later. I never thought I would be in this situation where a girl/lady loves me but I don't love her. I thought I would be grateful to have somebody who loves me but I'm not. I just don't love her in the way she loves me.

Somehow her enthusiasm for me is a bit suffocating. Perhaps I'm not used to a person liking me so much. Not even my closest friends pay this much attention to me. She constantly phones me nearly every day to talk about trivial matters of what she has done today and to bitch about work. I don't mind hearing once every so often. Yet to hear the same matter nearly every single day is a bit tiresome. She also constantly wants to me to come out with her and sometimes (actually most of the time) I just want to stay at home. Perhaps that's why I don't have a girlfriend - I just don't want to go out usually. I just stayed cooped up in my bedroom, watching episodes of "Mock the Week" and surfing on the Internet. I do admit I have to get out more.

I also have the feeling she is bossing me around a lot. During our dates, she is the one dictating where we go and what to do. I feel I don't have a say in the matter. Don't get me wrong, she's not asking me to spend lots of money or perform any illegal acts. It just feels this relationship is a bit one-sided and I'm not getting much input or output. The conversations are a bit one sided as well, with mostly her doing the talking.

So am I an evil guy for talking about her faults so publicly on my blog? No, not really. Most of what I've written she already knows. On our third "date" we already established that this was not a serious love relationship and that we were free to see other people. Yet I am still getting signals she wants to pursue this relationship to another level.

Anyway, I've still more things to talk about this "relationship" and I've already used up my quota of quotation marks. I'll write further on why her and I are not compatible.

Ignorant faith - sports fanaticism

2010-05-29T14:48:00.000+08:00

I have written about faith before in this blog but I feel I should readdress this issue.

I do believe faith is important in society. There are things you need to believe in despite there being no evidence or logic to the argument. We, as a collective species, cannot always rationalize everything into a simple statement. Yet you cannot always have 100% blind faith. Most of the time you need a heavy big dose of reality or logic. In my opinion there are three situations were faith can be misguided: faith in God (religion), faith in your country (patriotism) and faith in your sports team (sports fanaticism).

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For those who know me well, I’m an Arsenal supporter first, an England football fan second and a football fan third. I will watch top quality football anywhere and take a general interest in “The Beautiful Game”. Yet if it does not involve the Gunners or the Three Lions, I am not that emotionally detached to the match or the news story.

Yet my fanaticism is pale and weak compared to the full-blooded devotion of some football supporters. I’m generally well grounded in my support for Arsenal football club. I know we haven’t won a trophy in five years. This give some supporters fuel to their claims Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, should leave the club. They believe Wenger’s policy of not spending on big money experienced players and not focusing on the team’s defensive capabilities is holding the club back.

Yet I generally believe Arsene Wenger is performing a good job. He is our most successful manager in terms of longevity and trophy-wise. He’s been in the job for more than thirteen years, longer than any other Arsenal manager and the second longest streak in the Premier League, behind Sir Alex Ferguson. He has won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups plus taken the team to the UEFA Cup final and UEFA Champions’ League final. He has broken many records, including going through a whole league campaign unbeaten. He’s always constantly linked to other managerial jobs of other teams, including Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and the French national team.

He has built a good base of young players displaying magnificent footballing skill and prowess. Apart from Barcelona, we generally the best team to watch play football. We have the likes of Fabregas, Van Persie, Song and Vermalaen, who are leaders for the team and for their country. We recently won the Premier League U18 championship and have produced young players for other teams, including Kolo Toure and David Bentley.

The club is on a good financial foundation compared to other Premier League clubs, despite having a £300 million debt having built The Emirates Stadium. We are not totally in debt to foreign owners such as Liverpool and Manchester United. We don’t really on a sugar daddy like Chelsea and Manchester City.

Yet this blog entry is about the ignorance in faith by sport fanatics. I know we haven’t won anything in the past five years but every team goes through a purple patch. Liverpool haven’t won a title in twenty years. Tottenham haven’t won a title in fifty years. I hate comparing Arsenal to other teams but this is the only way to bring perspective to yourself and other fans.

Arsenal’s defensive frailties are clearly visible - our goalkeepers look flaky, we need stronger centre-backs and a back-up to Alex Song is required. Yet I know Arsene Wenger is aware of these problems since he’s the manager. He didn’t win all those trophies and spot all those talented players simply by pot-luck. He has a vast wealth of experience, knowledge and football intelligence at his fingertips and he will be thinking of how to rectify these problems. Fans, on the other hand, think they have a divine right to manage their own team just because they have seen the team play every week for the past two years, have an emotional attachment to the team like a mother to her baby and have read every single piece of gossip regarding their team. This is what separates the professional from the fan. The professional do have a personal attachment to their profession but it comes with knowledge and perspective – unlike fans who clearly lose all logical thought whenever the focus of their blind attention comes into view.

Those Arsenal fans who bay for Arsene’s blood have clearly lost perspective. They tend to forget the dour years the team had in the mid-nineties when we weren’t winning anything PLUS playing very defensive football. It wasn’t pretty to watch.

Also if we get rid of Arsene Wenger, who would take charge? Clearly none of the backroom staff don’t have the experience or clout to become a manager, including the likes of Pat Rice, Liam Brady or Steve Bould. Anybody else who is consider decent is either tied up to another job, for example Pep Guardiola. Currently nobody is available to take over, so we might as well have to make do with Arsene Wenger.

Plus it is just football. I know Bill Shankly uttered the immortal phrase, “Football is not about life and death – it’s more important than that” but really it is not. It is not as important as your health, your family and friends or your job. If football disappeared from your life, I think you could cope or find another substitute for the vacancy. That could not be said about your health, your family and friends or your job.

Clearly Arsenal fans need to keep things in perspective. After all there is always next season…

Ignorant faith - patriotism

2010-05-24T00:32:00.000+08:00

Ignorant faith - religion

2010-05-20T18:32:00.000+08:00

Natural law

2010-05-10T22:19:00.004+08:00

First things first, I am not letting my dad drive my car again. He didn't do anything heinous such as scratch the new paint job or get a speeding ticket. He just ruined my fuel economy.

I had been working so hard to get my fuel economy up. I pushed up my driving range from 900 km to 1050 km. That means on a single tank, I'm getting 150 km more if I drove to in a 'normal' style. What does my dad do? In round trip from home to his office, which is about 12 km, he knocks my driving range back down to 900 km. That is an extra 150 km gone.

Just proves to show that not all scientists are environmental.

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When I hear conservatives or Roman Catholic bishops harp on about how people should obey 'natural law', I really question whether or not they have thought their statement through.

Natural law isn't what people really think it is. If we are defining it, the simplest way interpretation of natural law is the law or order of nature. That is what birds, animals and insects would do in their ecosystem. That should be all fine and dandy. In reality it is not that concrete.

In one aspect, there has been well documented cases of homosexuality in the animals world. This ranges from rabbits to giraffes. Therefore if anybody should say that homosexuality is against nature, please refer them to Roy and Silo - two male penguins that successfully hatched an egg.

Talking about sexual relationships, I'm rather glad with first hand experience we are not animals. My female dog is in heat at the moment, which is driving my male dog crazy with sexual frustration. Firstly we separate them to avoid them having sex all the time but the male dog can smell the pheromones being given off by the female dog. So he is still has the sex drive but no way to ease it. Secondly despite several attempts they cannot do the business, furthering the sexual frustration.

What if this applied to people? I dread to think the anarchy that would occur if men were able to detect when women are fertile. Chastity belts would become all too fashionable. Plus this proves that animals are usually (but not always) polygamous. It is their natural drive to spread their seed to ensure the survival of their species. Humans have gone the other way by reverting to monogamy in the concept of marriage. And since marriage is the concept most bashed on about by the church and is apparently against natural law, it seems contradictory.

Natural law states there should be "survival of the fittest". Christians may not believe in evolution but in nature only letting the strong survive seems to be paramount. Female praying mantises kill the male after copulation to provide food for the young once they are born, seeing that the males are useless after giving their seed. So if spouting natural law, wives are allowed to kill their husbands to ensure a trust fund for their children - or at least can't kill the husbands until the men have worked their socks off providing enough money. It only stands to reason. Also would we let so many poor, hungry, disease ridden people live, as we so clearly do with charities? If we were enforcing natural law, we would allow these people to die, leaving on the rich and wealthy to live. So why do we help impoverished people?

Because we don't followed natural law or natural instinct. We transcended just being apes who bashed rocks together. We are human beings or people. We have set our own moral standards 0r human standards, which is to help the needy and accept people for what they are. That is what being a person is all about.

Gynaecology

2010-04-23T20:45:00.003+08:00

I'm currently doing my fourth rotation in Family Medicine. I have been allocated to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology for the next three months. Since it is such a small hospital I'm working at, there actually is no obstetrics in our hospital. You have to go to the next nearest hospital if you have an obstetrics problem. Also we only admit patients from 09:00 to 17:00, which I find very strange. Well at least when I'm on call, which is only four to five times per month, I can get a full night's rest.

Most of the time is spent in the out patient clinics seeing gynaecology patients. That's means seeing a lot of women. If you think for a guy this would be a dream, it is not. Neither it is a nightmare. I have to be careful what I write since I'm liable to offend half the readers of this blog. Most of the ladies I'm seeing are already in their forties when they have gynaecology problems, so I'm not going to meet the women of my dreams in this department. I also have mixed feelings about seeing so many ladies. I'm usually very disappointed at myself, seeing many ladies younger than me who have already had sex plus attending to many ladies older than me who are still a virgin. It's just like looking into my own future ten years from now.

Also I have to stare at "that thing" every time I have to do a gynaecology examination. Call it what you will - fanny, pussy, vagina, cunt - it looks more and more horrible the more times you are exposed to it. The situation definitely puts you off sex for quite a while. I have been brought up seeing women without pubic hair near their vaginas, so I have been rather spoilt and whenever I see a women's vagina not shaven, it looks like one of those sand monsters in the beginning of "Return of the Jedi".

I'm not saying seeing gynaecological patients is a bad experience. I know women have to go through a monthly cycle of anguish and pain and discomfort, which I would never want to consider. But I will be thankful when this rotation is over.

Democracy at work

2010-04-17T15:01:00.003+08:00

Next month two places which I am linked to will be holding elections to determine different matters.

Firstly there is the General Election in the United Kingdom on May 6th. This election has been anticipated for the past two years, with the Labour party losing its popularity. The Conservatives have overtaken Gordon Brown's government in the polls, lead by David Cameron. Yet last Thursday when the major party leaders had the first live TV debate in the nation's history, it was the third political party - the Liberal Democrats - with their leader Nick Clegg stealing the headlines and the votes by winning the contest. His performance was so good that the other two leaders David Cameron and Gordon Brown have acknowledged the Liberal Democrat leader as the victor of the TV debate and will be divert resources to tackling the Liberal Democrats. Early polls have shown the Liberal Democrats are now SECOND in the polls behind the Conservatives.

I just want to state my political leanings right here. Back in the mid to late nineties, I supported Labour. However when they become more business oriented and more centre with their enigmatic leader Tony Blair and also decided to support the Iraq war, I switched to the Liberal Democrats.

I am a lefty at heart. I want more rights for minorities such as homosexuals, ethnic minorities and people of lower social class. Gays and lesbians should have rights to form civil partnerships and have the same benefits as married couples. There should be more done to prevent racial and sexual discrimination in Britain. I do believe in taxing the rich more to help fund services and helping the poor. Even though I believe business should allowed to be run free, there should be a degree of regulation as businesses, especially the large companies, should be hold some civic responsibility to their employees, their customers and their investors when things go wrong. I think more should be done for the environment, by improving public transport and curbing carbon emissions.

I know some people will not agree with my opinion, but that is why we different political parties. This is why we have democracy, so people can exercise their right to vote. I always believe if you cannot show up to the voting booth on election, you cannot complain about the government afterwards even if you would or wouldn't have voted them in.

All I want for people to do is actually listen to the leaders policies and views, then decide for themselves who they want to vote for. Even if it isn't for the Liberal Democrats.
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The next election I am looking forward to is the Hong Kong Legislative Council by-election on May 16th. One Legislative Counsellor in each of the five geographical constituencies have resigned in an attempt to hold a referendum on the issue of universal suffrage.

Currently in Hong Kong we cannot elect our Chief Executive directly and only half of the seats in the Legislative Council are held by geographical constituencies. The other half are held by businesses and vocational sectors in the "Functional Constituencies". We have counsellors representing the medical and health sector, transportation sectors, etc.

I have many points I could argue about the faults of the Hong Kong political system but I'll my arguments to two main issues.

Firstly I do believe their should be a referendum on whether or not the people in Hong Kong should be able to directly vote in their Chief Executive. However resigning on mass to trigger a by-election and costing the taxpayers money is not the way it should be done. Even their aim, to have universal suffrage by 2012, is impossible. A more reasonable target is to directly vote in the Chief Executive by 2017.

Secondly I do hate the idea of functional constituencies. That means certain people, most notably professionals, can vote in two constituencies - one geographical and one functional. As a doctor living in Tai Po, I can vote in the New Territories East geographical constituency and the Medical functional constituency. For some people who are not professional, like cleaners and construction site workers, they can only vote in the geographical constituencies. This is deplorable on any nature. It means the more professional you are, the more influential you are during the voting system, which is unfair. I hope soon their scrap the functional constituencies which should be totally illegally under The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the UN.

Self promotion

2010-04-12T16:39:00.002+08:00

I used to like Jamie Oliver. When he first came on the scene with "The Naked Chef", he was young and vibrant. He didn't try to make poncy dishes like other chefs I had seen on TV. He genuinely seem like a lad a young girl wanted to take home to her parents. He got people who normally didn't like cooking to have an interest in food.

He was also very influential politically. When he made the TV program "Jamie's School Dinners", it really highlighted what was wrong with British children's school meals, being full of fat and carbohydrates and very little choice of fruit and vegetables. It got the government into putting more money into school dinners, because for children the school lunch is the one meal you can influence to get them to eat healthy. This achievement earned Jamie Oliver a lot of praise.

After that it started to go slightly downhill from there. He started to make himself too commercial and too over-exposed. I seem to see a Jamie Oliver TV program nearly every day on the Discovery Travel and Living channel we have on the extra channels we have. He seems to produce a cookbook every year and now he starting to produce a magazine called - wait for it - "Jamie". Enough is enough already!

There is a point where people tend to over expose themselves and the general public start to wonder if they are doing this for good intentions or they love themselves too much. The same could be applied for Jamie Oliver. I wish he spent more time in the kitchen making good dishes instead of producing so many TV programs. I wish he actually spent more time with his kids rather than tell us what we should be feeding our children.

There are times when I see celebrities at charity gigs and wonder if they are feeding their own ego rather feeling genuinely proud to be supporting this charity. These are the stars who name charities after themselves and only turn up to gigs when required, instead of participating in the running of the charity itself. If you are a celebrity and are taking a fee to be at a charity event/gig, I think that is so wrong. I remember I once heard in the local news in Hong Kong that one televised charity event just about broke even after they subtracted the celebrity performers' fees.

Charity should be its own reward. That is why I never mention to anyone if I do any charity work or how much I have donated to charities. There is no need to. It is OK if you are trying to drum up support for you sponsored run/walk/ride to publicize the event but if you are saying, "I don't XXXX amount of dollars to XXXX charity" then it defeats the point.

Everything in one place

2010-04-05T22:00:00.002+08:00

We are a society who likes everything in one place. We all want everybody to use systems that everybody else uses. We all go to YouTube to view videos online, despite its restrictions on copyright and there are other video online websites who are not as stringent as YouTube. We all use Facebook to contact our friends. In the past we used to have Friends Reunited and MySpace but we have moved on to Facebook. Ninety percent of computer users use Windows as their operating system, not because they find the system useful but everybody else in the world uses it. They are more worried about compatibility rather than performance. In Hong Kong nearly everybody uses the Octopus card to pay for everything and I was introduced to a Facebook page petitioning for Hong Kong taxis to accept Octopus cards.

I don't really mind this. Everybody wants to have convenience in their lives. However there are some annoyances I find whenever I use this websites.

If you are going to post a video on YouTube or any other online video website, please check to make sure that the video hasn't been put up before. And don't try to get people to come and see your video by tagging it with every single word known to man. Every time I try search for a video I'm bombarded with videos with very inaccurate descriptions.

The same could be said for Facebook pages for celebrities/concepts. Please don't set up ludicrous groups saying you like sleeping or hate text speak. Don't establish a fan page for Miley Cyrus, even though there is an official page already set up next to the other seven unofficial fan pages.

The internet is starting to clog up with too much stuff. Please don't put more non-sensible stuff on the World Wide Web.

Inside the mind of a desperate guy

2010-03-10T11:58:00.005+08:00

You can tell when you are desperate for companionship. You start to target every possible woman you encounter as a potential target. I hate the situation I'm in, doing this to people I like and work with. Yet once you get older and your options start to dwindle, your mind starts to wander into inappropriate avenues. I'm perpetuate the situation even more by writing this blog entry but hopefully it will be more therapeutic once I get it off my mind.

At work I'm restricted to nurses and doctors. I've met a few patients and patients' relatives who look quite nice. Yet I don't think it is appropriate if I contacted them, especially if I abuse my powers as a doctor by getting their contact details through the medical records or even worse after they have been grieving over the death of their father who I have been looking after. Most often my contact with patients or patients' relatives is a one-off encounter where no emotional bond is established.

