Mid July

In the blink of an eye and it’s mid July. That means I had been working for 3 months. Ouch that’s fast. It feels fast too. At this rate I think I can stay in government forever and it will feel just like a couple of years. Not that it is a bad thing to consider. Easy job relatively good pay.

One of the pharmacists calculated for me that I was being paid like RM25 per hour. Not bad considered that I spent half the morning and whole afternoon playing Sudoku at work today. Not that I wanted to do that, but there’s nothing else to do. And everyone is playing Sudoku.

By the way, I am now at the analysis lab at Pending for the week, which is quite a distance away from the hospital (more than 10km). Basically what they do here is just to wait for someone to send some non-registered drug samples in. No samples equal to no work equals to Sudoku.

In the event that there’s some drugs to be analysed, like today, the pharmacy assistants will prepare the samples and then run some tests on it using some used-to-be high tech machines. Yeah its the GC-MS and HPLC machines that we oft deride in MedChem lectures as being useless stuffs that we will not encounter in our work.

How untrue it was! So here I am this week, trying to figure out what the heck does those initials stand for and how in heaven do there measure stuffs and how to read the graphs that the printer cough out. Luckily there’s no need for me to learn how to deal with them, I just need to know such things and such career path exists. Apparently the pharmacy assistants went for a 3-months long course just to learn how to utilise those machines.

So it will be like a honeymoon week this week. Next week I will be back to the hospital, working in the in-patient pharmacy. At least playing Sudoku is getting my brain working again, after spending the past month doing minimal brain utilising work.

A restaurant trip

Seems it was a long time since I put some photo in my blog. So here goes: a blog post with lots of photos.

A couple of months ago, I won 3rd prize in a slogan-writing contest and made it to the local daily.

The prize was a voucher for a complimentary dinner-for-ten;

at this high-class looking restaurant of a high-class looking hotel.

We were given a private room,

that had a huge table, so huge that it creaked and groaned whenever you put your arms on it.

Even the chairs were huge, as demonstrated by my sister.

It was a nine course dinner. The servings were large, as seen in the Cold Appetizer below:

Pan-fried beef with celery, sweet and sour prawns and tofu.

Mixed vegetables, honeydew chicken, mango fish.

The food was not bad. They came in quick succession, one after the after. Too quick, in fact. As if there’s no one else in the restaurant to serve.

Which turned out to be the case.

No other single soul was in the restaurant the entire night except us and the four waitresses serving us.

Didn’t realised that they were giving us the VVIP treatment. I thought only the filthy rich can reserve the whole restaurant. I can’t help imagining the cooks being there just to cook for us.

Now that’s exactly how you should treat a contest winner.

Okay enough of the photos. If you are interested in some of my pharmacy adventures, read the post below.

Enforcement pharmacy

I had been spending the past two days in the enforcement pharmacy. It was one of the departments where there is a possibility for me to be sent to serve my three years compulsory service. As I detest paper-works and enforcement is full of them, I decided to act dumb so that I won’t make a good impression and the boss won’t pick me to join the team next year.

Enforcement was also a two-weeks placement. I followed the enforcement officers to the port where we go through the custom declaration forms of pharmaceutical shipments. If we see something suspicious, I need to call the forwarding agent up and demand for an itemized invoice or do a physical check on the shipment.

Today I went to court to hear them mention cases. They were trying to prosecute someone who had sold some unregistered meds. Apparently pharmacists chosen to be enforcement officers can be the police, detective and lawyer 3-in-1. They can raid premises, investigate people and prosecute them if necessary. That’s the cool part of the work.

So anyway it was kind of fun and interesting to device ways of not looking too efficient. For example, instead of showing initiative, I loitered around until the officer found things for me to do. Usually it’s mundane stuffs (and actually their job). And when they did, I only did some of them, the excuse being “so the next pharmacist attached to the station after me got something to do’”. I also acted blur, constantly looked as if I forgot to do what they asked for. And asked dumb questions while looking innocent like “what do we go to court for?” Hopefully it works!

To summarised about compounding, it was actually quite a good placement. It’s like a big kitchen. In fact, the hospital is like a big restaurant: the patients being the customers, the doctors being the waiters and the pharmacists being the chefs. Played with the pre-packing machine, made lots of cream, eye drops, suspensions and syrups. Was trying constantly to improve my syringing skills. Now I think quite pro already. One thing compounding taught me was to appreciate how difficult it was to make some of the stuffs that we dispense to the patients. So next time should be more stingy and give less. ^^

Also went for a full day Continuous Professional Development (CPD) workshop last Saturday, They flew in a vastly experienced Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) pharmacist from KL to give a talk. It was very insightful and certainly gave me a brand new perspective on that area. There were also a talk on Oncology which was a very good revision of the stuffs I learnt while attached in the radiotherapy unit.

I guess that’s long enough for now. Probably will update again in a week time. Cheers.

On opposite sides 3

The muffed sound of the alarm clock rung incessantly under the thick pillow. A silent groan escaped her mouth. Her body was still stiff, remnants from yesterday’s hard work.

She rubbed her heavy eyes that had seen too little sleep. She swung her legs onto the floor, the cold morning blast hitting her as the blanket slipped from her body.

She lumbered into the kitchen, and opened the fridge, the orange glow within piercing through the darkness of the house. Her hands reached inside, searching for ingredients to be transformed into the family’s three meals.

