A few tidbits

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

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

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.

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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.

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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

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

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

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.

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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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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)

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

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

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...

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

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.

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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.