Most of the nurses I have encountered are OK. There are several whom I have the pleasure to work whom I have considered very nice. These are the women who are honest, generous and charitable - the kind you want to marry. If circumstances were different, then maybe... I have met another lot of nurses who are cute, who have the 'girl-next-door' appeal to them. I have only met one nurse who I consider sexy and only after I've seen photos of her outside work. No, not those kind of pictures if you have a filthy mind. Actually photos of her in casual clothing and with make-up. Currently there is a nice student nurse where I'm working but I don't know anything about her and all my impressions of her is she has nice eyes, since the rest of her face is covered up with the obligatory face masks all medical staff have to wear. It could turn out she has a boyfriend (always the first item I think of to get me down), she is actually really ugly or she could be a real bitch.

Doctors are not that much better of an option. Most of the colleagues I have worked with are already hooked up, maybe a bit too young for me or we are just too different. Again I'm currently working with a nice female doctor who is cute but really I just want to have sex with her - that's all.

Next I'm potentially walking into a dangerous minefield by considering friends. I could ultimately destroy our friendship by going out with them but as I said before, I'm desperate. There's only one friend I would really contemplate. She's very generous, nice and clever. She could be a bit too conservative and too beautiful for me and she could already have a boyfriend. Also I'm too afraid of rejection and abject humiliation to ask them out. I've been also looking at friends of friends on Facebook but again, I'm too scared to approach.

So I'm approaching thirty, I've still a virgin which I shouldn't care about but it is damaging my fragile male ego, I don't go out much and I still live at home with my parents. Yes I'm going to be lonely for a long time.

Morality in sports - cheating and not the kind on the pitch

2010-03-03T14:37:00.006+08:00

Last Saturday at around 12:43 p.m., everybody who was remotely interested in football was watching the events unfold at Stamford Bridge. It had been building to a climax when Wayne Bridge announced he would not be shaking John Terry's hand. Yet the moment passed and nothing really major happened.

For those not interested in football, let me wrap up the story for you. John Terry, Chelsea and England captain, was found to have sexual relationship with Vanessa Perroncel, the ex-partner of Wayne Bridge, another England footballer who used to play for Chelsea and now plays for Manchester City. John Terry went to court to prevent details of this relationship from being published but failed. Since this story has been announced, Wayne Bridge has decided for the sake of team unity that he will not be playing for England as long as John Terry was also considered, in effect ruling Bridge out of the World Cup that will be played this summer in South Africa. He also said he would not be shaking John Terry's hand prior to kick off when their teams met on Saturday in the Premier League.

It has long been known footballers' conduct is not the best in the world. Every football fan has read and heard stories of football players getting into fights at nightclubs, gambling away lots of money and of course sleeping with various young women. So what makes the John Terry story any different?

Firstly John Terry and Wayne Bridge were best friends, whilst playing for Chelsea and when they met up for the England squad. Even in the football world sleeping with your best friend's girlfriend is seriously frowned upon. Yet one could argue it wasn't an affair as Vanessa Perroncel and Wayne Bridge had split up just recently and were not even married, so there were no morality issues. Let us ask this question: Would you sleep with your best mate's ex-girlfriend, just after they broken up? Of course you wouldn't. At least you would wait a while and ask you best mate beforehand. At least you wouldn't have the sexual relationship in your best mate's house, is what happened between Vanessa Perroncel and John Terry. Neither was it an one-off affair, as Vanessan Perroncel and John Terry met several times over the next few months.

Once the affair ended, John Terry was worried the whole shenanigans would become public, thus ruining his reputation with his corporate sponsors and jeopardizing his marriage with Toni Poole. He sought a super injunction in the law courts to prevent the news story from being published but ultimately lost.

Since the whole incident has become public knowledge, all the participants have been affected.

For John Terry, he has lost the England captaincy. Even though he doesn't have any prominent individual sponsorship, he will be used less publicly by the corporates at Chelsea and England, in effect reducing his income. Several other women have stepped out and said they had sex with him whilst he has been married. This from a guy who was voted Dad of the Year in England last year. At least his missus Toni Poole has given him one last chance. Yet I know he will re-offend, since he has form before and during his marriage. I also point to Exhibit A - Ashley Cole - for any further proof footballers cannot keep their cock in their pants. More worryingly to Chelsea and England football fans is that his form has suffered since the whole affair kicked off and no doubt he will still suffer a torrent of abuse from England fans during the next England game against Egypt on Wednesday and beyond.

For Wayne Bridge he decided not to shake Terry's hand on Saturday and most notably will forfeit his place at this summer's World Cup for the sake of team unity, since many of the players have been divided over the whole affair. Bridge not going to the World Cup should have longer repercussions as he would most likely to have featured in the team, especially since Ashley Cole the first choice left back is now injured and is in serious danger of missing the World Cup. Now England have to rely on two young left backs who have very little international experience between them - Stephen Warnock and Leighton Baines.

For Vanessa Perroncel she has been keeping quiet over the whole incident, probably due to the alleged fact her silence has been bought by John Terry. However she did harp in on Wayne Bridge's decision not to go to the World Cup, saying he was making a mistake. I don't think she has any moral standpoint to start off on, especially if the stories are true she slept around with half the Chelsea team and only slept with Wayne Bridge because he was a prominent footballer with money. Right now she should keep quiet for the rest of her life, since she isn't coming out of this smelling like roses.

So should we care about this story? Should we care what footballers' do in their private lives, as long they can perform on the pitch? In one sense - No, it is their private lives and they can do what they want. In another sense - Yes, we pay their wages and they are used as role models for younger kids and footballers and should set an example. There is no right answer to this.

In related news Ashley Cole, another Chelsea footballer, was found to have had another string of affairs behind the back of his wife Cheryl Tweedy, who is a singer for the girl band Girls Aloud and who is also a judge on the UK talent show X-Factor. Thankfully Cheryl has now split up with Ashley. Ever since I knew of the first affair years ago, I knew this would happen and he would re-offend. Ever since he sodded off to Chelsea since he wasn't being paid the seventy thousand pounds per week he wanted instead of the fifty-five thousand pounds per week Arsenal Football Club were offering him from his previous thirty thousand pounds per week, I just knew he was a prick.

Let's just say I don't have sympathy for John Terry and Ashley Cole. They were lying cheat cocks to their wives and they don't deserve their love. I have more sympathy for Tiger Woods, for some strange reason. Golf needs Tiger Woods to come back and dominate the sport. At least Tiger Woods have more remorse, apologizing in public (even though that was really more for the sponsors he has) and gone to sex addiction clinic in a bid to clean up his act. Action speaks louder than words in this case.

Discriminatory against singles

2010-02-23T13:06:00.002+08:00

I was rather glad Valentine's Day was on the first day of the Chinese New Year. At least I didn't get the full effect of this commercially capitalized day thrust into my face. I already feel miserable being single. I don't need to feel guilty about being single, like I committed a war crime.

Society does discriminate against single people or at least makes being single feel guilty and bad. Even earlier in life I noticed this. When I was living in the medical students residential halls the kitchen was filled with couples during dinner time making the meals for each other. You felt bad if you even just went into the kitchen, by disturbing the ethos surrounding these couples. You had to sneak in, do your stuff and sneak out like a ninja, hoping nobody remembered you for disrupting this couple's romantic life. It goes on into your later life, when posh restaurants and fellow diners snigger at your if you want a table for one. Sometimes I do want a decent meal without having to go to a fast food restaurant or ordering a takeaway.

Even governments are getting in on the act. They give incentives to people to get married or to have kids. Now I do really feel like a war criminal.

What I shouldn't do nowadays is log on to Facebook so often. I don't mind people announcing their engagement on their profile or post photos of their wedding or their kids on Facebook. I'll be happy for them. However I don't need daily updates with a million photos of their wedding or of their kids on Facebook. Just give me twenty of your best pictures and lets be done with it. I don't need constant reminders on my marital status, thank you.

Look there is nothing wrong with being single, if you choose that status. What is miserable for me is that it is not a choice but just a lack of options.

Cases from Casualty

2010-02-07T20:44:00.002+08:00

I just returned from a week's attachment with psychiatry to return to my normal life in the Casualty department. Most of the time I just handling patients with trivial complaints, like flu/cold symptoms, food poisoning and minor sprains.

Sometimes I do groan when I see another kid come in just because he or she has had a fever for a few hours and it is not even that high. For those with you who have kids, your body's temperature should be below 37.3 degrees Celsius (I can't be bothered to figure what that is in Fahrenheit). Anything about 38.0 degress Celsius is what I constitute as a fever. The raising of the body temperature will not fry your kid's brain or any other organs in the body. Sometimes it will take a few days for the fever to go down. In 99% of cases it will be a trivial viral infection that just needs some medication for the ailments, plenty of rest and lots of fluids. You do not have to go and see the doctor at the first instance he or she has a fever. Try some anti-pyretics like Panadol/Tylenol and if that hasn't worked for a few days, then come see a doctor.

In Accident and Emergency I'm now on the front lines for the first time and having to diagnosis ailments. Before, I could rely on the Accident & Emergency doctors to have made a diagnosis if I was working in the wards or to have written a good referral letter if they are coming to the specialist out-patient clinic. Nowadays I have to determine what the patient has and do the appropriate management, most of the time without any supervision. So it is nice when I get a vital diagnosis right, which I will share.

Case 1
A 52 year old gentlemen with good past health presented to Casualty with per-rectal bleeding for half month, associated with a change in bowel habit, tenesmus (that's the sensation you want to take a poo but I can't), weight loss and mild abdominal discomfort. Whilst performing a per-rectal examination, there was a mass that could be palpable in the rectum. Naturally the patient was admitted to the Surgical ward. A flexible sigmoidoscopy and biopsy were performed the next day, showing he had cancer of the rectum. He was discharged a few days later to be further investigated for his cancer.

Case 2
A 29 year old lady with good past health presented to Casualty in mid-January for food poisoning features - abdominal pain, diarrhoea and vomiting. What was noted by me was her last menstrual period was late November 2009 - five weeks ago. I asked the nurse to perform a pregnancy test on her. It turned she was pregnant and didn't even know about it. An ultrasonogram was performed just to exclude ectopic pregnancy and she was referred to the Early Pregnancy Assessment Clinic.

Case 3
A 15 year old boy came to Casualty for six month history of cough and wanted to know why he was coughing so much. Turns out he's a chronic smoker!

What Casualty has taught me is that the general population is ignorant about their own health like I'm in finance. I know nothing about money and don't want to learn anything about economics and will ask stupid questions about it.

Something idiotic about football

2010-01-22T12:46:00.002+08:00

Since I don't want to post two thought-provoking posts in quick succession, I decided to write about which players Fabio Capello might be looking at in the next two months in deciding who should go to the 2010 World Cup for England.

The team selection is not as concrete the last time I had an opportunity to look at the squad. Injuries and loss of form, especially at the back of team, makes the friendly against Egypt in March more likely to feature new faces.

Goalkeepers
Since David James is currently injured and doesn't look like being certain of the No. 1 jersey, other candidates such as Robert Green and Joe Hart have stepped up to the mike. Hart's recent form for Birmingham City has definitely been impressive, with the Brummies climbing up to the top eight and vying for Europa League spots. Paul Robinson is in the reckoning if James doesn't recover or doesn't haggle a move to Stoke or Tottenham during this transfer window. Also look for Ben Foster angling for a loan move to get some needed first team action. At the moment it looks like Green, Hart and Robinson are going to be called up against Egypt.

Defenders
With Wes Brown and Rio Ferdinand perennially injured, Glen Johnson, Wayne Bridge and Joleon Lescott recently crocked and out of form, Capello needs to dig deep into his reserves. Micah Richards looks in line for a call up at right back and if Johnson doesn't recover soon, Capello might have to look further. Tony Hibbert for Everton is out injured, otherwise he may have been given a thought whilst Luke Young has retired and Gary Neville is passed his best form. After those players it looks like scraping the barrel, with Tyrone Mears, Andy Wilkinson, Phil Bardsley and Richard Stearman. It looks slightly rosier at the left back position with Ashley Cole and Stephen Warnock still fit. Leighton Baines could also be called upon if needed. With John Terry likely to partner Matthew Upson if Ferdinand remains on the sidelines, Capello might want to give Gary Cahill a debut as he is increasingly likely to go and hopes for Phil Jaglieka to come back from injury. Don't be surprised if Roger Johnson, Scott Dann, Ryan Shawcross or Michael Dawson gets a call up in the March friendly against Egypt if Lescott and Ferdinand don't recover. For March it looks like Johnson, Richards, Brown, Terry, Ferdinand, Upson, Lescott, Cahill, Cole, Bridge and Warnock to be called up but considering half of these defenders are injured or out of form, you could see other names as well.

Midfielders
With Aaron Lennon injured it might be the time for David Beckham, Shaun Wright-Phillips or even Theo Walcott to shine. Also it seems likely Owen Hargreaves is less likely to play football ever again so England will be forced to bring Michael Carrick (shudder). On a slightly more positive note is the form of James Milner in the centre of the park with Ashley Young and Stewart Downing doing well on the wings for Aston Villa, putting them back in the international fold. It may be the Gooner in me but I can't see Tom Huddlestone or Jermaine Jenas getting into the England squad since they don't offer anything defensively or offensively. So see the likes of Beckham, Lennon (if fit), Wright-Phillips, Walcott, Milner, Barry, Lampard, Gerrard (if fit), Carrick, Young and Downing in the squad come March.

Forwards
I still expect Wayne Rooney and Emile Heskey to lead the line but the likes of Jermaine Defoe losing form and Carlton Cole being injured leaves the space open for Peter Crouch, Darren Bent and Gabriel Agbonlahor. All six of these strikers could make the selection in six weeks' time.

As the last three months has shown, the loss of form and injuries could allow anybody in. I think the player to look out for in the next few months will be Milner, who has shown adaptability in playing different positions and shown good form.

Fuel economy

2010-01-19T12:32:00.004+08:00

I've been quite busy recently, so I haven't had time to post. In the past few weeks, my time at Accident and Emergency has been hectic and occupying. Most of my free time has been thinking about how lonely I am. Even when I'm asleep, my dreams are constant reminders I want sex and love (not necessarily in that order). I wish I could do something about it but I'm too shy and cowardly to do so.

For this blog post I'm not going to whinge about the lack of companionship but fuel economy. As most of you know I bought a new car a few months ago - a Volkswagen Golf TSI. It's a basic car but I love it. However I noticed it is a constant drain on financial resources. I have to pay for the license, car insurance, toll fares and most of all petrol (or gasoline for those American savvy readers). I know I cannot alter how much I spend on the first few things but at least I can control how much petrol I use.

As most of you reading know I'm a fan of the BBC TV programme "Top Gear". Although they portray themselves as motor loving enthusiasts who care nothing about the environment, they have produce a few clips about fuel economy. There was the clip a few years ago when Jeremy Clarkson went from London to Edinburgh and back, a journey of 800 miles, on a single tank of diesel in a Audi A8. Just two years ago there was a clip showing a BMW M3 could be as fuel efficient as a Toyota Prius, depending how you drive it. And only a couple of series ago the presenters went from Basel to Blackpool on a single tank of fuel.

I know they were using diesel cars and they had the time to do these challenges but what they did offer a lot of top tips. Most of these tips can be found here as well. I experimented myself with the drive from home in Hong Lok Yuen, Tai Po to the hospital. The average time of my trip is 30 minutes. If I drive really fast, for example late at night when the roads are clear and there isn't much traffic about, I take 27 minutes. If I drive fuel efficiently, such as slower acceleration and much smoother braking, it only takes me 33 minutes. At most it takes six minutes more to get to work. Most of the time I do set off early and there hasn't been many traffic accidents on my way to work.

For once Jeremy Clarkson is right. Even though car manufacturers should be doing more to make motor vehicles more efficient, fuel economy is in the hands (or feet) of the drivers and we can do more by not just the choice of our cars but how we drive.

"I'm so ronery..."

2010-01-04T23:38:00.002+08:00

I haven't blogged for quite a while. Quite a lot of activity has been happening in my life. My brother is back from UK for a holiday and I recently ended my surgical rotation. I'm currently in my A&E / ER / Casualty rotation, whatever you like to call it. I'll write about my experience so far at a later date. Now I have to spend my day off figuring out how to pay tax and updating my family medicine logbook.

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I recently met up with my supervising family medicine mentor. She explained to me that being in family medicine can be lonely at times, having to rotate through different specialties for short periods of time and not being around other family medicine residents. I told her that was fine with me, as being a loner was something new to me. Being in England by myself in a predominantly English environment and being in Hong Kong in a vastly Chinese culture having being brought up in a Western background has left me with enough experience to be on my own.

When I said that to my mentor, I knew it would sound awkward to some people that you don't mind being alone. I have few close friends and even then I don't engage with them that often. Or is it the other way around, that they don't engage with me that often? I can never tell the difference. I just find I'm rubbish around people. I'm really a bore when it comes to conversation because I have nothing to say - my life is pretty dull and I don't have any remarkable stories to tell. Also I can never engage in petty chit-chat or gossip. I don't really care who goes out with who and who is stabbing who's back. I don't care in the first place and I don't really give a shit when it is said.

When I want to go out, it is usually by myself. I go to the cinema by myself, I go shopping (which is very rarely) by myself and I go to the golf driving range by myself. I want to spend my time how I see fit and going out with other people means being accommodating to them as well. If it is friends, that is fine but when it is colleagues or other people it can be quite boring since they talk about matters which you don't find not a slight bit interesting. I do find doctors very boring to talk to since they talk endlessly about work.

I remember when I was in secondary school, I attended the Sixth Form scholars' dinner with the headmaster and his wife. Mrs. Seldon commentated that being a scholar can often be a lonely existence. I find that true with being different to everybody else. The more different or far from normal you are, the more likely you are going to spend time alone. It is just something you have to get use to.