For the next ninety minutes she busied in the kitchen washing, chopping, slicing, boiling and frying, while seizing every available snatches of free seconds in between to brush her teeth, change into the day’s cloths and comb her hair.

When she heard her husband’s footsteps echoing through the house, she knew it was soon time to go. She put all the newly cooked food into the cupboard before tiptoeing into the room next to hers. She gazed fondly at the sweet innocent face of her nine month old son, her fingers gently wiping away a tiny pool of saliva that had drooled down from his agape mouth.

“Lets go,” said her husband, who was leaning against the doorway studying mother and child. She cast a final lingering look at her soundly sleeping son before following her husband footsteps out of the house.

He pushed the motorcycle around 20 meters from their compound because starting the engine. She climbed on behind him, hugging him tightly. It was the only time of the day they can afford to have physically contact this close.

The first cock had only started to crow when they reached the end of the bumpy un-tarred road. She alighted and joined the short line of people standing next to a stick stuck into the muddy yellow ground. She heaved a sign of relief when around ten minutes later, a van spewing thick clouds of exhaust duly rumbled to a stop in front of them. Yesterday they had to wait for twenty minutes. They all squeezed in; men, women, young, old, fat, skinny. She closed her eyes. It will be another two hours before she reach her workplace.

While she was catching forty winks in the van, her young boss was sipping coffee and eating toast that his mother had just prepared for him. He had a piece of report in his hand which caused a frown to creep onto his face. “This Sally again!” he muttered. She had been late for the past three days and missed the last two weekends’ meeting. He had a good mind to admonish her later in the morning. Such unprofessional attitude. What a tardy and lazy good for nothing woman.

“Pa, I am ready to go!” he hollered. It was already 7.30a.m. His father started the car as he climbed in. He was driven to the office, where he promptly put both legs on the table and waited for Sally to arrive. He can never comprehend why she was always late. It only took him one hour from waking up to reaching the office. Surely she can just wake up earlier if she needed more time for make-ups!

Pharmacy Updates Again

Something is wrong with this world. Yesterday five of us took a short walk (around 200m) under the sun for lunch. Four gals and me. And I’m the only one bringing an umbrella. Doesn’t they know about sunlight and skin cancer??

Anyway been busy the past two weeks studying for my pharmacy law exam. The exam was like a blind date, coz I have no idea how it is structured and how difficult it is. Turned out the examiners didn’t know also. We assumed it was open book till they told us 1 hour before the exam it will be a closed book. It wasn’t until we read the exam paper cover then we discovered it is open book after all. So fun..

Now I am placed at the compounding pharmacy. Did a few eye-drops using aseptic technique on Monday and mixed up some Chloral Hydrate this morning. Tasted a few drops of my product coz I wanted to know how it taste like. Maybe that’s why I became so sleepy for the whole day?

Satellite Pharmacy was fun. There’s always a lot of things to eat there, which is nice. The workload was just ideal, so was the room temperature. But didn’t see much patients, mostly dispense to the wards. Did three bedside counselling on how to use an insulin pen. Very funny coz the senior pharmacist I was following around actually marked out the injection spots on the patient’s stomach itself.

Hmm.. I haven’t cooked up a story to write after my experience in Satellite Pharmacy. Maybe I will get some inspiration soon. But still busy these few days as we are finalising a research proposal. Malaysia very advanced. Even intern pharmacists need to do real research with real patients.

Okie I should get busy.. so long then.

The attractive theory

A lady named Abby Wong wrote a beautiful article in The Star that had became the talk of the paper. The piece first appeared on 24th May and till today, someone was still commenting on it.

What  was it about? Well… drum roll…. she seems to think that guys reading in public are attractive. Wow. Why didn’t she write it earlier? Damn, with that insight  I would have read all my novels in shopping centres and bus stops instead of while curling in my bed. Oh, now I can’t bear to count the number of lost opportunities…

Being educated in the scientific method, I decided to put the theory into practice. From that week,  I strolled across the corridors of the hospital appearing to be deeply absorbed in the pieces of paper I was carrying.  When I had free time in the pharmacy,I read a book.

Alas, I can’t spy any adoring glances, nor hear any hushed whispers saying “he is so attractive!”. The only comment was “Wow you are so hardworking.”

So much for Abby Wong’s theory. She had gotten it so wrong.

Let’s try my theory: Girls find boys who cooks attractive. They will positively drool dreaming about waking up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee tantalizing their nostrils and the melodious sound of luscious vegetables being chopped into bite sizes ringing in their ears. They fantasizes going home after a tired day of work to find piping hot spaghetti ala carbonara waiting for them on the table.

The next thing to do is to prove it. So last week I baked a cheesecake to work and share it around.

After getting my word that it was really me who created such delicious fare, here came the questions:

Question 1: Are you still single?

Question 2: What’s your criteria of a girlfriend?

Question 3: Are you willing to consider a girl a few years older than you?

Question 4: Maybe I should introduce my cousin to you.

I swear its true.

It was hence proven that guys that can cook is a much more attractive commodity. But then there’s a problem, we can’t just push a stove into any public place and proceed to cook our breakfast on the spot, can we?

Disclaimer: This is not, I stress, REALLY NOT a piece of self advertising.

Reflections

On Friday I ended my tour of duty in the radiotherapy unit pharmacy, which is just a nicer name for a pharmacy dealing with chemo drugs and dispensing to cancer patients.

It was not a fun place to work, considering the fact that all the patients I saw had an uncertain future in front of them.

I had seen concerned son and daughters standing outside the chemo room for hours, peering through the glass door as their aged parents underwent chemo infusion inside. I had dispensed cancer drugs to mothers who had their young children in tow, and heard crying relatives. It was not a pleasant experience but nevertheless, an enriching experience.

As a pharmacist, I believed that we should sometimes try to think from the side of the patients. What do they expect from us? How do they perceive us? How should we show empathy, to show that we care even though the time we spend with them is limited by how busy we are?

During my stint in the out-patient pharmacy, I wrote a short story from my perceived viewpoint of the patient, which I titled “On opposite sides”.

Now that I had finished my radiotherapy unit, I came out with another short story written from similar viewpoints. Just scroll down to read it.

From tomorrow onwards, I will be posted to the Satellite Pharmacy. Hopefully it will be another good learning experience.

On opposite sides 2

“This is for your cancer.”

The pharmacist in his crisp white-coat didn’t mince his words. He didn’t try to sugar-coat it, or attempted to soften the blow. Like a newly sharpened knife, the stark reminder was stabbed straight into my heart. “Yes girl, you really have cancer.”

Cancer. Ten years ago, it was the poster of African kids with bald heads. Okay maybe that was AIDS. Five years ago, it was the horoscope sign of my supposedly best matched beau. Ten months ago, it was the fiction I watched on my favourite medical soap Grey’s Anatomy. Five months ago, it was a hard lump on my left breast.

With robotic efficiency, the pharmacist delved into a monologue on how to take the medicines. I caught snatches of “once a day”, “not with milk”, “only when necessary” while the others flew pass me in tiny wisps, or perhaps repelled by the piece of glass window separating us.

I felt like a high priest sitting in a confessional window, with him the sinner in the process of divulging his crime. How ironic that mental image, as it was I who was now serving a sentence with a span of unclear duration nor destination. How had I sinned?

For me, cancer felt like a prison sentence where death is a lottery not a verdict; baldness is the forced crown not a crew cut; poisons slowly infused into you body the sadistic punishment not stokes of the rotan. It was sometimes too painful to think about it. I had wallowed in enough self pity to let the tears come streaming down again.

“Do you have any questions, miss?”

He peered at me across the window. Was that a condescending look? A silent rebuke for catching me zoning out?

“Yes. Er no. Thank you very much.”

Quickly I reached for the bag full of medicines he had pushed to my side of the window. In my haste the bag slipped from my numb fingers and fell to the floor with a plonk.

A few concerned people rose halfway in their seat, “It’s okay,” I mumbled. I went down on my knees, reaching for the assortment of bottles and packets scattered around like a shattered piggy bank. I brushed aside the tails of my bandanna that has became slightly dislodged and trailed across my eyes. I looked up to the window, half expecting him to tower above me, cold mirth in his eyes. The window was blank.

“Come, let me help you.” He was squatting right besides me, picking up the packets of medicines, peering into each packets of white round tablets to check for damages. For the first time, he looked human, a slight softening at the edge of his eyes, a discernable line on his forehead. Like a hypnotizing pendulum, the name tag he wore around his neck swung to and fro, suspended by a thread of silver beads, drawing me to it.

“Walter Ong” it read. The name had a familiar ring. Walter Ong... Walter Ong… suddenly the memories came flooding back. There he was, a young kid who once plucked off a stem of Aloe Vera and dabbled the soothing juice to my skinned knee. Surely it was the same Walter, the kid from the next class with the double eyelid and sweet dimples. The silent kid who once gave me a rubble band to play with when I was banished to stand outside the classroom as punishment. The kind kid who helped to carry my lunch box when I was inundated with too many books.

I looked at him, searching vainly, futilely for the slightest sign of recognition from his impassive face. There were none. Like the doctor I was seeing, he had learned to mask stark knowledge well. Or had he really forgotten about me?

“Here you go. Remember to take the pyridoxine tablets as I had told you. 5 tablets in the morning. Then your fingers will be better, okay?” he handed me the reassembled packet. I nodded in a daze, gazing into his eyes. He averted them. I stared at the back of his white coat billowing in the soft zephyr as he walked swiftly back into the door he came from, his footsteps growing fainter and fainter.

I rose and walked towards the exit. Just before I exited into the sun lit path, I can’t resist stealing a final glance. He was back in the window, and he was looking at me. Was that a sad wistful look? Perhaps he did remember. Perhaps he didn’t want his memory of me to be scarred by the bald bag of bones which I am now. Perhaps he wanted to spare me the awkwardness of meeting here. Indeed the oncology clinic was the worst place to meet and reconnect with old friends, especially when you are on different sides.

Should I buy one?

I wanna a small laptop coz its cheap and light (1.2kg). Then I can go online at Starbucks without bringing my spineless tanker of a laptop. Or go hospital watch drama will on midnight shift.This laptop looks  aesthetically pleasing too and only priced at RM1699..hmm any suggestions?

Oh by the way, its the Dell Mini 10.