Keeping secrets

2009-12-09T16:11:00.003+08:00

I don't try to hide the fact I have depression, which lead to two repeated years plus two deferred years when I was studying medicine. I don't feel ashamed I took longer than everybody else to get a medical degree. I knew I had problems and it wasn't entirely my fault.

Yet there are times I "bend" the truth. I don't exactly lie but the entire truth is not exactly revealed. The best example is when asked about my background. Due to my deep accent, I'm always asked my fellow staff about my upbringing. I always say I was born in Hong Kong but grew up in England. So there is nothing wrong there.

Yet there is always questions about duration and such. I'm always asked how long I have been back in Hong Kong. The real answer is ten years - five years of my medical degree plus the extra four years entailed plus my intern year. What most people expect the answer to be is six years - five years for the medical studies plus one year internship. So I never ever say an exact number. I always state I have been back for my university studies and have been so ever since. Not exactly the whole truth but not exactly a fib either.

So why do I "bend" the truth? Why don't I just admit to the fact I spent more time than anybody else to get a medical degree, just because of my depression? The fact is I got sick of explaining my life story every time this possibility crops up. Me explaining my life and my depression becomes like that game "Twenty Questions" when people try to narrow down the truth. At the end of the day I just want to simplify matters.

Occasionally I do have to get a sick leave when I go for my follow-up appointments. Then some parts of the truth do creep out. I'm always asked where have I been when I go to my psychiatrist. I usually say I just have to follow-up with my doctor and hope the questioning ends there but it never does. This leads to the inevitable question, "What are you being followed-up for?" which leads to me say, "Depression" and the barrage of questions afterwards.

I understand some people who keep secrets. It makes life a little more simple. Now I have some kind of understanding what schizophrenics and homosexuals go through. I would never say my predicament is exactly as does who are persecuted like gays and lesbian but some people expect you to conform the normal standards and if you have a deviance, you are most likely to keep it in check even if most people are willing to accept it.

Increasing levels of bureaucracy

2009-12-03T22:00:00.006+08:00

Having requested my holiday leave* at the end of my rotation, I have finally finished surgery and will be going on to accident and emergency next month.

* I can never call my holiday leave "annual leave" as I get the leave four times a year. It can only be called annual leave if I can bunch up all my leave into one massive holiday, where I probably go back to England.

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I've only just left a surgery department where they recently opened another ward. This means another twenty six beds available and more opportunities for patients to receive treatment and surgery. This maybe good for the nearby population but does not bode well for junior doctors. We do not receive an increase in manpower, meaning an increase workload. I'm not complaining, having already left the department already.

This is just one of several examples of the increase level of bureaucracy in hospital work. It has been steadily creeping into the workplace. It comes with the organization you work with. The larger the organization, the more paperwork and guidelines you must follow and there is no bigger organization than a government installation. In recent months I have noticed how anal some people who set out these guidelines really are.

The first example I encountered was writing management orders for intravenous fluids. In the past I could just write what intravenous fluids I want for my patients in the management orders sheet. If the intravenous fluids contained potassium, I would have to write it on the drug sheet, which is fair enough since overdosing on potassium is very dangerous. For some reason, this policy was changed so I have to write ALL intravenous fluids into the drug sheet, whether or not it contained potassium or not. Also I have to write the frequency more explicitly. In the past I could write "2D1S Q8H" which means "two units of dextrose 5% and one unit of sodium chloride 0.9% every eight hours". Now I have to write "2D1S Q8H per unit/pint*" which means a few more seconds. If you are writing this for every week for every patient, the amount of time spent doing this starts to build up.

*Whoever writes "per pint" for intravenous fluids or even blood products is wrong. A pint is 565 ml, whilst an unit of intravenous fluids is always 500 ml, whilst for blood products it is usually 330 ml. Just being pedantic.

Another example of bureaucracy I have just encountered is blood taking. In the past we had to use a barcode system to print labels for blood specimens if we want to type and screen a patient. For those of you who don't know what that means, it basically means knowing a patient's blood group so we can give blood just in case. We had to use an electronic device to make sure the patient's identity was correct. It's quite similar to the mobile phone 2D barcode system you see. It would be fine if it was just for blood typing but now we have to use it for EVERY specimen, whether it is blood, sputum or urine. It is so annoying and so cumbersome and so time-wasting! At the end of the day, we want to avoid mixing up the patient's identity with somebody else but the specimen taking is still being done by a human and the placing of the label is still done by a human, which means it is prone to error. Putting another level of checking may reduce this type of human error but at what cost?

Bureaucracy is fine but there is a limit as far it can go.

Snapper happy

2009-11-22T19:58:00.005+08:00

Yesterday I was at a friend's wedding. I only went to the ceremony because my friend was kind enough to invite me and I thought it would be impolite to turn the invitation down. I don't like weddings as I have stated in a previous entry. One of the aspects I don't like about how snapper happy everybody is with their cameras. I know the wedding day is a memorable event in anybody's lives and they want to record the moment so they can remember the occasion at a later date. That is why you employ a professional photographer to perform the task. For everybody else there really is no excuse.

If you are taking a few photos that is fine, I'll accept that. But if you are spending more time taking photographs instead of enjoying the occasion, you have really missed the point. Why take so many pictures and then when you come back to look at the them later, you cannot remember the occasion? Just try to enjoy the occasion and probably take a few pictures just to jog the memory later.

I really do blame digital technology for this. With the advent of the digital camera, people don't have to worry about wasting film or precious space. In fact they might as well keep their index finger on the snapper button. Another regard in which technology have seriously affected picture taking is having photo albums. In years gone by, we used to actually take out photo albums from cupboards or drawers and sat down with friends or families to flick through the pages and look at pictures of occasions such as birthday parties and weddings. Instead people just stored them on their computers, never looking at them again. That was the reason why I bought a digital photo frame for my parents, to get them to display the pictures they take of our dogs and the photos they take on holiday.

When people do put digital photos up on online albums, they never ever sort them out. They tend to download every single photo, meaning their album contains about a few hundred pictures. I remember lining up after the wedding ceremony yesterday to get some food, only to be held up by some guy who was taking several photos of the shao mei they were serving! I would understand if the food concerned was something rare, such as caviar or truffles but dim sum? And it wasn't one photo, it was three or four. I bet he would store them on his hard drive and download every single snapshot to his Facebook page.

I also despise having to pose for pictures. I just find it unnatural, having to stand their staring at the camera and smile like a Cheshire cat. It really doesn't capture the occasion. I always like taking candid photos rather than getting somebody to stop what they doing. Also you can get to do more witty comments on the photo as people tend to be more animated and doing several poses.

I took my camera yesterday but I left the camera in my car, which I rather glad I did because it spared me being sucked into being the rest of the congregation.

Depression and tragedy

2009-11-11T22:40:00.002+08:00

I know many of you who read this do not have an interest in football. However the apparent suicide of German goalkeeper Robert Enke may have passed your radar screens. My heart goes out to his wife and his child.

It is a tragedy when anybody dies. For me it is even more of a tragedy when somebody dies due to a suicide from depression. This story reminds me of another German footballer, Sebastien Deisler, who quite the game at a young age due to depression.

I'm often angered by some people who think rich people and intellectual people such as sportspeople and doctors are immune to diseases such as depression and anxiety. They think money and success can buy you happiness or that you can 'think' your way out of a crisis such as feeling sad and panicky.

Just remember, depression can affect anybody. Nobody, no matter how successful they are, can escape from it

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I often wonder why some of my female friends are still single after all this time. Love is a consider source of bewilderment for me, probably due to the illogicality of it. I know at least three female doctor friends who are beautiful, intelligent and generous and as far as I know are sans boyfriend. Perhaps they do have a partner I know nothing about.

Before you ask, I have consider asking at least two of them out for a date. I am that desperate to even consider asking a friend out but I just have too much respect for my friends, I am such a coward and I genuinely fear the rejection that may come.

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I think Fabio Capello has missed a trick by only scheduling two friendlies between now and the next World Cup. With several first team players out injured, he needs to give deputies the chance to try out their skills on the world stage. The likes of Glen Johnson, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard and Emile Heskey are out injured. England need to give the likes of Wes Brown, Gary Cahill, Stephen Warnock and Tom Huddlestone more chances to play, even if it is for only 30 to 45 minutes.

Celebrity crushes

2009-10-26T21:09:00.007+08:00

Like every heterosexual male, I probably have a crush on many a celebrity. However my type of fascination has diverted from having sex with them to possibly being their boyfriend. In that respects my criteria for liking a celebrity changes. They have to be close to my age, so people like Emma Watson are out. They also have to have similar intelligence to me and I would like deep conversations, so glamour models tend to be out unless I can proved wrong. With this said my criteria have lead to these ladies being my celebrity crushes

Julia Stiles She's not your typical Hollywood actress as she has tried her hand in all kinds of genres, from comedy to drama to action, and also dabbled in theatre. She's beautiful and has that great deep slightly husky voice I love. What really got it for is she temporarily took a break from acting to do a degree in English from Yale.

Holly Walsh What I really want in a woman is a good sense of humour. Nobody understand my sense of humour - the dry sarcasm and seething irony. I've seen and heard Holly Walsh in "8 Out of 10 Cats", "Edinburgh and Beyond", "Mock the Week", "The Now Show" and "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" and think she gorgeous. I would like her with longer hair but I can't have everything (or anything for this matter).

Tomoko Kojima You are probably wonder "Who?". Tomoko Kojima is a cheerleader for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has been for the past six years. What I like about her, apart from being gorgeous and fit, is that she went to a foreign country to fulfill her dream of being a cheerleader. I could have picked any other cheerleader like Amber Lancaster or Renee Herrlocker but Tomoko is Japanese (I love Japanese girls) and can speak English, which has ruled out all other Japanese models/idols.

Priscilla Ng Probably a bit too close to home, Priscilla Ng is a reporter for my local TV channel TVB Pearl. Not only is she beautiful but I think she gets a bad end of a deal at TVB. I think she is there for a little eye candy, which has been epidemic in Hong Kong news channels. She also has to present the weather and the late news as well. I know I have no chance with her, even if she was single but I think she does an excellent job.

Superstition

2009-10-25T21:09:00.004+08:00

I'm suppose to be getting my new car next week but there is a delay. Namely my parents are not happy with the license plate I've got. The people at Volkswagen have randomly assigned a license plate number - NZ 6421. For most readers they will see nothing wrong with that. However if you reverse the numbers, you'll get the sequence "124" which in Cantonese sounds like "easy to die". Because my parents are superstitious, they are getting me a personalized license plate. I don't know if that is even worse or better - believing Chinese numerology or spending HK$3000 for a personalized license plate.

I'm not one for superstitions. I don't mind walking underneath ladders. I don't touch wood when saying something bad might happen. I do say "bless you" more out of politeness other than being scared of somebody's soul escaping their body. In this day and age where logic has now reigned, I'm surprised superstitions still have a place in modern times.

Look I don't mind have rituals you perform when doing something but if you believe these acts change your fate, perhaps you should stop reading astrology in the newspapers.

Assignment of blame

2009-10-17T15:32:00.002+08:00

Recently the Hospital Authority (the Hong Kong equivalent of the NHS) decided to make major medical incidents public, such as the mixing up of patients' identities and the incorrect distribution of medication. I would expect the general public are horrified such mistakes still continue and will demand to know who is responsible. Not a week goes by without me hearing on the evening news of another "medical incident". People might think the number of incidents has gone up whilst hearing the news but to be honest the number of incidents reported in the news has increase only and the actual number of medical events has remained static. Nevertheless there is always the promise of a full enquiry to find who is responsible.

Yet some times even if somebody is to blame, then what? I hate to state this and this is only my personal opinion and not the opinion of doctors or the Hospital Authority - mistakes will happen. The public health system is run by humans and we humans are fallible to the odd error. We can put in more stringent measures and add more layers of bureaucracy to ensure such mistakes never happen in the future. However the efficiency of the system will dramatically decrease as doctors and nurses will spend more time filling in paperwork rather than doing their job.

In this age of increasing information at our fingertips and with high efficiency of bureaucracy, everybody thinks it will be easy to find out who is to blame. When we are angry or have lost something dear to us, we all want somebody accountable for their actions. Yet sometimes there is nobody to blame. Sometimes it is down to fate and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. We do live in a world where chaos reigns and we are governed not just by the laws of physics and human behaviour but also to random chance.

In other words, things happen because they happen.

That is why I want to stick up for politicians like Gordon Brown. People blame Gordon Brown for the state Great Britain is in but it is not his fault the economy collapse - blame the bankers, especially the ones in USA. Also there was a lot of anger when Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the first time people have been angry when somebody good has won a prize. If you want to blame somebody, shout at the Norwegian Nobel Committee for making such an unusual decision.

Years ago, I used to get angry at everything and everyone about the state I was in. Now I just learn to accept the fate I have been given with and try to alter it myself.

Fads and trends part 2

2009-09-28T11:33:00.003+08:00

To continue my previous post about fads and trends, there are certain number of fashions which I find ridiculous to exist and even more ludicrous that anybody follows them.

1. The iPhone phenomenon

It first began with the iPod and now the latest must-have gadget is the iPhone. People are constantly taking it out in front of friends and fiddling with the poxy thing. Probably half of the people I know own iPhones and I always see them updating their Facebook status with them.

I don't see why people have to use them all the time. I don't feel the need to be constantly in contact with the internet. Anything that comes up on the internet that I urgently need; such as emails, can usually wait until I get home. It cost a ridiculous amount to buy and with restricted service plan that seems to be provided in every country in the world, it adds more charges to your wallet. People tend to forget that there are similar phones out there, including the HTC and the Google phone that has just come out. Some of these have better functions over the iPhone. People really need to shop around.

With that said, I do feel guilty when I get out my iPod Touch. It looks similar to an iPhone, only thinner. It has the same capabilities, apart from the phone and camera functions. I do constantly fiddle with my iPod Touch but I find it a good device to replace my previous mp3 player and it has good games on it to occupy me when I am on-call or travelling on public transport. Plus the fact it came free with my MacBook Pro is an added advantage, which leads me on to the next fad I hate.

2. Being a slave to Microsoft Windows

Around 90% of people use Microsoft Windows. People always encounter problems with Windows, but never think of doing something about it. Firstly they can change the operating system. Linux and Mac OS are far superior operating systems which can be adapted to easily. They also have the added advantage of never suffering from attacks from viruses, trojan horses or worms.

I have had my MacBook Pro for about three months. Apart from a few minor slow downs and some adapatation, I don't have any problems with working on Mac OS X. I'm rather glad I switched to Apple since it is much faster and much more user friendly. Heck is so much faster on startup, I stopped switching my laptop on and going to the toilet as I used to with my old laptop since it took so bloody long to load up.

I think people only use Windows because everybody else uses it. They fear the incompatibility, especially when they need to present a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation or require reading a Microsoft Word document. People tend to forget that there is a Microsoft Office for Mac. Even though it is adequate, there are still some compatibility issues (due to Microsoft, not due to Apple). I'm rather glad I freed myself of the Microsoft dependency and want to avoid giving Bill Gates anymore money in the future.

3. The Mini Cooper

The Mini Cooper, when it came out at the beginning of the millenium, used to be cool. It was a great modern reinvention of a classic. However it has gradually become uncool over the years because just too many people have bought it. There are so many good cars out there.

The same idea applies to anybody who buys a Mercedes/BMW/Lexus, just because it is an expensive car. I hate those people who use the car as an image status rather than a fine piece of automotive engineering. These are the people who constantly buy the newest car, changing their vehicle every two years. Thankfully there is an upside to this - it allows us less mortals to buy good reasonably new cars at affordable prices.

4. Glory supporters

These are bandwagon jumpers who tend to support any footbal team that is successful. They tend to switch allegiances faster than Katie Price can publish an autobiography. In recent years these so called football fans switch from Chelsea to Manchester United to Barcelona to Real Madrid. They say they are fans of football but true football fans stick with their team thick or thin.

At first I'm guilty of being a glory supporter. I first started supporting Arsenal in 1990-1991 because they won the title that season. I have no local affinity to the club, having never lived in the Highbury area. Since then I have supported Arsenal even through the bleak black years in the mid-nineties, when George Graham was involved in the bung scandal, when Nayim was lucky to lob David Seaman in the 1996 Cup Winners' Cup final and in the past few years when we haven't won a trophy in four years. But I'm still supporting Arsenal, because they are my club.

Other fads and trends I hate
- Switching your mobile phone every two years to the 'latest' model when you clearly don't use 90% of the functions on the phone.
- Wearing designer clothes because they're designer clothes.
- Playing also those Facebook applications when real life beckons.

Please don't turn to sheep - be a lion instead.

Fads and trends part 1

2009-09-25T22:11:00.003+08:00

I just saw the most appalling news today. For those who know me, I used to be very enthusiastic about films and the movie industry, being quite up-to-date with the upcoming releases. However I was very surprised and shocked to hear "Fame", one of the most iconic films of all time, had been remade and will be out for release soon.

Some part inside of me wept loudly because it died. Over the summer I saw the remake of "The Taking of Pelham 123", another classic movie, released with big names headlining the thriller. The remake of classics has just proven two things to me.

Firstly Hollywood has finally run out of ideas and are just remaking old films. There was once a rumour, which was featured in "The Island", that there are only thirteen real stories with different variations being made by the studios in Hollywood. I don't think that is true. In the 1970s, Hollywood was making original stuff like Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Nowadays nearly every movie is linked to a true story, a book or some other form of media. It is obvious each film must have some angle so people are enticed to come and see it. I initially thought "Wanted" was an original film, only to find out it was adapted from a graphic novel/comic leaving me very disappointed. There are enough good ideas and writers out there to make original films. Hollywood, just give these ideas and writers a chance.