I’m thinking of getting the pink one…no, not that I’m girly or what, but I think I should treat a laptop as a girlfriend (so that I will be more careful taking care of it) rather than an extension of myself. Since girls loved to dress in shades of light blue, purple or pink, I should dress my laptop in pink (since its the only available colour).

Lalala any suggestion on that?

Only in Malaysia

I (L) Malaysia, but does Malaysia (L) me?

It somehow seems inappropriate to criticise an entity that will pay for your livelihood for the next few years. Hence perhaps it is better to view the idiosyncrasies encountered in a positive light.

To apply for a pharmacy job in Malaysia is like a test for your adeptness to Malaysian way of life, especially for those studying abroad. Those who think a government who constantly cries for its sons and daughters in far away land to ‘come back to mommy!’ will glorified those who did heed the call with pomp and pageantry is in for a shock. Janganlah jadi anak Malaysia mudah lupa seems to be the general tone of things.

The “Come back to happy Mommy!” illusion.

First, lets start off with some hearty congratulations. Kudos to the government who deserved praise for having such a foresight to set such a good introductory course for aspiring pharmacists so that they will view further red tape and befuddled information as part and parcel of Malaysian life.  

Yes, so you have graduated overseas in a good University. And being a patriotic student with all the semangat and intention to enhance the wellbeing of the general rakyat, you decided to do what others choose not to do: you are going home!

Here comes the first step. how to apply for a pharmacy job? Well there seems to be no written instructions online. Alas zaman IT still is in its infancy in Malaysia. But never mind, someone back home say people now apply through the SPA website. So you go to the website. And lo and behold there seems to be more than one way to apply. And it was assured that all the ways are equivalent. It was only later from friend of friend that I knew calling up SPA was the way to go.

In the SPA website, it was written there that while you are waiting for their reply, fill a form with the Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (KKM) and Pharmacy Board of Malaysia (LFM). So off I go to the LFM website. The form was there! Hurray! But hold on! here it stated that to only fill in the form when you got the appointment letter from SPA. So who’s correct?? Lets go to KKM website to check. But the KKM form seems not to be online. But there’s an enquiry section! Where I had sent an email into oblivion.

Finally two months later, we all JPA pharmacy kids managed to figure the correct procedure out. At last we finally got out of the amazing maze!

My happy face after negotiating the maze.

And so off we go went for an interview. The questions ranged from “how we choose the Agong?” to “do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend”. It all depends on the interviewers, but from what I heard, nobody doing pharmacy is going to fail the interview (because we have a shortage of pharmacist!). I asked them, “so when will I get a job?”. A few weeks, they said. You know, government got a lot of red tapes. At least they were straightforward. We need to discuss it in a few meetings and liaise between three departments.

After three months of idling around, the letter finally came. Yes congrats, you got Sarawak. Now Sarawak got three hospitals that they can send you to. Kuching, Sibu and Miri. And no, you can’t know which hospital you are going to be sent, no matter if you call them or go visit them personally at KKM.  When you go and lapor diri on the first day of work at the KKM head office in Kuching, then you will know (even though they look like they do know). What about if I’m from, lets say Sibu? Oh, fly down to Kuching and lapor diri first. If you get Sibu, fly back. If you get Kuching, fly back to Sibu, collect your belongings and fly back to Kuching and start work. Come on lah, Malaysia must help its own industry. Now the aviation industry in the doldrums, go support them!

Fly Malaysian Airlines. Frequently.

But then, before you get angry and frustrated about Malaysia, remember that all this is actually a well-conceived personality test. It tests your patience and ability in problem solving. Teaches you the value of keeping in touch with friends too. We here only accept the best people! It aren’t supposed to be easy, as at the finishing line of this 110m hurdles  lies a well-paying, secured and glamorous job (hopefully).

To all my juniors in VCP, since I love you all so much, here’s really how to apply for a pharmacy job in Malaysia (for overseas grad).

1. Call up the SPA directly to arrange for an interview ASAP. The  telephone number is available on the SPA website. Currently this is only applicable to pharmacy, medic and dentistry students studying overseas. Don’t apply online, they take ages to reply (if they reply at all).

2. After you passed the interview (seems its just a formality), they will send you an offer letter within two weeks. Send back the attached acceptance form immediately. Once you get the offer letter, you can apply for a provisional registered pharmacist licence from the Pharmacy Board of Malaysia, which is available from their website. In the meantime, also go to Kementerian Kesihatan office to fill in a “Borang Maklumat Diri”.

3. Once you are registered with the pharmacy board (you can call them up to rush them), your info will be sent to the Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia, who will then place you in a State (also can call to rush them). They will then send you a letter to tell you when and where to report yourself to.

Sounds simple, but trust me, it is only so after you had gone through the whole rigmarole. Good luck in your on-coming exams!

Updates updates

We waited by the window, a yellow card in hand, looking intently and waiting patiently as the longer hand of the clock reluctantly arched its way into the big bold line on the uppermost of the circle. '”Okay, its five already!” The man on the front of the line exclaimed, and excitedly punched his card through. One by one, we watched as the machine efficiently rolled our yellow cards into its stomach before spilling it out again with the time we clocked out printed neatly on it. In black ink. One minute early, it will be red.

The definitive picture of a government servant.

I had now reverted back into the normal 8-5 work life routine. For this week and the next, I am located in the Radiotherapy Unit Pharmacy (RTU). It is a satellite pharmacy catering for four wards: Palliative Care, Ambulatory, Male RTU and Female RTU; as well as an outpatient chemo day care centre and clinic.

It was a pretty relaxing station compared to the market that is outpatient pharmacy. There is nothing much to do, besides filling medications and checking that the filled medicines are correct. I have all the time in the world to recheck everything before dispensing or taking the drugs to the chemo room as there are no impatient patients at all. Besides a wrong drug or dose will have severe consequences here.

Hence for the past few days,I had been dealing with a lot of expensive and dangerous drugs, Since it was so specialised, it had provided me a good chance to refresh my memory on all things about cancer. It was indeed fascinating to see the regimens and drugs we had learnt in practice.

Something different about pre-registration here compared to Australia is that we can do the final checking and dispensing of the drug. In fact I spent the whole of yesterday morning checking and dispensing drugs by myself as the only RTU pharmacist went off somewhere to work. It felt like being a real pharmacist-in-charge.

Anyway, am glad that it will be Friday tomorrow. Will be going for a Continuous Medical Education (CME) talk from 7.45am-8.45am before starting work at 8.45am. Will also have a long lunch break from 11.45am to 2.15pm tomorrow, and a 30 minutes morning tea in between 8.45am – 11.45am. So essentially will only be working for 2 and a half hours in the morning. And 1 and a half hour in the afternoon. as will be attending presentation from 2.30 to 3.30pm. So grand total of work hours is only FOUR.  I love Fridays. And till now, I am still loving my job as a pharmacist.

Mother’s Day Special

For this year’s Mother’s Day, decided to go for a Korean theme: bibimbap and kimbap.

Close up of the bibimbap, which is in essence rice mixed with some very healthy and colourful vegetables and Korean hot pepper paste.

This was a picture of the finely shredded vegetables before being assembled.

A close up picture of kimbap, which is the Korean term of Sushi. Decided to call it that coz korean sushi don’t need to prepare soy sauce and wasabi.

Went to my grandmother’s place. All the Happy Mothers and the delicious food…

and the pretty home made blueberry cheese cake.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Job update

I had now worked a full three weeks in the hospital pharmacy and till now it had been a tiring but rewarding experience.

However, for now, I sure will not want to be going to the hospital to see a doctor because it was swamped with more people than I think it can manage. As a consequence, for a lot of patients, the trip to the hospital is  a stressful and harrowing experience. Sometimes I chatted with random people while waiting for the lifts and in the hallway, and the topic will always be how it is so hard to find a parking space at all in the hospital compound, and how long they had to wait, first to see the doctor, and then to get their meds from the pharmacy.

In the outpatient pharmacy, the patients lining up were so long that I think they need to wait at least 1 hour to get their meds from the time they put the script in,  even though our client charter stipulated that everyone will be serve within 30 minutes. The situation was so bad that pharmacists from other departments were deployed here for the whole week and there were a few instances of bad-tempered people letting off their steam with loud verbal abuses.   I quite emphasize with their predicament, but there is simply nothing much that I can do. I can increase the speed I assemble the meds, but that will simply increase the chance of mistakes. In terms of meds, I do think accuracy is more important.

What can be hoped now is that the economic recession  will go away as soon as possible. Everyone said that the best job now is in the government sector because of its stability, but we do feel the pinch in terms of increased workload. One of the accident and emergency hospital told me that the number of patients she saw this year easily tripled the number last year as more and more people can’t afford to go to private clinics now.

Anyway, on the bright side of things, my speed of assembling meds had gone up a notch. I can do around 100 scripts per day now, instead of the 50ish when I first started (yeah we need to record how many we did). mistakes were kept down to 1-2 per day. I also spend some time at the front counters everyday, telling patients how adn when to take their meds and give them some reminders, especially for dangerous drugs like warfarin. There is simply no time to talk about side effects, and probably the culture here is still what you don’t know wouldn’t kill you. 

I did three patient counselling in the hospital counselling room last week. The first one was using an insulin pen and a pharmacist was observing me, so it was kind of a nervy experience. But the next two were all done by myself (I guessed I passed lol) and the very first person I counselled by myself turned up to be one of a past director of the hospital, a Datuk and Doctor nonetheless. I taught him how to use a Turbohaler. The pharmacist assistant was like: do you know who that is? when I came out of the room.  The main problem I think is my Bahasa Malaysia fluency. Still need some brush-ups.

Anyway, next week will be my final week in outpatient for now. My next posting will be in the Radiotherapy Unit. No idea what I will do there, but I heard that it is far more relaxing than out-patient..

Sunday night

He stared at the blank screen of his laptop, the notepad devoid of alphabets.

A story line.. a story line… a story line. He scrunched up the mass of curly hair on his head. A few strand fell down, settling with a cris-crossing pattern on the keyboard.

He clenched his fists in determination. I must write something. He forced his hands to knock in the first letter. And then another.

An hour passed. And another… yet another…

Like a methodical carpenter assembling a few pieces of wood together, an artistic sculpture soon materialised. Planks of wood held together into a structure by scrawny bits of nails here and there. With a little stretch of imagination, some may say it resembled a chair.

“Hey how was your weekend?”

“Oh I took Air Asia for a quick shopping trip to Kuala Lumpur,” breathlessly she said, a radiant pink hue appearing on her cheek.