Secondly the current youth are just far too lazy to watch something "old", no matter how good it is. I seriously challenge anybody to go out and watch the original "Fame" or "The Taking of Pelham 123". Those are very good films which don't need to be remade. The youth of today just want to see anything that is new and trendy, rather than go back to the classics. I hate it when people don't watch movies or listen to music just because it is old. I still listen to the vast majority of my music, even if it is more than ten years old like Blur or The Beatles. The quality of the music hasn't deteriorated, so what is the problem?

Please Hollywood, whatever your do please don't remake anymore classics. If they start to remake movie such as "The Godfather" or "Apocalypse Now", I think I'm going to the mountains to live as a hermit.

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Speaking about being new and trendy, quite a number of people I know own iPhones. I always wondered whether they bought an iPhone because it is a good device, has great functions and applications, or just because everybody else has bought one. I know a friend's sister only bought the new iPhone 3GS just because "it has a white back cover". Don't people know there are other phone/PDA hybrids out there, like the HTC or the new Google phone?

There are other trends and fads out there which I don't understand. People have to understand there are other options out there and they don't need to be like sheep, following the crowd. Please don't buy something or follow something just because everybody else does. I always use this analogy whenever somebody says, "everybody else is doing it" - if everybody was throwing themselves off the tallest building, would you too?

Next time I will write about what fads and trends I hate, except for the iPhone trend which I just mentioned. This ranges from cars to football teams.

England's World Cup squad

2009-09-20T11:39:00.003+08:00

The website Football 365 has a very good article about which players should be in England's World Cup squad for South Africa 2010. Although I generally agree with the article overall, I don't think the selection criteria should be in the form of a ladder. I think most coaches when picking a squad will select by position rather than the quality of their players. So here is my view of who might be going.

Goalkeeper (number of places: 3)
On the plane: David James, Robert Green
In contention: Ben Foster, Paul Robinson, Joe Hart
Only if swine flu breaks out: Chris Kirkland, Scott Carson

David James, despite playing for the English Premier League's bottom club Portsmouth, is still the best English goalkeeper by a mile. His absence has proven this point. The only problem is will Capello continue to pick him if Portsmouth still play as they are. With James's absence, Green has been deputizing admirably and seem to be the second choice.

The third goalkeeper spot is up for grabs. At the moment Ben Foster is taking his chances. Much will depend when Edwin van der Saar comes back to takes his place in the Manchester United goal with Ben Foster reverting back to benchwarmer. Paul Robinson brings experience but I think his England days are past him. It might be better to bring a young pair of hands to get the experience.

Right-back (2)
On the plane: Glen Johnson,
In contention: Wes Brown, Micah Richards
Only if swine flu breaks out: Luke Young, Gary Neville

Although his defending capabilities will be exposed against better opposition, Glen Johnson is currently England's top right-back. He has the ability to go forward and deliver crosses. With that in mind, the back-up will probably be a bit more defensive minded. This is probably why I put Brown ahead of Richards. Both are capable of playing in the centre of defence as well, which will bode well for Capello as he might not take four specialist centre-backs, but Brown has better defending qualities and big match experience compared to Richards. The only problem for Brown is that he is not playing regularly for Manchester United. Yet Gary Neville was called up to the England squad over the summer despite playing very few matches for his club, so Brown still has some hope.

Left-back (2)
On the plane: Ashley Cole, Wayne Bridge
In contention: Leighton Baines, Stephen Warnock
Only if swine flu breaks out: Nicky Shorey, Paul Konchesky

Probably the most secure and undramatic position in the England squad. Cole and Bridge have been the mainstay left sided defenders since the beginning of this millenium. Although the likes of Shorey have gained a couple of caps in their absence, it will be definitely those two on the plane to South Africa this summer.

Centre-back (3-4)
On the plane: Rio Ferdinand, John Terry
In contention: Matthew Upson, Joleon Lescott
Only if swine flu breaks out: Phil Jaglieka, Gary Cahill, Curtis Davies

Rio Ferdinand and John Terry will definitely be starting for England during the World Cup but the most definite issue is who will be deputizing for them. In recent games when one or the other has been out injured, Matthew Upson has been filling their boots. Yet he is not world class. Joleon Lescott is the only other real contender but he has floundered when put in an England shirt. With England having already qualified for the World Cup, Capello might want to use the two remaining qualifying games as a chance to see Lescott and Upson under real pressure. Cahill & Davies have been called up but I don't think Capello will be bringing uncapped centre-backs to play against the likes of Brazil and Spain. Jaglieka is currently injured but has shown he is capable of playing in the big leagues and his versatility will also prove to be an useful asset.

Right-midfield (2)
On the plane:
In contention: Aaron Lennon, Theo Walcott, David Beckham, James Milner, Shaun Wright-Phillips
Only if swine flu breaks out: Leon Osman, David Bentley

Probably the most open position to be filled by Fabio Capello. No player is a definite in this position. Currently with his league form and recent displays for England, Aaron Lennon will be filling the right of midfield. Theo Walcott has been played the most as right winger by Capello plus he can pushed further upfield if required. Milner has the ability to play across the whole midfield and up front. Beckham has been a great impact substitute for England in the past year and can play in the centre is the dubbed "quarterback" role if required. This is why SWP is so low down in the thinking. Although he is a good player, can Capello afford to bring a specialist right winger who isn't that world class?

Left midfield (2)
On the plane:
In contention: Ashley Young
Only if swine flu breaks out: Stewart Downing, Joe Cole, Matthew Taylor

With Steven Gerrard starting on the left and Milner deputizing, I doubt anybody can push their way through to be on the plane bound for South Africa. Ashley Young has to have an outstanding season to even be considered for the squad. The likes of Downing and Cole have to get of the treatment table and on to the field before even thinking about World Cup places

Centre midfield (4-5)
On the plane: Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry
In contention: Owen Hargreaves, Michael Carrick
Only if swine flu breaks out: Scott Parker, Jermaine Jenas

With Gerrard, Lampard & Barry dead cert on going to South Africa, only one or two places are really up for contention. Even though Gerrard will most likely be playing on the left and free up a spot, I think Beckham will be picked as a third right midfielder to cover both right and centre midfield. Currently Michael Carrick is filling the spot but I don't think he will be testing the likes of Argentina and Holland. Capello will be hoping Hargreaves can get fit soon and have a decent season for Manchester United, as his defensive prowess, passing ability and versatility makes the most ideal holding midfielder, even better than Barry. I don't think Capello will bring three holding midfielders in the likes of Barry, Hargreaves or Carrick as he will want to leave the fifth centre-midfielder (if takes that many) to be more attacking.

Forwards (4-5)
On the plane: Wayne Rooney, Emile Heskey, Jermaine Defoe
In contention: Carlton Cole, Peter Crouch
Only if swine flu breaks out: Gabriel Agbonlahor, Darren Bent, Dean Ashton

It is most like Rooney and Heskey will start with Defoe coming off the bench. This leaves one more big striker to fill the post. Currently it is a straight fight between Cole and Crouch with the West Ham United player having the edge. Although Crouch is reasonable in the air, he likes the ball at his feet unlike Carlton Cole who can be a target man just like Heskey.

Current prediction
Goalkeeper: James, Green, Foster
Right back: Johnson, Brown
Left back: A. Cole, Bridge
Centre back: Terry, Ferdinand, Upson
Right midfield: Lennon, Walcott
Centre midfield: Lampard, Barry, Beckham, Hargreaves*
Left midfield: Gerrard, Milner, Young
Forward: Rooney, Heskey, Defoe, C. Cole

* If fit, otherwise Carrick
On standby: Robinson, Richards, Carrick, Crouch

Hypocrisy maybe the word

2009-09-15T17:05:00.002+08:00

I know my Cantonese is very poor. Not being able to read or write is, at times, a matter of shame being Chinese. Yet I manage to get by in normal day life. The only problem or piece of humiliation is when I have to order dishes in a restaurant, leading me to dine at establishments with pictures of their dishes in their menus or where the menus are in English. I do get a lot of grief from people around me, especially nurses, who tell me to learn Cantonese properly so I can advance my career. Doctors are a little bit more sympathetic and patients find it amusing. A lot of people, especially nurses, tend to correct me about my pronunciation or grammar.

With that said, I don't even attempt to correct people's use of English, even though I might have a standpoint since English is my first language. I hate it when Chinese people always say "Thank you 你", which literally translates as "Thank you you". I cringe when people say words wrong such as "mechanism". I tend to believe the quality of English used nowadays have deteriorated, thanks to the Internet, text messaging, online chatting and emails.

I don't think anybody has a deserved right to criticise anybody else on any matter. The only position where somebody can comment on somebody else's action or words is if they themselves are experts in that area or have experience in the field. I don't like it when sports commentators or journalists criticise athletes or players on their performance. It is OK when you are a former player criticising a player about the sins of diving, since you know what it is like to play against cheats.

I never say to patients, "I know how you feel" even though I have been a patient. It is their body I have no idea what they are going through. I do hate it when my doctor friends say, "I know what you are going through. I have been through psychiatry..." I really want to say at that point, "If you know how to drive, do you know how to drive a racing car or know what Michael Schumacher is going through when he drives that Ferrari F1 car?" No of course you don't. It is just better to say, "I'm sure what your going through is difficulty..."

Recently I have been suffering from hypocrisy from my parents recently. I tend to be on the internet a lot, mainly gawking at babes. I have been told by my parents to cut down on this. With this said, most of the time my mum and dad spends on the internet using Facebook applications, such as a farming game and mahjong. I find it hard to take their advice of cutting my use of the internet when they spend most of their time on the internet as well.

It is so much easier to criticise when you have somewhere to stand from.

Single and desperate

2009-09-09T22:11:00.003+08:00

I was going to write an article about fads and stereotypes but lately something else has been on my mind. I'm going to whine about the lack of my love life again. If you are not interested in reading yet again about the absence of romance in my existence, please go somewhere else...

Still here? Then let's begin...

I use Facebook far too often. Unlike other people who seem to use this social networking site for means other than social networking, such as playing those blasted applications involving mahjong or planting crops, I actually follow how my friends are getting along in their lives. I always feel left behind when I compared my life to my friends and colleagues. Not a day goes by when I see another person I know putting his or her pre-wedding photos up and I have to fake some congraulatulations for them, when most of all I feel envy and depression. Other people are announcing they are pregnant and others are stating they have broken up.

And what am I doing? My state is similar when I rub my shoes against the carpet - I'm static. I'm in the same state I was ten years ago, just fatter and actually have a job. I'm twenty eight years old, never had a girlfriend and I'm still a virgin, which irks my fragile male ego. I hate to use a feminine phrase but my biological clock is ticking. I thought by this age I would be married but now I don't feel my chances of meeting somebody are getting better.

I work most of the time and spend most of my free time at home. I don't like going out that much, since I hate the social life in Hong Kong. I have reduced the amount of alcohol I drink. All this significantly reduces the chances of meeting somebody. My hobbies are not great ways of socializing either. I spend most of my time cooking at home and I like to watch movies by myself, either at home or in the cinema. I don't go to exercise much and most of my keeping fit, if I'm actually bothered, is cycling (again which I do on my own) or going to the driving range - something which I do on my own and not really a sport which women engage in.

I could look to my circle of friends but most of my friends are doctors and I don't really want to hook with somebody in the same field. No offense to all my doctor friends but most of us are quite boring. I would like somebody who can talk about something other than their patients or the latest advancements in the medical field. That also rules out nurses, no matter how cute or sexy they are.

What also limits my options are my criteria. I do have very selective needs as such. I would like to meet somebody who has a similar background to me (Western upbringing, broad views) but in Hong Kong, meeting somebody like that is very difficulty. With most people having a Cantonese background, finding a lady I like is similar to sieving for gold in a river.

I'm starting to get desperate now. I'm rating all the women I meet into categories. I've started signing up to online dating sites. I'm contemplating starting to do some exercise, not for my health but in the hopes of meeting women by either going to the gym or making me slightly more attractive. Yet I'm still to cowardly to look through those online dating sites and ask somebody out.

At the end of the day, despite all the criteria I have put out and all the restrictions I have put on myself, everything boils down to one factor - I like her and she likes me. Simple? I wish it was.

A few tidbits

2009-08-28T11:31:00.002+08:00

To follow on from my previous post, I have never been tutored and have never tutored anyone, so I have no experience of tutoring. Obviously I have helped people with their homework in boarding school but that is as far as my expertise goes. Tutoring only helps marginally - either you don't have the enthusiasm or intelligence to lift you any further than what you can possible achieve. Also people put too much emphasis on exams and school. There are people who don't conform to the rigid system that entails during our secondary school education but when they get to the real world, they can achieve anything. Exams and interviews do not properly correlate with work or school performance.

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I don't know why Apple allow downloading of music from iTunes for Hong Kong customers. I want to download music now, since I don't really want to buy albums but it doesn't let me. This is why people illegally download music - because there is no way you can legally download music.

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Why can't the normal population understand that when you have a disease or medical condition, these things take time to heal, they don't necessarily will heal 100% and there is a limit what medicine can do. Medicine is not voodoo magic - take one pill and you can heal all the sicknesses you have. Patients have become more and more demanding, thinking what they hear from other people or what they read in magazines and the internet is correct without considering the opinion of an expert. I do understand it is their body and their decision to make but if they don't listen to the doctor's advice, why do doctors even bother explaining to the patients.

It's the same thing with people buying shares. They need to understand that shares will not automatically rise in price, it may take time to increase in value and they can go down in price. That is why I don't have any sympathy for those Hong Kong people who buy funds with shares from the Lehman Brothers. They were told about these shares and they still want their money back. If you cannot bother to listen, why listen at all.

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I'm very satisfied with how Arsenal's start to the this campaign has gone. Four wins in a row and an easy Champions' League group. Didn't like how Eduardo dived to win that penalty against Celtic on Wednesday. Arsene Wenger should drop him for the next game, even if it is against Manchester United. I don't want players of Arsenal doing that.

Dent in the wallet

2009-08-22T21:07:00.009+08:00

When I graduated, I promised myself I would stop illegally downloading TV shows, since I was no longer a poor university student but instead a poor intern with a meagre salary. I don't download music from the internet, since I'm not an avid listener. I used to get computer programs online but stopped recently (I explain why later).

Nowadays I stopped downloading the TV shows. The last TV series I illegally downloaded was the second season of "Pushing Daisies", a brilliant dark comedy series which was tragically stopped after only two seasons. I'm still downloading the entire series of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" since I started that quite a long time ago and it is still downloading. I still have too many DVDs I still haven't seen

Most of the time I'm downloading TV shows which I cannot get on DVD or other paid means, such as the current series of "Top Gear" or "Mock the Week". If there was a subscription service, I would pay for those programs, as long as it was a reasonable price. The other major media I download are podcasts. It is great to have podcasts, since they are free and if you don't like music, there is another whole world of media you can listen to. I recently become more infatuated with comedy, so I download more comedy such as The Guardian's coverage of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

(One thing I don't understand is why they need to call podcasts 'podcasts'. They're just downloadable radio programs or audio programs. They're only called podcasts as an amalgamation of iPod and broadcast.)

Since I've become a medical officer, there have been numerous dents in the wallet recently. Firstly there are aspects of my job which require money, such as membership to the professional associations. I also had to pay back my mother for paying for the last two holidays I went on. The first item I bought when I became a medical officer was a car - the new Volkswagen Golf TSI (Mark VI). Unfortunately, due to the high demand, the car will only be delivered by October. That's actually a good thing, since it will cost me about four months wages. So by the time it will arrive, I would have earned enough money to repay my dad who paid for the car.

Recently I have been replacing many of my electronic items. The first electronic item I replaced was my notebook. My old notebook has started to break physically with cracks appearing at the bottom of the screen, the power button is slightly screwed up and every time I use too many programs, all the programs automatically close. After a long time slating off Microsoft and Windows, I decided to convert to the Force and get a Mac. I got a MacBook Pro just a few weeks ago. Since my Dad works for an university, I got a discount on the MacBook Pro and also got an iPod Touch for free. It took me some time to get use to Mac OS X operating system but I'm finding it great. I'm using my old notebook just for downloading porn.

Today I went to an electronics fair in Wan Chai. Since there were many items going cheap at the fair, I decided to go and blow my hard earn cash. I bought a new digital camera, an iPod station for my iPod touch, a new USB hard drive and a digital photo frame. Before people start saying I'm deviating from my leftist roots and become a material hoarder, I like to say that I need all this stuff. The digital camera we have at home is not very slim and has a very long delay when you press the button to take a photo. Additionally it doesn't belong to me - it belongs to my parents. The USB hard drive is required for work and for backing up my files from my two notebooks. Lastly I always whine about people taking photos with their digital camera, storing them in their computers and never looking at them again, which is why I got a digital photo frame.

I think that will be enough spending for now - it will be just bread and water for lunch for the next few weeks.

Tutoring

2009-08-14T21:15:00.003+08:00

This is my first blog entry using my new MacBook Pro. No, I'm not going to take pictures of my new notebook or christen the laptop with a funny name like Sebastien or Johann. I'm just going to treat my MacBook Pro like a MacBook Pro and not like the new baby in my life.

*********

I still feel despondent about work. I'm starting to become my worst fear - a doctor who is gradually become more dismissive of patients complaints.

*********

One of my cousins recently got his results for his HKCEEs, which is equivalent to GCSEs or SATs. Unfortunately the results were not very good. To continue his secondary school education, one is required to have attained fourteen points in his or her HKCEEs. My cousin only got six points. He is now at a crossroads, whether to continue with the books or seek vocational training. As my family are well versed on education, my dad has been given my aunt (my dad's sister) plenty of advice.

I hate to be harsh in this situation but I have to say that in society, there will always be people who are destined to be doctors, lawyers and engineers and other people who destined to be mechanics, cooks or salespeople. What I am trying to say nicely is that there are clever people and there are stupid people. That doesn't mean that mechanics, cooks or salespeople contribute to society or won't earn a lot during their lifetime. I know a lot of my friends who cannot change a car tyre, boil an egg or properly fold clothes.

What I hate about today's society is that we put so much emphasis on education or more precisely proof of education. I don't doubt that knowledge is power and useful towards your life. Yet people wants so many A's during their exams to get into a good university to get a degree to earn lots of money. What we learn in school isn't really that useful in life. When did anybody need to know the dates of the World War II battles or the use of differentiation in everyday life. What they should teach us in school is practical stuff, from wiring a plug, cooking (both boys and girls) and economics.

We have gotten to the stage that we think an university degree is so important, parents and students are willing to fork out thousands of dollars to pay tutors to teach them stuff they should be taught by teachers in school, and those souped-up faux tutors who grace advertising boards like they were superstars or models don't really teach them anything. Students get taught how to perform well in exams, not the knowledge or skills which will last them a last time.

Education is important but know what education is important is much more vital.

Legalized lying

2009-07-30T20:23:00.002+08:00

One of the good things about the British Broadcasting Corporation is the lack of advertising. I know many people find the idea of paying over one hundred pounds per year proposterous when they can get TV for free. Yet for the quality of programming the BBC offer plus the added bonus of not having to sit through minutes of non-sensical advertising is a price worth paying.

I remember two great quotes of advertising. One is by the great science fiction writer H.G. Wells: "Advertising is legalized lying." Any advert just tells you want you want to hear. Most of the stuff said in advertising is the twisted truth. There are two types of products whose advertisements illustrated this points - baby milk formula powder and beauty products. For those milk formula adverts, they always sprout multiple acronyms such as DHA which the formula milk contains. They insist it will make your baby more cleverer. It may be that these added nutrients will help your kid more intelligenct but as a doctor of the Hospital Authority, we are not allowed to recommend any milk formula powder and quite rightly. I, as a normal citizen and a doctor, will still insist that breast milk is still the best. And what is wrong with cow's milk anyway?

Just by looking at the woman in Hong Kong just shows none of the beauty products offered on TV and in magazines don't actually work - I don't see any beautiful women walking the streets in Hong Kong. I especially hate the adverts by FANCL starring that annoying Gigi Leung. Woman look up to her because they think she's beautiful but I don't find her that attractive. She really cannot sing or act in my opinion. All that is going for her is she's tall, but men don't necessarily want any lady taller than them.

The second quote I like by advertising is this: "Advertising gets you to buy items you don't need or want." It is quite shocking to hear the largest department in a company is usually the marketing department and most of the cost of a product is usually due to advertising and marketing. If we had half a brain, we would consider the advertisement but not necessarily obey it.

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Why do I feel listless at work? I'm cruising through my job at the moment, currently in first gear. I don't do any studying in the evening, which I should do. At times I do wish my job was a little bit harder and more demanding.

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I found out in a news report that women my age outnumber the males in Hong Kong. It should make me more in demand but I don't feel that. I am looking for someone but with my job, my personality, my psychiatric history and my demands I fell I'm more a liability than a piece of treasure.

The nanny state

2009-07-20T16:38:00.002+08:00

Whilst watching an episode of the new series of "Top Gear", this game of 'car sauna' popped up.

The last part of the clip is what I want to emphasize about. Nearly every part of our lives requires pampering from the government. Every summer in Hong Kong there are alerts issued by the Hong Kong Observatory warning us that the weather is really hot. I can tell it is really hot by the sweat running down my face and my need for a cold drink. I don't need the weather girl to tell me go into the shade and get out of the sun.

I think 99% of the population comes under the category of "competent enough to know what 'hot' is". I understand the alerts and warnings are mainly for the elderly and other people who are generally incapable of thermoregulation. Yet if really cannot tell that the temperature is rising, should you really be living at all? What gets me are the people who know it is hot and do nothing about it. These are the really stupid hikers who trouble the ambulance services by not bringing enough water or shade with them.

The other area which really miffs me is hygiene. Since Hong Kong has been greatly affected by SARS, avian influenza and human swine flu, there has been great emphasis on washing our hands after doing anything dirty. I know this is supposed to prevent the spread of infection amongst the community but there is a downside to all this handwashing. We won't challenge our immune system enough if you don't give it enough virus and bacteria to fight. This leads to an inability to handle minor infections plus increase rates of allergic diseases such as food allergies, asthma and eczema. It is true the more hygienic a community becomes, there is a decrease in infectious diseases but there is an increase in allergic diseases. I also believe it might lead an increase to cancers, as the immune system handles those as well but I have no evidence to support this - it is my own personal opinion.

What I want to state is that we don't need a Big Brother to make decisions for us - we just need to get the information ourselves and make the choices ourselves.

Boy racer crazy

2009-07-08T17:29:00.006+08:00

I was on-call for the second time in orthopaedics at on Wednesday. I admitted four patients throughout the day, was able to go out for dinner and sleep throughout the night. The work hasn't been that taxing. Since it is a small hospital, I don't have that many patients to handle. Currently I have eleven patients under my care, most of them run of the mill problems like back pain and foot ulcers. The cases are varied, so I have a great exposure to everything. The situation has left me with a considerable amount of time. I should be studying orthopaedics and ENT but my mind is not in it. I need to start picking myself up soon.

********

Currently I'm in the process of buying a car. At the moment my father is driving me to work. It is not the most ideal situation, as the current hospital I'm working at has this strange policy that only the doctor or his/her spouse can be the owner of the car if applying for a parking permit. So I'm spending most of the trips in the morning eating breakfast whilst my dad chauffeurs me to work.

So what car am I buying? Since it is a first car for me (I'm excluding the Renault Megane Espace I had since I didn't own it), I'm obviously going for a small car. Unforunately the options are quite limited. My dad is always going on about resale values, so I had to rule out cars that I liked such as the Suzuki Swift. Also many of the European cars are expensive here in Hong Kong and if I was back in England, I would have considered the Ford Focus or the Fiat 500. I don't want something too run of the mill and boring, so the Honda Jazz and the Toyota Yaris are out.

I was seriously considering the BMW 1 series. It is a great car and well built. It is also rear-wheel drive, which I like. The only problem is that it is really costly on the wallet, going at HK$300K+ and that is a BMW. Unfortunately bankers who buy BMWs give them a bad name. I consider most BMW and Mercedes owners/drivers as cocks, who think they own the road just because they have an expensive car.

Most of us having some form of stereotyping people depending on what car they own.... which I'll elaborate on in a latter blog entry.

So what is my choice? I've decided to plump for the new VW Golf Mark VI. Not the GTI since that is out next year in Hong Kong. There is a waiting list for the car and I won't be able to get the car until about October - that is how popular it is.

So what does the VW Golf make me? A boy racer.

Cultural identity

2009-07-04T22:15:00.004+08:00

I've just finished internship and started my life as an resident in family medicine. I will be rotating through various hospital specialties for the next two years. The hospital where I'm at is quite small, the patient workload is currently very small. Actually life is very easy at the moment. The maximum number of patients underneath my care is sixteen. I'm on-call today and I haven't had much to do. I've had two patients to admit and they weren't very difficult cases. There is a lot of benefit to having a nice 2nd on-call medical officer to call upon.

There are problems with being at a small hospital. The variety of cases at this hospital is not that great compared to a large hospital, so my scope will be very limited. There are no interns. Many of the duties which would have been performed by interns, such as printing specimen labels and renew drug sheets, have to be performed by medical officers. ]I will be performing various 'intern' duties for the next year. I already accepted I would have to intern duties but thankfully less than usual. That's the price to pay for the next two years and for having a reduced workload, compared to being at a larger hospital.

Also I have to attach to other specialties during each rotation. For this rotation, I have to attach to Ear, Nose & Throat Surgery. I don't mind it but the only problem is I have to go to another hospital ten times for the next three months, which has serious consequences on my time, duties and wallet.

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After ending internship and before entering residency, I went for five days in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was a very good holiday, with the hotel resort I was staying at a very good choice. If anybody stays in Chaing Mai, try "The Chedi" hotel resort for its service - truly world class.

That's not the main point of my blog entry. Whilst on vacation, I just couldn't help about the well being of the locals. Tourism is a big industry in Thailand with the economics and the culture a selling point. There are good sides to tourism, bring in much needed revenue plus exposing people to other people's cultures. Yet I was always thinking about the adverse effects of tourism. It brings out the unsavoury personality of people, trying to make as much cash as possible with as little ethic as possible. There were massage places and people selling their wares in every street. I don't oppose to people trying to make a living but at times there is a need for regulation, to prevent people getting ripped off.

Also I went to a local village to see the culture of the hill tribes. Most of the village was filled with shops trying to sell products varying from bags to dried fruit. I don't know if tourism is that great when you are trying to sell your cultural identity to raise a few bucks. I know Thailand is not alone in this problem, with every country having this dilemma.

I think exposing your cultural identity without looking like a sell-out can be done, it is just fine balance.

N.I.M.B.Y.

2009-06-22T18:57:00.003+08:00

Recently in Hong Kong, the government wanted to convert an old secondary school in Mui Wo, a rural town in Lantau, into a rehabilitation school for drug addict children. The school has been abandoned for quite a few years since it was closed down due to a lack of number of students. It has caused quite a reaction amongst the local resident of the town. The local residents are against the conversion, saying that they are not opposed to having drug addicts in the neighbourhood but they have stated they want the local secondary school to be revived.

That is all good... if you really mean it. However the residents have reacted quite violently to the moving of the drug addict rehabilitation school to their area. They haven't been vocal for a local secondary school until the news that the moving of a drug recovery school was announced, now they say they want their old school to be revived. And why haven't we heard them being more vocal when the school was closed down in the first place?

What really swayed me that the local Mui Wo residents didn't really want drug addicts in their area was when they shouted during the consultation meetings, "We don't was drug addicts in our area" not "We want a secondary school for local children".

It is a classic case of NIMBY syndrome or Not In My Back Yard. Typically it is for building of new facilities in rural areas but it can be applied in this case. Everybody was in favour of expanding the drug rehabilitation school into other areas, due to overcrowding. Yet when they hear it is in their area, they immediately make excuses of why it shouldn't be in their area or they don't want it in their back yard. It is often apply to other members of society. We all in favour of reforming child molesters or the mentally ill, but when we get wind they live next to us or work in areas we visit frequently, we become uneasy with that idea.

Somebody has to have a drug rehabilitation school in their area. They just have to stick with the idea.

Duty and honour

2009-06-16T16:21:00.002+08:00

I'm finishing up watch the fifth season of "House" before I started resident training. I've just watched the episode where Kal Penn departs. When I heard the actor was leaving his acting profession to join the White House, I thought it was remarkable and applaud him for this noble move.

When I first heard Kal Penn was leaving Hollywood for his post as Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, I instantly thought of Pat Tillman. I'm not a big follower of American football but when the story broke that an professional NFL player was going to enlist into the United States Army Rangers, it made me feel some pride for the human race that not all of us are in it for the money. He enrolled into the US Army after 9/11 as he thought he had a duty to perform.

We all should take good examples from Tillman and Penn. They left their profession in the height of their career, with fame and fortune at their doorstep, to take up some civic duty because they felt it was the right thing to do. I know many celebrities from film and sports donate their money and time to charitable causes but they still hold on to their day job of multimillionare stars. They would probably argue the skills are best spent in their chosen field, which is probably right. But it would be nice if these celebrities would do a lot more, rather than keep charging so many dollars to turn up at a charity event and naming charities after themselves.

There are actors and sports players who decide to enroll in another field, such as journalism or politics or charity post, after their career has finished. This is noble as well but this happens after they have milked the previous career dry with nothing left but dust. Couldn't they have done this early? I'm sure they had enough money in the bank which would set themselves for life, so they can go and dedicate themselves to their new role instead of being handed 'ambassador titles' from the UN.

Kal Penn and Pat Tillman should be applauded - it is just a shame there are not more people like that in the world.

Superficiality

2009-06-12T21:31:00.002+08:00

I know I am a superficial guy. I look constantly at Hong Kong women and wish for the day where most of them will wear high heels, actually have thighs that are larger than their calves and wear revealing clothing such as short skirts and low cut tops.

I know I'm not going to see that in the wards. I have yet to see a babe, either as a patient or as a patient's relative. And if any of the female doctors wore any clothes showing skin I think most of the male patients will suffer a heart attack and that would mean too much paperwork.

Yet I know most nice looking girls don't have much up top and I'm not talking about breasts. I looked at two Playboy Playmate video profiles and once these models opened their mouths it was quite obvious there weren't even two brain cells to knock against each other. Yet all people, ladies and gentleman, continue to look for the ideal-LOOKING person rather than go for personality, brains or humour. That is why people were astonished Susan Boyle could sing. The population is bought up with Mariah Careys and Avril Lavignes of this world and we don't have an ordinary looking girl who can sing properly.

Increased admissions

2009-06-09T19:38:00.004+08:00

Life is going reasonably well at the moment. I'm in the process of being registered as a resident / medical officer. I'm still sorting out the paper work, which is still like any other kind of bureaucracy in that it is totally unfathomable. I honestly don't understand why people in administration can make this simpler. Anyway I'll be signing the contract later this week and will be attending the orientation at the hospital next week.

Closer to home, the current work is hectic. The Accident & Emergency department at our hospital has closed down its observation ward for repairs until September. This means patients who normally go to the observation ward for a few hours are being directed to the admission wards in the hospital. I was at the history meeting for our department today and it was noted there were eighty-two admission yesterday, when normally the medical department only receives fifty admissions per day. More admission means more work to do - more investigations to order, more discharge summaries to type up.

Thankfully I only have to suffer this for fifteen more days. That's four more calls and I'm on holiday and can wave goodbye to my life as an intern.

Jumped-up dancers & frumpy singers

2009-06-01T09:11:00.003+08:00

I'm really glad "Britain's Got Talent" is over. For those who live in Britain, you should be surprised by the amount of press coverage the show has received overseas. There has been daily bulletins on our local news leading up to the final. The word "overhype" could be used to describe the situation. I'm just relieved this overblown talent show programme has now ended, at least for another year. I really don't like any of the celebrities involved. Simon Cowell & Piers Morgan are just nasty men who you wouldn't want a conversation with. Ant & Dec should have gone to jail for that fraud telephone scheme they were involved with. Amanda Holden is OK but really should get out of that show if she wants to be deemed 'credible'.

The show has been helped by the character of Susan Boyle, even though she didn't win. Every credible act who appeared in the program shows they have talent. But why are we surprised by this? There are a lot of talented people all around us and we don't even notice. We probably have colleagues, family members or friends who can sing, dance and play musical instruments. We just don't go out and try to find them. At least "Britain's Got Talent" gives these people a chance to show their skills, probably the only redeeming factor of the show.

And why we on the subject, why should we be surprised when somebody is oridinary looking has a beautiful singing voice? I just hate the media-lead society we live in when we assume anybody who is beautiful/handsome is presumed to be clever, talented and nice when it is usually the opposite.

I just like to wish Diversity, Flawless, Susan Boyle, Hollie Steel and all the other performers who took part good luck and remind them to keep their feet on the ground.

It's been a long time

2009-05-27T11:00:00.002+08:00

It has been a long time since I written in my blog. For the first time at work, I've been busy. I'm currently in my internal medicine rotation as an intern and it's been a constant stream of labour. I've been admitting patients, left, right and centre. I've been setting intravenous drips and taking arterial blood. Even after two months in the job, I'm still incapable of setting up BiPAP/CPAP/ventilators for people who have difficulty breathing or setting up drug drips for atrial fibrillation. I know that last sentence may have flown over some people but just let me say that I should be able to do that.

Also for the past two months I have been miserable. I saw my psychiatrist last week and I related to him that I have been feeling depressed since I started my final rotation. I don't mind the workload in internal medicine but the difficulty of the situation coupled with some really nasty superiors doesn't make it better. Perhaps it is the anxiety of having to go to interviews and get a job which has led me feeling more sad. Or it could be the impending future, having to take on more responsibility, rising to become a resident and still don't know anything or give a crap if a patient lives or dies.

It is not like I don't have matters to write about - my misery in internal medicine and having to deal with psychosomatic symptoms when I'm on-call, like chest discomfort, palpitations and muscle cramping, my forthcoming future and having to sort out things such as buying a car and pay taxes, how Playboy Playmates look great but when you hear them speak you know they don't have two brain cells which you could bump together and Susan Boyle.

But right now I'm not that enthusiastic about writing about anything. I rather keep surfing the internet and watching "Red Dwarf" episodes, which I have managed to watch the entire back catalogue. I've gone into the mode where being stationary is comforting.

Frustration

2009-04-07T18:03:00.002+08:00

I had the most frustrating few days in my life...

Firstly I was reported for looking at Japanese models (fully-clothed) on the internet at the computers in the K2 Doctors' Common Room by a male doctor. I don't know his name and all I know was that he was in the surgical field since he was dressed in green OT attire and was middle aged.