“Oh My God! It must had been fun. Oh how I wished my weekend was like that!” another she exclaimed, her hands clasped in front of her chest.

“So what did you do?”

“Oh, nothing much. My boyfriend and I just went for a 2 days 1 night trip to Bako National Park,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

“You didn’t say! Or else we could had arranged a trip together!” Both females are now having their hands on each other, patting each other as if congratulating themselves on their accomplished weekends. Their action nearly knocked down some artificial potted plants.

“You gals really know how to have fun,” the other guy said, his back rested languidly upon the cubicle divider, “my weekend playing a round of golf at the new Sarawak Club golf course seems pale in comparison.”

“Ooo..you played golf!” They looked at him with round adoring eyes. “You should teach us that next time!”

As the giggling and chatting idled down, they discovered a figure had been lurking unseen right in the middle of the room until now.

“What about you Wally? You had been quiet all the while. Surely not another weekend spent doing nothing?”

The glare of the spotlights on him momentarily blinded him, causing him to blink and squint. With a victorious smile, he shook his head.

“I spent the whole weekend writing a wonderful piece of story. Oh you should had read about it. It’s about this poor guy meeting a rich girl…”

The smile was still hanging on his face when a flashing box that had appeared on his laptop screen for the last five minutes finally caught his attention. Windows had finished updating. It will now restart automatically it said. Before he had time to react, the computer screen turned black, swallowing his story with it.

He stared at his laptop blankly. He felt like screaming but no voice came out. He felt like smashing his laptop into smithereens but instead he sit there, slumped in his chair. Oh how he hated Sunday nights!

May

After working for just 10 days, I am already rewarded with a holiday. In appreciation for my hard work, the Malaysian government decided that we should have a Labour Day holiday. Yippee!

And so its May already. It wouldn’t be long before we say goodbye to 2009. On a brighter note, there’s still more than half of 2009 to savour (the half glass empty, half glass full view of things).

Okay to expand on my previous post, outpatient pharmacy is very busy. There’s a constant flow of people wanting to take their medicines. And Malaysians are generally an impatient lot. They expect to be served immediately! Why can’t they see there’s a lot of people in front of them and appreciate that it’s not easy trying to assemble the huge amount of medications they need to patch up their bodies.

Of course, I can’t completely blame them. Me too had been guilty of such transgression.  I often sat on the other side of the counter while waiting for my turn in banks and post offices and immigration offices, wondering why it took so long to process something. Slow snails and lazy bums at work! Now that I am on the other side of the counter… lets just say I will be more patient next time I am queuing up and not badmouth those people working on the other side.

My brain often can’t function after I reached home from work. It was exhausting job. Haven’t been writing for a few weeks. I had some descriptive essays written ages ago but haven’t fashioned out a worthwhile story to go with it. I just have enough inspiration to write the short piece below this morning. Hopefully can think of a more substantial storyline this long weekend in between time spent studying. There’s just so much about pharmacy that I need to re-remember. Enjoy.

On opposite sides

He looks at the prominent red LED clock on the wall. He contrasts the numbers displayed with the one printed on his tiny slip of paper. 42 minutes and he is still waiting. He stretches his shoulders awkwardly, trying not to bang into the frail lady sitting on his left and the squirming kid on his right. The back of the plastic seat is too low to support his now aching back. He undo the first two buttons of his shirt in a vain effort to cool down the unattractive concoction of impatient and frustration that is starting to boil in his body.

He glances up at the girl sitting on the other side of the counter. She wears a constant smile, laughing and joking with the young man she is serving. Damn, he thought, there she is, taking her own sweet time swooning over a hunk while he is festering here, waiting ages for his turn. He looks at the red LED clock again and grimaced. Damn, his parking ticket will be due in another 5 minutes. He needs to pick up his son from school in half and hour, and there’s still a heap of papers he need to tackle before he can afford to take forty winks.

At long last, they say goodbyes and the guy is gone. He looks at the number under the clock. 1431 it flashed. Still 3 more numbers to go. He glares at the girl again, he sees her chatting to the girl on the next counter. He groans as the frail lady next to him stands up and shuffles to the counter. This is going to take long too. He sees the girl getting up from her seat and opening a door next to the counter, inviting the old lady to come in. They disappear from his view, and he is left staring at a big blue empty chair behind the counter.

He drabs the perspiration forming like hot water bubbles on his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He feels dizzy in the afternoon heat that was left encountered by the malfunctioned air-conditioning. A baby cries somewhere in the sea of waiting people. Some kids resort to treat the place as their playground. running and shrieking around.  

1434 the number flashed. His turn. He walks angrily to the counter. What kind of attitude is this, he demands in a raised voice. Do you know how long I had been waiting? Do you know I have other important things to do? He raves and he rants. His anger spills like a flowing river, and it is silently absorbed by the girl on the other side of the counter.

She looks at the man when he finally run out of steam. She offers him a smile, and apologises profusely for the wait. She has a soothing calm voice, a melodious chime in her voice even. She gives him his medications, explaining what they are for. She looks concerned as he spells out his difficulty in remembering when to take his medicines. She nods and inform him the best way to take them, giving simple practical advices. She smiles and she cares. She is the epitome of niceness and he feel a prang of guilt over his own behaviour.

He leaves the place a contented man, with the medicines and a piece of priceless happiness to treat his high blood pressure.