The next day (Friday) I was called by my supervisor to meet him and in my opinion was inappropriately treated. My supervisor didn't ask for my side of the story. He made me feel like a sexual deviant, saying "Are you so stressed that you have to look at these photos?" He asked me how my job interviews were going, which I don't think is relevant to the matter. Now he's linking my work performance to this incident and asking members of staff to monitor my performance in the ward. I'm really thinking about taking this matter further and asking somebody higher.

Then on Sunday I had one of the worst on-calls in my short career. I only got to have dinner for 15 minutes (no lunch or breakfast), I didn't sleep at all and I got two patients started to deteriorate on me - one with septic shock and one with a drug overdose in the ward.

Sometimes I think this job is not worth the effort...

Against your own kind (part two)

2009-03-24T23:10:00.003+08:00

I got a reminder the other day as to why I don't like Mainlanders...

I was riding the hospital lift down when it stopped at one floor. Somebody graciously kept the door open whilst everybody in the lift waited for whoever it was to enter the lift. It seemed that nobody was going to enter the lift until we saw a kid dragging an adult into the lift. The adult was oblivious to the fact the lift had arrived, as she was 'talking' on the phone. I put 'talking' in quotation marks as the woman was actually shouting down the phone.

I often comment on the volume of Chinese people when they talk but this woman took the biscuit in terms of voice intensity. She really didn't need the mobile phone to talk to the person since that person would have heard it anyway, even hundred of miles away.

So how did I know this woman was from the Mainland. Apart from the usual clothing & facial features, she was shouting in Putonghua, or whatever dialect she was speaking. I have no qualms about people speaking Putonghua. I think the Chinese language is beautiful. I know Putonghua (or Mandarin for my Western friends) is actually easier to learn, with fewer tones to learn and the spoken and written language being exactly the same, unlike the Cantonese dialect. So why is that when I hear anybody speak Putonghua to me, I still roll up my eyes and curse in English? Like a lot of Americans and British people who go on holiday abroad who think everybody in the world understands English, many Mainlanders expect all Hong Kong Chinese people to understand Putonghua just because they are Chinese. I'm sorry to say that I don't understand Putonghua and talking to me in Chiuchow, Fukien or whatever dialect you should choose will not make me understand what you are saying.

I don't expect people who come to Hong Kong to all speak Cantonese. There are many expatriates from Western countries who come here to live and work. I expect not one of them to speak conversational Cantonese. Yet they can manage to get somebody who can speak the local language to communicate with essential people, such as in restaurants, services and in the health sector, to acquire whatever they need. It seems people from Mainland China are incapable of doing this. Somehow they just keep shouting and shouting and expect you to understand.

Which leads me on to another point why I'm extremely prejudice towards Mainlanders - manners. For some reason Mainlanders have never ever been taught to be polite towards other people. I've been trying to explain it since I've noticed this. My parents keep telling me it is a cultural aspect but I seriously don't believe that. One thing common to many cultures is the lack of greed and the basic awareness of "Love thy neighbour like thy self". I know that phrase is Christian in origin but other religions, from Islam to Buddhism, share the same belief.

Neither it is a socio-economical problem. I know many people in England who are not well off and they manage to be courteous and kind. Plus I know many Mainland businessmen who are well off and are just as rude as a British football hooligan. Somehow the basic manners are just not instilled into Mainlanders. They just don't seem to say 'goodbye' at the end of a phone conversation. They don't let people off lifts or trains first. I don't think it is a regional aspect either. The Koreans and Japanese are very polite. I love one aspect of Japanese life - people are generally looked down upon if you are seen talking on your mobile in a train carriage. I hate it when people shout down the phone so the whole of the train can hear. Why is it that the Chinese people are incapable of talking quietly? I cannot have a conversation with my dad without having my hearing tested afterwards. This has lead me to stay away from holiday resorts where Chinese people usually reside to ensure I have a quiet holiday. You can tell Chinese tourists from a mile away - they have no manners and cannot speak quietly.

Maybe I'm just a snob and extremely condescending. I expect everybody to have good manners and know how to say 'excuse me', 'thank you' and 'sorry' in the language to wherever they go on holiday. I look down on people who cannot give up their seat in the bus or train to the elderly and disabled. I expect patients to listen to me and understand what I'm saying, even in my broken Cantonese. I wish everybody who at least not consult doctors for the trivial of things, that common colds and flu do not require a doctor to prescribe medication which can be bought at a pharmacist.

Prejudices have no place in the world but we all have them. I think if everybody was born perfect, we would never make the effort to improve. So why is that I'm willing to acknowledge my faults but other people are not capable of doing so?

Against your own kind (part one)

2009-03-08T22:09:00.010+08:00

I like to think I'm an open-minded person, willing to accept people for their beliefs and behaviour. It should come natural for me, having lived in three different countries (although very Westernized in nature) during my childhood and having been surrounded by people from various nations during my school years, first in an international school and then a boarding school. Additionally several years with depression has allowed me to experience what it is like to be a psychiatric patient. I find it especially difficult to comprehend why doctors and medical students still hold some stigmatization of psychiatric patients.

Yet I do have one prejudice in life. I am ashamed to admit it but I whenever I meet people of this nature I instinctively roll my eyes and look down upon them. It's not Mormons or evangelists I despise. I can understand their intentions in spreading the word of the Bible, even though they might piss off some people along the way with some ill-advised methods. I can tolerate Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester Unitd fans, knowing football fanaticism is a delusional state which very few can escape from. All football fans think their team is the best in the world and will religious defend their club to the extremes of insanity.

The kind of prejudice I usually infect is somewhat strange - I'm prejudice against people from China.

Yes, I'm racist towards my own race. I would have to clarify my prejudice. I'm somewhat look down on people from Mainland China. I don't have any problem of people generally from Hong Kong, although people who know me well know I don't like Hong Kong compared to other countries. I get along fine with any Chinese people who were brought up abroad, like USA or UK, seeing they have a similar background and upbringing compared to me. Neither am I belittling the achievements of the Chinese and their culture. I have a great respect for Chinese arts, thinking the youth of today have no appreciation for such things with the bastardification of the Chinese language. I know the Chinese people invented paper money, the printing press and fireworks in the past, showing they were light years ahead of their Western counterparts.

Yet whenever a Chinese person starts talking Putonghua to me, wherever it is a patient or a doctor, I just automatically think, "Go back over the border." I know I shouldn't be thinking like this way. I'm a great believer of open borders. People should be allowed to immigrate/emigrate to other countries for political, social or economic reasons. In fact I'm a benefactor of such immigration policies, having become a British citizen and my brother can claim Australian nationality if he wanted to.

There are some people who take liberty with these immigration policies. One example is right here in Hong Kong. Pregnant woman from Mainland China come to Hong Kong to give birth, so their child can benefit from free health care and education. I'm sure USA suffer from the same problem with Mexican mothers and some other countries probably have the same dilemma. Yet the problem continues up the ladder, with people from China coming to Hong Kong, intending to find work but just winding up on the dole, claiming benefits and living in free housing. They never intend to find work in the first place. I know a vast majority of Mainlanders do actually get work, finding the kind of employment Hong Kong people don't want. It is the minority who give the majority a bad name.

What really gets on my nerve about Mainlanders is the behaviour and manners... which I will write about next time because I need to calm down before I past out due to excessive anger.

In the doldrums

2009-03-04T17:55:00.002+08:00

I don't know why or how to explain the situation but I'm miserable. I'm not enjoying life at the moment but I cannot find a reason why I should be hating my life. To paraphrase a fine author, Nicky Hornby, from his famous book "Fever Pitch", I have a good job, in reasonable good health and family plus friends who like me. So why should I be in the doldrums?

Could the job application situation be the problem? All the interns are talking about the inteviews they are having right now and I know I have to wait for the Family Medicine interviews, which are later than other specialties. I'm not worried about getting an interview, or even a job. Probably I'm just fed up of my fellow house officers talking nothing except their job prospects.

Yet even that cannot really explain why I'm so lacklustre in my job. The workload is not that excessive and I'm able to manage quite contently. Yet I don't get that satisfaction anymore of helping people or doing something to impress other people. Basically I stopped caring about anything. I may have even pissed off another professor in a different department, bringing the number of specialties I have officially pissed off to three (four if there is an official complaint and they have to talk to my head).

I'm even losing interest in the hobbies I used to love. I don't watch movies so often anymore, at home or even in the cinema. I just want to stay at home and forget about society & civilization. I don't follow the NBA anymore, having no interest or time. Probably the difference is I'm pointing my interests into other areas, such as cooking and British comedy.

I wish I could get out of this rut but something about me likes being in here...

Goals and dreams

2009-02-21T20:32:00.002+08:00

Two events recently passed me by without incident. The first was my twenty-eighth birthday, where curiously enough I was on-call. The second was Valentine's Day.

So why do these two days have any relevance to me? When I was in my teens, I had many goals and aspirations I wanted to achieve. Yet very early on in life I knew I wouldn't accomplish any of these dreams. I didn't take sixteen GCSEs or six A-Levels, although I got pretty close. I didn't get into Cambridge (but I'm in some ways I rather glad I didn't). At this stage I'm pretty sure I won't win the Nobel Prize in Medicine & Physiology or receive an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, even though there is still plenty of time for me to start on that screenplay I always keep in the back of my mind.

There is still one aspect of my life I haven't mentioned. I said to myself I would get married by the time I was twenty eight years old. Even though I technically I have a year left, I don't think I will be achieving this in the next twelve months or any months after that.

I know I whinge and blog about this subject constantly but I have to face the facts. I have a very small social circle, mainly consisting of doctors. I don't really want to marry a doctor, mainly due to the fact that doctors only talk about medicine. I do want a life outside of the medical field and can't face the fact if I go home I could be faced with my medical small talk. Neither do I have much time to date either. I rarely go out to pubs, nightclubs, social occasions or parties, so the opportunity for even a one-night-stand is not remotely even in my hemisphere.

What makes the situation worse is my criteria. I wouldn't say I'm picky or particular. I'm not like most men who want a lady with beautiful looks and a great body (although that would be nice) or is extremely wealthy. Unfortunately the lady I want is not your typical Hong Kong woman. I would like a Western upbringing and the ability to speak English fluently. I want an open mind in all areas. Yet the ability to find a lady like this seems to be difficult if not non-existent.

I really have given up. I have resorted to living the rest of my life as a bachelor.

A week of hell...

2009-02-17T14:24:00.003+08:00

I'm glad I'm on leave for this, after the ongoings of the previous seven days. I don't know where I should begin describing a week's worth of bad luck.

One of my medical officers is on leave and added to the fact one of my fellow interns was also on leave, the workload rose like the world's recent hatred for bankers. Having to be on-call three times in six days doesn't help focus your mind either, especially when one of those nights happened to be an awful piece of bad luck. Usually there are only three to four male admissions per day whilst I admitted eight men who clearly were unlucky or not careful enough what they were doing.

On the same night or should I say in the early hours of the next morning there were two emergency operations which needed to be performed. The first operation, a closed reduction of an elbow fracture, was simple enough. The other operation was much more complicated - an above knee amputation for a demented elderly man who has severe leg contractures at his hips and knees. It required me pulling the patient's legs apart so the main surgeon could get access to his whole leg for nearly an hour before disaster struck. Whilst trying to put his scalpel back into the kidney dish, the surgeon accidently cut my finger.

Simply cutting your finger in normal life is not really much of a fuss but don't forget I work for a government organization. That means one thing - paperwork. I had to report the incident as an injury on duty and get myself seen to by a doctor even though I could have cleaned and dressed the wound myself. I had to get my blood taken and get it taken again in a few months time, just in case I get infected with a blood borne infection such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV. Even though it is unlikely, since the patient has no history of these infection, it still has to be done. Working in a bureaucracy means everything has to be noted, reported and catalogued. People working in hospitals don't dread the complications of surgery, they just dread the administration afterwards such as the extra forms which have to be filled in or having to report the findings in the next meeting.

I'm just glad I'm on leave this week. I hope my fellow interns are coping without me. I tried to help by typing up progress notes for a majority of patients on my last day before I left for my break but I happened to be on-call on that day as well and could only do some of the male patients as well as all the female patients. Hopefully for their sake nobody has to be discharged so when I get back I get to do it.

Nowadays I'm just relaxing at home whilst sorting out my own life's administration - filling out my intern logbook, sorting out photos I have taken, filling out my residency post application and so forth. It's a bit pathetic when you are so busy you have to perform these tasks whilst you are on leave. Yet when I'm working I'm just too tired to sort out these details.

Right now I'm just enjoying myself at home, playing Lexulous online and trying out new recipes...

Stuck in the middle of you

2009-02-10T17:38:00.002+08:00

One of the most amusing things has passed me by this week. One of our medical officers is admitted to our ward as a patient for an injury. I cannot say anymore due to confidentiality issues and my fear of being beaten up by the aforementioned doctor but at least he's getting the best attention.

********

There is a lot of tasks during internship which I don't mind performing. The clerical work is fine, such as typing up discharge summaries and writing prescription orders. I even like blood taking & intravenous catheterization, probably due to some sadomachoistic tendencies I have.

Yet there are some tasks we interns do not like. Performing ECGs are the prime example. ECGs take a considerable amount of time to perform, entailing numerous leads which seem to tie themselves into knots and requires the patient to lie completely still for one single ECG reading. That is difficult if the patient is a child or mentally unsound. I had this problem with a granny who came in with a fracture of the hip. Unfortunately she also had dementia and every time I put the chest leads on the patient, she kept pulling them off. It is the same with kids when I was in my last rotation - the buggers could stop squirming and crying.

Another task I hate performing is liaising with other doctors. This happens when I have to book any urgent investigations or consult other departments for their expert opinion. Unfortunately the house officers are the middlemen in the situation, having to convey what his/her medical officer wants from the other doctor. Sometime this entails a good amount of guess work since the medical officer doesn't write/state why he/she orders the investigation/consultation or the house officer doesn't think the investigation/consultation is necessary.

Then when the investigation/consultation is conveyed to the other side, the house officers get chastized for ordering a ridiculous investigation or consulting the doctor for such a minor problem, even though it was not their decision to make.

Please don't shoot the messenger for bring the message. Shoot the person who wrote the message.

A year for heifers

2009-01-29T13:57:00.002+08:00

Big elaborate decorations adorning every store you see with staff giving out the traditional greeting. Visiting relatives you haven't seen for a year and realizing, when you meet them, why you don't see them for one year. Eating traditional food that you wouldn't eat at any other time of year. Receiving boxes of chocolates as presents when you hate chocolate.

Sounds familiar doesn't it?

I'm not writing about Christmas, although I could be doing so. I'm actually writing about the Lunar New Year, which has just passed. I'm rather glad it is over. I'm not a great fan of holidays. There are just too many people at one time and I don't have relatives whom I don't want to meet. It's not that I hate them. I just don't have anything in common with them and rarely have anything to talk about with them. I spend the least amount of time at the dinner table and more time in front of my cousin's TV playing "Gears of War 2" on his Xbox 360.

I know it sounds sadistic but I'm glad I could work on one of the three public holidays. At least I got some unexpected 'lai see' from people I don't know and from some people I do know. I know I don't need the money but who doesn't like money when given to you free with no strings attached?

Well I'm glad the Lunar New Year is over for one year. I'm just dreading the next celebration in my life...

Getting into the groove...

2009-01-25T20:14:00.004+08:00

I am more or less settling into my post as intern in the orthopaedics department. The hours are not harsh but I just have to wake up to perform ward rounds at 7:20 am with my medical officer, who happens to be visiting for six months from Argentina. This situation means I have to do some extra duties than is normally expected, such as translation between the medical officer and the patient and being a middle-man in helping the medical officer understand the hospital's way of working. At least this doctor is very nice and teaches me how to perform a proper neurological examination.

In fact all of the doctors are nice in orthopaedics. I'm currently attached to the spine team and the sports team. I asked to be attached to these teams for various reasons. One of the fields I'm considering entering is sports medicine, so being with the sports team lets me know what I need to know. Also I'm interested in join the department as a resident, which means making myself notice to the head of the department, who is head of the spine team. I hate playing politics but I know I have to play the game to get ahead in life.

In that respect, I already sent out my cover letters and CVs for job applications. I have decided to go for family medicine and, as mentioned, orthopaedics at my current hospital. I have already received my first rejection, from the orthopaedics department. The letter said they are only receiving applications from April onwards, so I'll try again later. I'm still waiting for the replies from the family medicine. If the orthopaedics letter got through, hopefully the other cover letters were received by the respective doctors.

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Speaking of politics, it was great to see the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America. It was also great to show Barack Obama fluffing his lines. That shows he's human after all. It also shows how influential conspiracy theorists are, since Barack Obama had to be sworn in again in private later to quell the suspicions that he wasn't President.

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The other big political story I want to mention, since I haven't blogged for quite some time, is Israel. I don't know enough about the Israel/Arab situation to claim to be an expert but I have learnt enough from history that peace cannot be achieved by the total annihilation of a race or a group of people. Israel cannot achieve peace for themselves or for the region if they try to kill every Palestinian on the face of the earth because there will always be retaliation and revenge. Both sides need to sit down and compromise (a very important word) if they want to achieve peace for both their people.

The outside world, especially the West, have got to stop feeling guilty about Israel and start clamping down on Israeli aggression. Israel are no longer the bullied, they are the bullies. People have to realize if you are criticizing Israel, you are not being anti-Semitic.

I don't care which side kicked it off this time around. The brave person is the one who admits he or she has to sit down and talk. That will take courage.

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Seeing a patient die in front of your eyes is not the most pleasant experience one goes through. In the past when I was a surgical intern, I didn't know enough about the patients to have an emotional attachment so I wasn't so upset when I had to certify their death.

This time around, there is one particular patient under my care where it is heart-wrenching watching the person die. It is quite obvious this patient has cancer and since the way I'm talking about him/her, it is terminal. What makes it more upsetting is the circumstances. The person has quickly deteriorated in front of my eyes. The patient was admitted at the beginning of this month and in the past three weeks the patient has quickly deteriorated in front of me and there is nothing we can do for him.

Also the patient has such a loving family and friends. Every day the family visit the patient and there is quite a large extended family and friends who visit the patient. Literally at least 10-20 people visit the patient each day. It is bad that the patient cannot see the daughter get married or the son graduate from university. Unfortunately we cannot pick who can live or die - that is God's duty.

I don't know how I feel when the patient dies. Hopefully is later rather than sooner, for the family's sake that they can have more time with the patient.

The future

2009-01-07T19:31:00.003+08:00

I get more and more depressed when I log on to Facebook each day. Everybody I know seems to be going to weddings or actually getting hitched. Some part of me is a bit miffed for not being invited but another part of me knows I don't the person that well to get invited. I probably wouldn't attend the wedding banquet anyway. I don't like weddings. They are extraordinary large lavish affairs with a real lack of intimacy for the guests. If I get invited to a wedding, roughly 90% of the guests I wouldn't want anything to do with and I don't want to talk about medicine all the time with my fellow doctor peers.

I'm more saddened about my current marital status. When I was sane and not despondent about everything in life, I wouldn't have cared if I remained single for the rest of my life. It is not the end of the world if you stay a bachelor for the rest of your days on this Earth. Now that feeling for companionship and yearing for human relationship is eating at my soul like a dog gnawing on a bone. Soon or later there is going to be nothing left and I dread to think what I will do then, such as marry the first woman I see.

People I know are also studying for professional examinations and undergoing endless preparation for interviews. I'm at the stage in my internship when I have to decide what specialty I want to continue with for the rest of my career. Currently no specialty holds a special place in my heart which can interest me, which makes me want to be a doctor.

At this moment in time, it is a process of elimination for me...

Radiology: Out of the picture (both metaphorically & literally). I know nothing about anatomy and I've already peeved off half the radiology department at one hospital, seriously affected my job prospects.
Surgery: Not bad but I don't think I can handle the politics and the male personalities. You need a lot of self-confidence, bordering on arrogance, and I don't think I have guts to perform the job.
Ophthalmology: Again, no interest.
O&G: Pregnant woman? I still want to stay heterosexual, so no thank you.
Paediatrics. Definitely not. The prospect of dealing with screaming kids and anxious parents is not one which entices me.
Family Medicine: Being treated like shit for the first two years doesn't entice me. I've heard stories about family medicine trainees being treated like secondary house officers in various localities and I don't think I can put up with that.
Anaesthesiology: At one point I wanted to do this job but for some reason I lost interest. Maybe it is the people involved in the job.
A&E: I don't think I have the mind to work fast enough for Casualty.
Microbiology & Pathology: Don't think I can consider a whole life of staring down microscopes.

Which leaves me with two options: Orthopaedics & Medicine, which happen to be my last two rotations of my internship. I would like to do orthopaedics, since I have an interest in sports medicine but I know nothing about orthopaedics, anatomy or neurology. It will be more difficult to impress in Medicine since the interviews will have already taken place when I do my rotation.

But committing my life for another six years doesn't entice me at all. The alternative is going private, which I hate since I don't have the experience or the knowledge and I hate to be a mercenary.

I really don't know about my future... and some part of me doesn't care enough to do something about it.

Christmas holidays

2008-12-19T23:17:00.002+08:00

I have been fortunate enough during this internship rotation to be able to choose when I could have my designated leave. Since my last long leave was in mid-September, I decided to keep my leave for the end of my current rotation, around Christmas time. It was also very fortunate my leave coincided with my brother's return to Hong Kong, so I would be able to spend some time with him. It has been almost three years since I last saw my younger brother Jeremy and he has not changed one bit. He's still the slacker I remember him as.

It's great to have my brother back home. At least my mum can bother him now instead of what she normal does and bothers me whenever I'm home. Jeremy has also bought me some presents from old Blighty - Cadbury Roses & Quality Street chocolate, DVDs of British TV series and an nice Arsenal mug.

Currently I'm in the second day of my leave and haven't been doing much. On my last leave I went to Kuala Lumpur and I decided to spend this leave at home, since I didn't want to organise another holiday and I need to start saving money (thanks to those wanker bankers in America). Most of the day is spent surfing the Internet, watch downloads on my laptop or DVDs on the plasma screen TV plus playing darts. My dad bought a dart board not so long ago and I've been chucking those spears since. It's more difficult than it looks but hopefully I'll be good enough to be playing in pubs soon.

Hectic calls and designated leave

2008-12-09T17:37:00.005+08:00

Not much happening in my life now. Still very sexually frustrated. I had the most hectic call on Sunday. Usually we admit about six children each day at PYNEH. On Sunday it was about sixteen children. On Monday all our wards were full - the first time it has happened in my three months here. It has calmed down a bit over the past two days. I'm sure children will continue to be admitted to our wards, it being the season of rotavirus gastroenteritis, asthma exacerbations and parental anxiety about the cold. I'm sure anybody reading this who works at Queen Elizabeth Hospital think that is their usual day, to admit sixteen kids per day but I hope for their sake it isn't.

Thankfully I'm not on call ever again on the weekends, at least not until my next rotation. I'm on call on Boxing Day but apart from that, it is just weekday night calls. I'm looking forward to the next few days. I've got my first ever full free weekend - from Friday night till Monday morning. That is a rarity in my profession. Next week is my designated leave, so I'm looking forward to some rest, relaxation and internet pornography. What I actually need is a full body massage but I need to go somewhere relatively inexpensive and not very seedy (i.e. not Shenzhen).

I'm nearing the end of my time at PYNEH paediatrics. I have learnt a lot but the most important thing I have picked up from my time here is that I won't be doing paediatrics. These three months has just reaffirmed I don't like kids that much to be subjected to their crying and whinging for the rest of my life. I have the utmost respect for my current paediatric medical officers who can go through all that but not me. I don't know if I could go through another three months of paediatrics, which I have to do if I decide to pick family medicine as my specialty.

Intern nervous breakdown - Episode 2

2008-11-28T12:08:00.003+08:00

I thought I could get through my internship without having a nervous breakdown but it was too good to be true. The previous nervous breakdown was caused by my inability to take blood from an elderly patient. This time the cause was the grief I got from the medical officer on-call.

I would like to state most of the medical officers in my current hospital are very nice. They don't scold me much if I do things wrong and when it is possible try to teach me when I do go wrong. Yet there is always one bad apple which spoils the crop. This person has a Jekyll and Hyde personality about him/her. Sometimes this person is OK but all of a sudden can turn on you. This medical officer always bitches about everything I do when I admit a patient. If it is not a poor management order, it is my clinical skills. If it is not my clinical skills, then it is my attitude.

I don't mind being told off and I do admit I'm not totally enthusiastic about paediatrics. Yet there is way of telling people instead of screaming and pointing at the management order, saying "This is not good enough!" There is a tactful and considerate way of telling interns what they have done wrong and maybe they will learn if you don't scream at them so much.

Why is it so many senior doctors forget what it is like to be a medical student or an intern? Have they risen to such lofty heights in their white towers? I never have been in favour of the Gordon Ramsay method of teaching people, that is to scream at them and humiliate them. I always been in favour of making them feel part of the team. If a junior team member does something wrong, tell them off but make sure they learn what they did wrong.

I often wonder if I will continue in this job. I'm seriously thinking about not joining any training after my internship has finished.

"Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination."

2008-11-23T20:58:00.004+08:00

Note: I don't have many things to write about daily life right now. Work right now is pretty mundane and with my fellow intern on holiday for the next week, I predicting it will be more mundane and hectic. Nothing is going on with my love life because I don't have a love life. I'm still whinging about having no sex or girlfriend (in that order). I've been meaning to write about the topic of homosexuality for a long time, so here goes...

I have always been irked by how Christians interpret and use this quote from the Bible in daily life. This is the leading problem I have, not with my faith or Christianity, but with other Christians. There are some people who say we should believe everything in the Bible but tend to ignore other more atrocious or ridiculous parts, for example the acceptability of selling your daughter into slavery and not being able to eat pork and seafood. And wasn't the whole point of Jesus dying was that even if we sinned (for example having gay sex) we would still go to Heaven? And that quote says nothing about lesbian sex

I will agree with Christians there should be no same-sex marriages. Marriage is a religious concept. However there should be equal rights for same-sex couples as there are for opposite-sex couples, so civil unions should be allowed. I'm glad there are some countries such as United Kingdom and the Netherlands who endorse but I'm disappointed with the failure of Proposition 8 in California. I'm in favour of same-sex couples being allowed to adopt children or being allowed access to in-vitro fertilisation. Maybe they will be better parents than those fathers who leave their kid behind or the mother who tends to have sex with anything straight and those heroin.

And why does it matter which way somebody's sexual compass points? As long as you're not doing anything to hurt other people and isn't morally wrong, I don't care what you are doing in your private life. I should state I'm not gay but I'm into bisexual women.

I'm actually very surprised at how many famous people are homosexual. I came across the Pink List by the Independent, a list of the top 100 most influential homosexual people in UK. Reading down the list, it does make for interesting read. I had my suspicions about Russell T Davies, the man behind "Queer Folk" and the recent revival of "Doctor Who", but it is very difficult to confirm unless somebody actually says in an interview "I'm homosexual" which they shouldn't do since it is nothing to do with the general public. I'm also glad there hasn't been such a reaction by the British public, especially parents, towards having a homosexual behind a family classic such as "Doctor Who" or that there have been many homosexual elements in the new "Doctor Who" such as same-sex kisses or homosexual actors (e.g. John Barrowman, Mark Gatiss, etc.)

Some people you obviously know are homosexual, such as Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Elton John, Alan Carr, Graham Norton and Stephen Fry. I'm a surprised about Sandi Toksvig, who I listen to religiously on "The News Quiz" being a lesbian. I also like to see homosexuals not being stereotypical - Matt Lucas of "Little Britain" fame is an avid Arsenal supporter. Yet sport and male homosexuality is still one barrier to be overcome. Just look what happened to Justin Fashanu and John Amaechi when they came out of the closet - one took his whole life and one caused Tim Hardaway to say "I hate gay people." You don't hear about prominent male athletes being homosexual. Some keep it secret all their lives or only come out after their playing career is over. Obviously the view from sportsmen is as neanderthal as from Christian society.

Obviously we need to educate people more about homosexuality. I don't mind you don't like gay or lesbian people but don't let this affect your daily life.

"Ambitious but rubbish"

2008-11-19T16:33:00.002+08:00

I miss top quality TV. Here in Hong Kong the local channels and programs are not my cup of tea. There is this constant stream of TV soaps which bore me to death. It is usually the same formula with the same bad jokes and undramatic storylines.

I'm more partial to the UK comedy panel show, such as "Have I Got News For You", "Mock the Week", "QI" and "Never Mind the Buzzcocks". I don't really like sitcoms, especially the ones from USA where they have to insert audience laughter into the program. If a joke is funny, people will automatically laugh. We do not need to have cues to when and when not to laugh.

That is not to say I don't like USA shows. I know sometimes I come across as condescending towards the way of life in USA but I do like some aspects about America. I do like "The Daily Show", "Frasier" and "The West Wing". I do like cheerleaders, not just for their beauty but their ability to dance well and hold careers at the same time. I'll write about that in another blog entry. Since Barack Obama has been elected presidenta of USA, I think more people (like me) will be a little bit warmer towards the USA.

With that said I do enjoy the return of "Top Gear" on the screens. I can't wait for the programme to turn up on local screens. I will have to wait for a year before ATV World does it. I also cringe at the subtitles they put up on the screen. Most of you know I cannot read Chinese and it wouldn't matter to me but the person who does the subtitles must be the most stupidest, laziest person ever and I tell you why. Even though most of the subtitles are in Chinese, the name of the cars are in English. Yet they can't even get those names right. I think I saw the name "Camaro" spelt differently six times in the same programme. Even if you can spell it right, you can at least check the spelling on the internet or something.

My mother has commented the Chinese subtitles are not that good either. Sometimes the subtitles are a literal translation of what is being said. If I said "spanking the monkey", they will literally write "spanking the monkey" in Chinese in the subtitles instead of "masturbating".

Now I know why people download programs from the internet - the quality of their local TV must be appalling to resort to this measure.

"Three men walk into a pub..."

2008-11-12T10:15:00.002+08:00

Over the past few years I have been drifting away from movies and more into comedy. I remember watching "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" when I was kid in England and loved the mix of American, Canadian and British humour on offer. Whilst at boarding school I remember watching the repeat of "Have I Got News For You" and loved the show for the wit and political satire.

My love for comedy was rekindled thanks to Youtube. I find old episodes of "Have I Got News For You" online and it is great to watch classic episodes such as the Angus Deayton scandal or recently the Brian Blessed episode. Through Youtube I have also gotten to like "QI" and "Mock the Week", which are probably my two favourite shows.

I am partial to British humour, for its wit and sarcasm, the cynicism and the political satire. That is not to say I don't like American humour. The USA are best at stand-up comedy (which I love) and sitcoms (which are not my cup of tea). Everybody in school loved "Frasier" for its wit and there is no better political satire on TV right now than "The Daily Show", with Jon Stewart being the best at his job.

So why am I writing all this? Last Friday I went to my first comedy gig. I like to say it was unusual place to hold a comedy gig - a curry house - but the Punchline Comedy Club have been doing this gig for years. They have comedians I have seen or heard of, such as Paul Sinha (who shows that doctors can be funny) and Mark Watson. This time around I only really heard of one of the comedians - Andy Parsons from "Mock the Week". I like his kind of humour; it is more along the lines of wit. He was very funny on the night but a lot of the jokes I have heard before as I download all the episodes of "Mock the Week" and watch them again and again and again.

That is not to say the other two comedians - Mark Walker and Russell Kane - weren't bad. They were bloody hilarious. I haven't laughed that hard for ages. In fact I laughed so hard, I was coughing too much at the end and the lady in front of me was probably scared I had tuberculosis.

As an obsessive compulsive, I tend to categorize comedians into what kind of comedy they do. Obvious categories include the impressionists, which include Darrell Hammond from "Saturday Night Live", Jon Culshaw from "Dead Ringers", Rory Bremner from "Bremner, Bird and Fortune" and Hugh Dennis from "The Now Show" and "Mock the Week". There are comedians who use bad taste and political incorrectness as their main weapons, such as Jimmy Carr from "8 Out of 10 Cats" and Frankie Boyle from "Mock the Week". Comedians such as Jeremy Hardy, Mark Steel, Ian Hislop and Jon Stewart use political satire in their work. Sean Lock, Russell Howard and Johnny Vegas are the ones who think of ridiculous ideas and just make them funny. So there is fun for everybody.

Next time I will probably like to see a comedy gig where I do not know the comedians, so I don't have any preconceptions.

I also have advice for anybody wishing to attend a comedy gig. I thought this piece of knowledge would be obvious but apparently, after attending the comedy gig last week, it is not. If you don't want to be picked on or you have an obvious trait which can be picked on such as having a manic laugh, being old or being American, don't sit in the front where the comedian can see you.

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

2008-11-02T12:56:00.002+08:00

Sir Winston Churchill was right about democracy. Not many people actually go out of their way to listen to all the policies of the candidates running in an election and on voting day make an informed decision on which candidate they are choosing. Most of the voting population have made up their minds months beforehand, or even years as they are most likely to stick to the party they have been voting all their lives. I'm probably guilty of the latter fact. I would vote for Liberal Democrats in UK or Democratic Party in Hong Kong. In all fairness these political parties are on my wavelength. We need better human rights for minorities, such as homosexuals, ethnic minorities and the poor. We need to tax the rich more to help the poor. We need to do more for the environment.

I say this on the weekend before the US presidential election, which will have repercussions on the world and not just on USA. Yet there are 10% of the US population who think Barack Obama is either a Muslim, an Arab or a terrorist and they think all of those kind of people are the same thing. I often think democracy was designed by stupid people for clever people and communism was designed by clever people for stupid people. Democracy is a simple idea of one person - one vote where you need clever people to make informed decision to elect who is the leader. Communism needs stupid people to believe the state is important and ensure all decisions are made by the leaders.

I want Barack Obama to win the presidential election. Yet I cannot show favourtism, especially to an election I cannot vote in. I just want people to read all the facts and on Tuesday tick the right box based on what they have processed and not leave their decision based on the charisma of the politicians concerned or believing the media/advertisements all the time.

Bawling and wailing

2008-10-23T16:45:00.002+08:00

It is the second aspect of paediatrics I dislike, behind the irrational thinking of parents. I hate when children crying. I should correct myself; I don't like the continuous crying of children. Of course it is natural to cry when you unexpectedly get hurt. I don't mind this type of crying if it doesn't occur for too long.

The type of crying I cannot stand is when I am examining a child and when I place the hearing component of the stethoscope on the chest, the child starts bawling like I just stabbed him/her in the chest. I know children associate a medical examination with the consequences of having a needle stuck in you and blood being taken. Yet it is useless to cry at this stage. There is no pain (at this stage) when you are being examined and the child's parents are already there if they need help. If crying is supposed to deter the doctor from examining you, it is not going to stop us from examining children.

It is the same with blood taking. I know sticking in a needle will hurt and you will cry when the needle goes in. Yet at some point children will have to learn when one is admitted into a hospital, it is inevitable blood will have to be taken and it will hurt. It is useless crying out for your parents to help you since your parents are outside and not running into save you.