Out of sight, the girl heaves a sigh and shakes her head. This is a hell of a frustrating job. What had she done in her past life that merited a punishment of meeting with a slew of  angry customers everyday, she wonders. Only her self-discipline and work ethics stopped her from yelling back at the man. Whoever coined the word the customer is always right should be shot, she thought angrily. Somehow in the last five minutes, her happiness had flowed to the man and in return, his angriness had filled the void inside her.

Work

Now I started to realise why most of my friends had been blogging so sporadically over the past few months. Working is really energy draining. All I wanted to do after coming back from work is just to relax and watch my Korean drama.

Yes I had started working since 16th April, the day after my previous post. Fortunately, I had managed to get a place in Sarawak General Hospital. What a relief. At least for the first year, there’s no need to live alone in some remote area of Sarawak.

What SGH used to look like. Now its under construction.

For my first rotation, I was attached to the Outpatient Pharmacy Department. Not an ideal place to start my year as a Provisional Registered Pharmacist; akin to a youth player being suddenly selected into the first eleven of the football team. For it was easily the busiest department as it caters for patients visiting the numerous specialist clinics in the hospital. For the last few days, all I did was just to read the doctor’s prescriptions and fill the necessary medications for the patients to take home, doing around 50-60 scripts per day. Nonetheless, it was quite a good way to get familiarise with the colours and sizes of the available drugs. Next week will likely be taking some tentative steps into patient counselling.

Drugs,.my new BFF. Should I go out with the red one or yellow one tonight?

It had been and will continue to be a steep learning curve. My brain had been rusty from nearly half a year of idleness. For the past week, I had been busy learning and being assessed on the counselling points for all the inhalers and insulin devices. Next up will be on Warfarin, nasal spray and eye drops etc. What’s more, I had to do it in three languages: Chinese, Malay and English. I miss Australia where just English will do.

Insulin pens and inhaler devices.

Anyway, as far as first impressions go, the pharmacy department is far more organised then first thought. Hospital pharmacy in Malaysia is more or less comparable to the ones in Australia. What I like about their medications filing system is that all the drugs are grouped together according to mode of action, for example, cardiovascular drugs are all in the same area. This really saves time while filling. Another thing is that they packed the drugs in convenient packs of 30 or 90, which saves time.  There are also far more pharmacy assistants compared to Australian hospital, and the ones I had seen so far are also very competent.

I guess that all the updates for now. It is time to again prepare for another baptism of fire next week. Lucky its going to be a four-day week. Oh why it’s Sunday night already…

Down Memory Lane

Last week, my mum uncovered something interesting: a yellow manila folder containing each and every one of my primacy school semester exam papers.

This was the very first semester exam I set for, nearly 17 years ago.

Chinese Language. 11 May 1992.  Not a bad start.

Mathematics. 12 May 1992. Oops. A bit downhill.

Moral Education. 13 May 1992.  Getting worse.

If you doubt the authenticity, here’s the prove that it’s really my paper. Notice my name? And the year?

 

Hmm was there only 3 subjects? I didn’t remember much about the first semester exams. Guess it was too long ago. The only thing I remember about it was the aftermath.

The whole class was sitting down in groups around square tables. Along each side of the table there was a long chair which seats two student each. Yeah, that’s how we were sitting last time,  8 students to a square.

The teacher was asking the class. “Who do you think got 1st place in class?” Names were brandied around . I remember suggesting a name (alas, I forgot who). The teacher shook her head. Then a guy named Alan say out my name. And yes its me! Haha that’s why I remembered it clearly I guess. But then, the innocent me never really thought about academic excellence. It’s more like enjoying what I was studying. It was much later, I think in primary 3 or 4 when I started to have that academic competitive edge.

But I do remember the semester 2 exams in Primary One. I was down with measles that time, so I only went to the exam one week after. I had the exam in the staff room, sitting next to my form teacher on her table. I had curious teachers looking at me. One even ask my form teacher “is this your son?”

Come to think of it, I remembered quite a number of events and incidents that happened in primary one. Like who was sitting next to me and my impression of him (I thought he was quite scruffy because he was picking his nose). He also forgot to bring his pencil box, so I lent him a pencil. I remembered the girl who peed in class and the guy who excreted faeces in class. I remembered who is the class monitor. The name of the teacher. The girl who was accused of stealing from the canteen etc.

Can’t believe 17 years had passed since then. It was like reminiscing the start of a marathon when I had already passed the finishing line. But it was fun. Anyway I thought I just wrote it down here so that I can reflect upon it in the event I got dementia or amnesia later in life. Memories carved in words.

Lucky Guy 13 Final

“Boon Phiaw Kho”

I doffed my square hat, walked into the glaring lights, collected my scroll, said a few thank yous, shook a couple of hands, and dissolved back into the dark anonymity.

It was often argued that the journey is more important than the destination.

I entered Uni with the well set destination being to graduate with a First Class Honours pharmacy degree.

Luckily I didn’t just focus on the final destination. Because all I have to saviour the success of reaching my destination was a paltry 30 seconds. Yes, that’s the time for me to walk across the dais, collecting my scroll in the process. It barely reflects the four years of hard work and dedication I put in.

In the end, it was the journey which I cherished most. It was in the journey where soft skills were learnt to complement hard facts. It was in the journey that acquaintances were made and friendships built. There are so many good friends that there is no fair way to anoint one as the best. Suffice to say, they all left footprints in my heart. It was also an eye-opening journey to all things unimaginable and previously unconceivable. It made me appreciate how diverse the world really is and how limited my knowledge were.

Something that I had never disclosed before is that I also entered Uni with three dreams. The first one was academic, ie graduate with First Class Honours. The second one was co-curricular. I wanted a life besides studying and also to make a difference to the life of other students, especially international students. I felt that after all the associations and activities I joined, I did achieve that. Being given the Community Achievement Award was icing on the cake. It was actually a nice feeling to have what I had done being recognised.

The third dream, I was ashamed to say, was to be popular. I know, it was a vain little dream, a castle in the air furnished by too many teenage dramas and movies, and a personal story by a friend. He said it offhanded it ages ago, but it somehow etched itself to my memory. During his birthday one year, the whole library full of students broke into a spontaneous rendition of Happy Birthday. Gee, I thought, it must felt good to be popular.

I don’t think I managed to fulfil that dream of mine. The nearest I got was being stopped by five or six people in the library asking about assignments and how-do-you-dos. Did I try hard enough? I have no idea. It is sometimes hard to judge oneself. There were times I felt lonely in the Uni, lost in the sea of people. There were also times where I felt so lucky to have people around me, joking, having fun. However,  I was not too disappointed for not fulfilling it, as it was more of a bonus dream. Besides, there were enough things to make me feel grateful.

Yes, I had graduated, putting a full stop to my memorable journey in Parkville Campus, Monash University. Nevertheless, it was not a full stop to continue learning. It is just a milestone, with the time off now being a pause to reflect and recollect before embarking on a greater journey.

As a final note, thanks for indulging the narcissistic devil in me by reading these posts since I put the first one up more than half a year ago. I know I used a lot of Is and mes, Nevertheless, I hoped you are entertained.

Lucky Guy 12

Like Dumbledore looking into his pensive, i peered into mine, fixating on the not too distant past - my last semester in Uni.

The first image to appear on the silvery screen was me strolling into St Vincent’s Hospital one Monday morning, glad to escape from the falling rain and chilly wind outside. That was the start of my 3-weeks placement there. Overall, St V was a very relaxing and easy going placement where we students took long breaks and spent too much time chit-chatting and watching TVs. But can’t say I didn’t learn anything. In fact, I learnt a lot, but would have preferred a busier placement.

The second image was me looking at the blurry images of people dancing. It was the first time I wore contacts in an ‘official’ event and somehow one of them contrived to get lodged somewhere inside my eyelid. The event was the Pharmacy Ball – first time ever joining in the fun after spending four years in Uni. It was not a bad experience. Gave me a reason to buy an expensive vest! (not to mention paying the $100 ticket).

The third image that came forth was me gazing and touching an Olympic gold medal. One of Australia’s swimming star was in Uni giving a talk, and she passed her Olympic medal around. It was the second important medal I had ever touched, the other being the Nobel prize medal. Both occasions was quite inspirational.

The fourth image was me eating cheese cake in the tutorial room as a few of us exchanged notes and had a meeting on how to answer exams questions. It was the first time I took part in a group study and it was so much fun! A very memorable experience indeed. Should had done that way way way earlier. That sem I studied at Parkville library, Caulfield library, State library and Melb Uni Law library…

In the fifth image, I saw myself in my favourite jumper, sitting in the lecture theatre listening to Louis Roller’s talk in our very last lecture. I remembered trying my best to capture every sense and nuance of that last lecture experience. After listening to so many lectures, some interesting, some sleep inducing… Bugs Bunny suddenly jumped out and say “that’s all, folks!”.

The sixth image. I was drinking orange + vodka with chatting with a variety of people,  with a red fluorescent stick tied around my neck. To hell with it, I had said. This is the last semester. Last chance salon. So off I went to the Allied Health Cocktail Party even though had quite a tight study schedule. Too noisy and dark, but an interesting place to observe group behaviour and party animals.

The seventh image was me running the PISA Annual General Meeting. It was my last official involvement with the club, after putting so much efforts into it in my three years there. Presided over a tight presidential race, and was now still wondering did I set the fairest election rules. But anyway, we will see.

I was stuffing some sweet middle eastern dessert into my mouth in the eighth image. It tasted heavenly. The event? I was playing host to visiting students from the UAE. It was fascinating listening to their stories while showing them around Uni. Then there was me teaching Singaporean students how to eat meat pies, and wolfing down a hot dog in the lab (haha not many people did that) coz someone enquired the directions to there while I was on lunch break during Open Day.

The ninth image was me sitting in the campus’ admin office stuffing envelopes, thinking what sort of funny place Australia is, to be paid AUS$21 per hour doing such simple job. Wondered how much people doing the same job in Malaysia were paid. AUS$1/hour? I worked real hard that semester.

Oh, the final semester was just filled with too many fond memories. There were much more little snippets, like seeing people dressed up in the last day of Uni. Hearing someone play the piano for me. Walking around campus brandishing lanterns. Exploring my emotional intelligence. Juggling time tutoring students while preparing for my own exam. Taking part in my last global friendship event (it was self defence). Making lecture announcements.  How I wish I can relive them again…

P/s: This is the penultimate post of my Lucky Guy series. No prize of guessing that I will end at 13.