If there is something I am impressed about the situation, is the capability of children crying. The intensity, duration and frequency of their crying have made my eardrums totally damaged.

Next time I'm going to work I'm bringing earplugs or might as well just listen to my mp3 player.

A new flavour of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream... the Credit Crunch

2008-10-20T13:34:00.002+08:00

Whatever you like to call the current situation - the economic depression, the global downturn, the dreaded 'R' word - it is here to stay for us for a while and it will affect us all. For the first time in my life I have to be interested in economics and finance.

I hate having to focus on anything remotely linked to money. When I first heard bankers, estate agents and insurance agents losing their jobs due to the poor financial climate, the first thought which crossed my mind is: "Good". I don't really have much sympathy for people who chase money and have no morals to living their lives. I say this even though my brother works for a large bank. They have enough money in their own accounts to get by without having to claim unemployment benefits. What peeves me off is how the governments of the world are reacting. They are bailing out these banks and businesses by giving them money. This money is probably gained through the taxes of hard-working people. I know I'm a socialist but I hate this idea. You don't have to nationalize financial institutions - just let them die. People have to accept once in a while there will be a downturn in the economic climate. Shares will have to go down as well as up.

I don't think many people grasp these concepts about shares, bonds and funds. They think these magical objects will earn them loads of money if they chuck enough money at it. Many people don't just take a serious interest to go and research what they are investing in. This was the situation when the Lehman Brothers bank collapsed, with many Hong Kong people wanting to claim back compensation regarding the stock they bought in the bank. I'm pretty sure the banks who sold them these stock properly informed them about the nature of shares but common sense tells you the price of shares will go down as well as up.

There was once upon a time when all you had to do with your money is put it in the bank. Nowadays you have to invest in shares, bonds and funds. Yet you do need a little knowledge before you decide which companies to invest in. There are people who use too much time in doing this, becoming too obsessed with the stock market, and there are people who use too little time, leading to bad investments.

Also you have to consider not just saving more but spending less - don't go out dining so much, use your car less and so on. Why don't people do that instead?

Heart-breaking moments

2008-10-14T14:44:00.004+08:00

At times it can be rather depressing working in paediatrics. You see all these kids become ill and it breaks your heart sometimes. It just not the medical problems you have to deal with - there are the social and psychological matters that arise when a little boy or girl gets admitted into hospital.

I like to state I'm a huge campaigner of human rights and I respect everybody right to have a child. Yet I feel this right is constantly abused when I see many children with bad parents. I honestly wish there was an examination prospective parents had to take to show they are competent enough to take care of kids. Doctors have to undergo medical training to acquire a license to practise and so lawyers. You need a license to drive a car or have a firearm. So why don't we have a license to take care of our most prized treasures - our children.

During my short time in paediatrics I have observed three types of bad parents:

1. The abusive parent

The abuse can come in a variety of ways: physical, sexual, spoken. I think every hospital with a paediatric department have children who are admitted for child abuse. The children can come in a variety of ages. I honestly don't know how adults can abuse unprotected children, especially their own flesh and blood.

2. The neglectful parent

These are the parents who couldn't care less whether their kid lives or dies. They occasionally take their child to a doctor but they don't care about the long-term management. They just leave their children to the TV or video games and don't really care about their academic achievements. These include parents who use their domestic helper as full time nannies and leave all the upbringing to these domestic helpers.

3. The overprotective parent

You might think being overprotective is not a form of bad parenting but I still think it is. These are the parents who don't let their kids go outside to play in case they get a cut or use the child's free time to engage in extra-curricular activities they don't like. These are the parents who constantly admit their kid into hospital just because they have a low-grade fever for a few hours, despite the accident & emergency medical officer tell them the risks of exposing the child to even more dangerous organisms in hospital.

I know parenting is difficult and not many people are taught what to do and where to go when things go wrong. I admit that I have no idea what being a parent is like. Yet there are people who want a child but have no idea what is entailed.

In the past two weeks I have seen two children whose predicament breaks my heart. For privacy reasons, I'm not allowed to mention their names or go into details about their condition. The first kid was a young boy who had been ill for two weeks with very vague symptoms - fatigue, vomiting. The boy was genuinely frightened about what was wrong with him. Turn out he had leukaemia. This is not what your kid have to go through - thinking about dying, which was probably what this young boy was thinking about.

The other kid was a young girl, a cute, adorable shy kid. She was admitted for recurrent headaches. I noticed in her medical records she was living in a hostel for youths. I asked her where her parents were and she came out directly with, "They both drug addicts." That was a shocking indictment to hear. You don't want any kid thinking their parents are bad, let alone come straight out with that statement.

Kids should never have to think about serious matters such as drug addiction and cancer. Children should be thinking about fun and jokes, not these matters. This is probably why I don't want to go into paediatrics full time. Like oncology it probably be too heart-breaking.

Lift etiquette

2008-10-10T14:57:00.001+08:00

I know I whinge a great deal on this blog. I’m eternally sorry about this but this is the whole purpose of this blog – to get things off my chest and not to make everybody happy. Occasionally I write about good things such as television programmes I like. For this entry normal service will resume by me writing about how to use the lift (or elevator if you have bought up with American English) in an appropriate way.

It may seem such a minor point in life on how to use the lift but it just one of those things which annoys me. It is more prominent in Hong Kong, since everybody has to use a life in this metropolis of sky-rise buildings and the total lack of manners prevalent in this population. If everybody can use the lift properly, society will run much smoother.

- If the lift button has already been pressed, you don’t have to press it again. Why press it again? The lift won’t go faster to reach its destination. You only have to press the button again if you are uncertain if the button was pressed in the first place (such as the presence of a bad indicator light).
- Let people get out the lift first. This goes not just for lifts but for buses and trains. Letting people out will make more room for you to get into the lift/bus/train. You don’t have to worry – the lift won’t depart without you as most people think it will and if the door closes you can always shove you hand in or press the open button again.
- If you are getting out at the final floor (either the top or the bottom floor, depending if you are going up or down respectively), please make room for everybody else by moving to the back of the lift. It only makes sense since you will be the last person to get out of the lift and you shouldn’t be blocking the lift door like some big fat lemon.
- If you are at the lift buttons inside the lift, do the courteous thing and hold the lift doors if somebody is rushing into the lift and not close the lift doors just so you can get to your destination faster. How would you like it if somebody closed the lift doors on you?
- If you are at the lift buttons inside the lift, press the close button if everybody is inside instead of waiting for the lift to do it automatically, which can sometimes take ages.
- Be courteous and offer to press for somebody’s floor if that somebody cannot do it themselves such as the elderly who cannot see the buttons that well or people carrying heavy objects in their arms.
- If somebody at the back of the lift wants to get out and you are in the way, sometimes you do have to get out of the lift yourself so that person can pass. Don’t worry again – the lift won’t leave without you.
- Try using the stairs if you have to climb up one floor or down one to two floors. You will probably get to your destination faster if you use the stairs instead of waiting for the lift to come. I’ve seen too many health care assistants waste hospital time just by waiting for a lift when they only have to go down one floor. You only have to use the lift if you are going up several flights of stairs, you can’t walk that well (in the case of the elderly or physically disabled), you are carrying heavy objects or if you are pushing trolleys/hospital beds. You probably get some well deserved exercise as well.

All that I have written is basic common sense but nobody uses it. What I have written is based on ‘the good of society’ principle but most people operate on the ‘me first’ principle. So the next time you use the lift, keep these pointers in mind.

"We're experiencing technical difficulties at the moment..."

2008-10-09T10:50:00.002+08:00

I won't be update this blog as often as I like over the next three months. Internet access at my hospital is difficult to come by. So forgive me if I don't answer your Facebook messages or emails as regularly as I can.

Also I won't be reading my SMS/text messages as often as I will. For some inexplicable reason, my hospital provides everybody with a Nokia 3G phone. I don't know why they don't get cheaper phones but they are pretty handy, coming with a MP3 player and camera. Basically I dverted my own phone number to my work number but it doesn't seem to divert SMS messages.

F*cking terrified for no reason

2008-10-06T14:32:00.003+08:00

I'm currently settling into my new post as an intern for the paediatrics department . I don't know why but I'm so sh*t scared of paediatrics. My heart was racing a thousand miles per hour and I was having chest discomfort when I was on-call on Friday for no apparent reason.

I don't know why I should be afraid. All the nurses and medical officers are nice to me. The medical officers don't scold me if I keep calling them when I can't take blood or I can't insert a drip. The admissions haven't been too taxing either.

Probably I'm just traumatised by the paediatrics department of my teaching hospital, having gone through the specialty clerkship about four times.

Coming to an end...

2008-09-30T18:31:00.003+08:00

Currently I'm finishing off my surgery rotation by being on-call. Guess I got the short straw for tonight. Thankfully I don't have to be at work tomorrow at my new place in paediatrics.

So what have I learnt from my past three months in surgery? Let's start off with the good stuff. The nurses have been very nice to me. Most of the nurses at my previous hospital were very nice to me with only a few bad apples. I'm not saying who or which ward but after I got the hang of things they were very nice to me. The nurses at D5 at the main hospital were very nice to me. You would think that being in a high-tempo situation like an admission ward would make them hormonal cows but the head of ward plus all their nurses were very good to myself and the other intern. They were so nice I treated them to my chocolate brownies!

I'm glad that I got to see many subdivisions such as colorectal, vascular, general, endocrine & breast surgery. I got to admit such varied cases such as cholangitis, acute retention of urinary and appendicitis in the admissions ward. Even though many people don't like to work in admissions since there is no continuing care and the turnover rate is quite high, with few patients lasting twenty four hours before being changed to another subdivision ward, at least I get to see a variety of cases instead of just seeing colorectal patients or neurosurgical patients.

With that said, I won't be doing surgery as my specialty. I don't see myself working those long hours and standing doing surgery all day long. The most surgery I probably will do in the future will be in orthopaedics or during family medicine. Also I'm just not compatible with the surgeon personality. Surgeons are usually headstrong and overconfident which borders on arrogance. Also it is mostly a male-predominant, jock environment with little room for emotions. Most of the surgeons I have met are nice but there are others who could use a little tact and consideration when talking to people.

I don't think I will be doing radiology either. I have ruined my chances already and I think my reputation will spread to other hospitals as well. Also I do want to have more patient contact and I don't think I will get that with radiology.

I'm not trying to offend people by saying I don't like this specialty or I don't like that specialty. It's just a personal opinion. I know a lot of people who want to go into surgery or radiology, but it is not for me. I know a lot of people don't like psychiatry but I really like it.

Well I got three months of screaming kids to handle... wish me luck (lots of it).

Expressing one's own opinion

2008-09-18T18:44:00.002+08:00

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed on this blog are the opinion of solely the writer and does not represent the views of anybody else. What is written in this blog is not meant to offend anybody and if this is the case, the author of this blog apologizes in advance.

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I feel I had to write the above disclaimer after an incident with one of my blog entries. It was a nasty surprise when I got back from my holiday in Kuala Lumpur. I knew it would be tough getting back to work after a holiday, especially since the other intern in my ward was taking his scheduled leave, but I wasn't prepared for what was in store.

I'm not going to blog much about my trip to Kuala Lumpur. All I did was see some sights and shopping. That was the intention of the holiday and it was fulfilled. I didn't take many photos either since I'm that kind of tourist. Most of the time was spent in shopping malls remarking how Hong Kong is so expensive, especially with the same foreign food like Waitrose's orange marmalade or fennel. Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok are still way ahead of Hong Kong in being termed 'a world-class city'.

When I got back to work, I was asked to see the head of our department. I didn't know what it was about but I knew it was something bad. Every time you see the headmaster is not for a good incident. Maybe a patient complained about my attitude or I did something wrong in the management of a patient.

Eventually I got to meet the head of department. It was regarding a complaint. Yet it was not from whom I thought it was. One person who I don't know and who's identity was not revealed to me complained about my blog entry 'A match made in hell'. They commented the blog entry was sexual discrimination against female radiologists.

Let me just re-iterate what I said to my head of department and to the public relations officer (who I spoke to today). The views expressed in my blog are a personal private opinion and do not represent the views of other interns, surgeons or anybody else for that matter. Even if I don't like a particular person or if I work for a friend, I will give 100% in my work and will maintain a professional relationship with my colleagues whom I work with. The comments in the blog are suppose to be sarcastic in nature - I truly don't think female radiologists' ovaries have been affected by radiation. That is just the way I write and who I am in real life - ask the people who know me best. I'm not sorry for expressing my views of what I think of female radiologists through the brief interaction I have when booking urgent investigations. I am sorry for offending anybody with my blog - this is not my intentions.

I do have some opinions of this incident (which are the opinions of this writer and not meant to offend anybody):

1. I am disappointed that one of my 'friends' passed this along to other people without confronting/facing me about the comments I made.
2. I am disappointed by the person who made the complaint for not confronting/facing me about the comments I made.
3. I am disappointed with the accusation of 'sexual discrimination'. Obviously the person who read the comment about female radiologists neglected to read the paragraph before regarding my view of male surgeons. I don't have any male surgeons making any complaints.

Please if you do have comments on my blog, please don't hesitate in contacting me. But please state who you are. I honestly find it cowardly if you don't reveal yourself.

A match made in hell...

2008-09-04T20:07:00.003+08:00

Having been back at the main hospital for nearly three weeks, I have observed many things. From all the paperwork to cover your own arse medicine, it's been an eye opener.

One thing that hasn't surprised me is how stereotypical doctors' personalities can be. Take for example the typical male surgeon. This is a person who usually is condescending, heartless and emotionless. "Constructive criticism" and "tact" are not in their vocabulary. I have met many male residents in surgery who just look down on your and scold you for not doing something write. They can put it a bit more tactfully but I don't think that is in their nature. These are the jocks you had in high school or secondary school, who's self confidence borders on arrogance.

Another typical stereotype is the female radiologist. I have to book urgent CT & ultrasound scans all the time. Most of the male radiologists are constructive and considerate at rejecting my requests. Yet when I get a rejection from a female radiologist it's like going to the Antarctic - cold & frightening. What does radiology do to women to make them not smile? Does all that radiation fry their ovaries into secreting abnormal hormones which make them into cold cucumbers? Or does all that power of rejecting men (& women) goes to their head?

Either way I now know I'm not going into surgery and radiology.

Paperwork, signatures & ink stamps

2008-08-30T23:20:00.004+08:00

I've just finished my second week as the house officer of the Surgical Admissions ward. Already I'm starting to feel a bit despondent about being a doctor.

I don't mind working the long hours associated with being a doctor. In fact I rather crave working, since there is nothing for me to do when I return to my room in the intern quarters. My laptop cannot play DVDs for some reason despite having the capability to do so, there's no internet connection so I cannot surf for porn and I can only take so much reading of "Pride and Prejudice" each night. Most of the time I'm just too tired to do anything active and I just fall asleep at ten o'clock at night after having a shower and brushing my teeth.

I don't mind being at the whim of the nurses either. There are a lot of tasks nurses can perform but legally cannot since they are not qualified to do so. They cannot write prescriptions or order CT scans despite knowing what it is entailed. That is where my signature and my ink stamp comes in. I accept there is much I can learn from experienced nurses about the running of a ward and what protocols and procedures need to be followed.

I don't mind my superior either. Most of the consultants & senior medical officers are nice. It's some of the residents I cannot stand. There are two resident surgeons who are obnoxious, condescending twats but I'll leave that to another blog entry, just like how I like to comment how female radiologists are such bitches.

What really gets me is the amount of hospital bureaucracy and CYOA (cover your own arse) medicine that is being practised. There are a few examples I like to share with any readers out there:

Whenever somebody is admitted to the Surgical Admissions ward, the interns have to fill out a sheet pertaining to which specialty the patient has to be under. If the patient has probably peeing, he/she goes under the urology team. Unfortunately these forms are really constrictive with little space to elaborate on the patient's condition. Also we still have to fill out these forms even if the medical officer has taken a history already. It's a stupid practise that seems only to happen in surgery to the best of my knowledge. Sometimes I can't be bothered to ask the patient a second time how's his poo is and just fill out the form based on the medical officer's notes.
Whenever a patient has a condition, there are some investigations we have to order despite the chances of them occurring are non-existent. For every person who comes in with chest pain, we have to order cardiac enzymes & CK-MB to rule out a heart attack. Anybody who comes in with tummy pain has to have his/her amylase checked to exclude acute pancreatitis. Even if the person banged his head a few days ago and comes in complaining of just dizziness the interns have to go down to the CT room and order a brain CT just to exclude any bleeding, despite having examined the person thoroughly. When did we rely so much on tests and not on our clinical judgement having asked a complete history and performed a thorough clinical examination?
Medical officers send us to order urgent CT scans despite knowing the chances of succeeding are remote. Why? Because they are scared of their seniors asking why they didn't TRY to book those urgent CT scans if they don't. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the patient. When nurses inform house officers of a change in the patient's condition, they don't really care about the patient's condition. They just want the responsiblity of the change in the patient's condition off their hands and into the doctors. They just want you to say the phrase, "I will check on him/her."
Everything has to be documented. Whenever you see the patient, look at his/her investgation results or do anything to the patient, you have to write it down, put your signature next to it and then put your ink stamp next to it just to make sure. Even if the patient has a perfectly normal chest X-ray which for no apparent reason was order, I still have to write down, "CXR: NAD" in the patient's progress notes.

All this paperwork gives me no time to practise real medicine, the one that you aspire to be and what they teach in medical school. I just wish this bureaucracy will stop.