baby-friendliness aside

grateful to: Dr H and SN R for making all the effort and going through hell of a emotional roller-coaster ride in getting baby friendly status for the hospy.

______________________________________________________

Minutes ago, I sms Dr. H: Do our hosp hv good news?
She replied: Yes. We pass all 10 steps.

It's official, I think. My hospy got the status of baby-friendly hospy after the 2nd assessment.
Today is Day 2 of the assessment. 3 doctors, mostly specialists, took 2 days off to do assess our staff on whether our hospital is baby-friendly enough a.k.a. holding breastmilk supreme enough. one of them actually flew in from likas,sabah.

Here's the thing. I guess we're lucky this time.

Rewind. Back to 3 days ago.

Almost finishing clinics, I was called to a room. Most of the doctors were there, listening to a refresher on the breastfeeding, mainly play around with the doll and the breast model in positioning and latching.

And a grim reminder, that the next day, the assessor will be around to examine everyone.

One fellow from nutrition department (if I am not mistaken) introduced himself also as independent assessor for this baby-friendly thingy nationwide and gave us some 'soalan bocor' - which is pretty much basic question if we advocate breastfeeding in our daily practice. He also reminded, or probably belittled doctor's inadequacy to perform well in interviews because our lack of 'interview' experience as our job doesn't require one.

He really got on my nerve when he quoted:

biasanya kita gagal sebab doktor. doktor tidak put level below the assessor.
doktor kena put down sendiri. jawab bagi pihak hospital.
bila mereka tanya adakah anda tunjuk cara breastfeeding.
"doktor akan jawab tidak, biasanya jururawat yang tunjuk."
itu gagal. tak boleh jawab begini.

As much as I would like my hospy to get the baby-friendly status, I would rather the hospy get it by the book and not bending the truth.

Does answering on behalf of the hospy means we should compromise on our own integrity?

Does it even make sense to you?

After finishing the whole clinics, I can see lots of wood work and nailing being done all around the hospy. Nailing of the poster and loading pamphlets of breastfeeding all around the hospy.

Aiseyman.

It was like ai pang sai ka lai or kang (when you feel you're going to defecate, only you go digging for a hole) A good hokkien saying.

I got my fingers crossed, hopefully, re-assessment after 2 years will not be as phony or rigged like this, with all the genuinely baby-friendly doctors and nurses.

After all, we all, with or without the status, are providing the best for our mothers and babies.

sure fail scenario...

in the line of fire 2: tears of a doctor

just before I left for my 1 week break, i had an encounter, more accurately a verbal encounter with DH, and when I came back, my heart felt to an all time low as I heard about my junior colleague being driven into tears after being verbally abused by DH

There's nothing wrong for doctors to shed some tears.

Doctors shed tears for a dying patient,
shed tears for those devastating moments, shed tears for a cause championed, shed tears for a hardwork well done, shed tears for missing family members or children while working far away from home, but not for the wrong reason, especially NOT for DH who behave like a D, owing to probably DH's lack of proper home education on mannerism.

Doctors do cry.
Some do it silently. Some do it in their own poetic way.

If you're well acquainted with Grey's Anatomy, you'll notice how frequent doctors cry.

If you believe there's any inadequacy, there's always huge room to teach and mentor, to educate and to guide and to grow, at least at the same level, your experience is as the malay language puts it, just 'setahun jagung'.

Staff nurses were all sadden by the incident. Who wouldn't?
One of the senior ones actually asked DH and for DH to use the excuse of

stress in the department

is far more lame than having ED.

Stress???

I believe during our on calls, our adrenaline level runs at the same level as yours, or perhaps much higher than anyone in the whole hospital.

Anyone care to disagree, I will challenge them to switch position with me for a month.

If you're so darn stress, why am I seeing your name filled up in the LOCUM of A&E? Why not take a rest?
Go fly kite. Take a hike. Break a wind.

If you're stress, seek the right person - the psychiatrist, or to the lesser extend - a counselor.

If you're so stress, suck on a valium, and pop a beta blocker.

If you're so stress till you go flacid, get a sildenafil.

No matter how stress you're, there no place for domestic violence.

not even during Sunday...

If you're reading this, and you felt morbidly insulted. You should.

I was reading Bro Yew's adventure in King's College Hospital for his final journey to be a medical specialist, and discover about the signboards in the hospital which can be seen anywhere in the hospital which read "King's staff work hard and treat the patients well. We expect the patients and relatives to treat them with respect as well. Any violence or abuse of our staff will not be tolerated."

Here, with DHs walking among us, we probably do not need to factor in 'patients and relatives'.

Unlike others who will probably egg you on to fight or retaliate and kept your flying ego soaring up your imaginary genius plateau, I seriously believe (if you're intelligent enough) you should take a few minutes, sit down in silence, and reflect on your action and what damage you'd done, to others and mostly to yourself (in the long run).

At the end of the reflection, you'll probably find that the greatest thing to do is to continue your journey in the medical with an ardent attitude to educate, to teach and to guide rather than to belittle, to mock or to criticize others who are less inferior in your part of knowledge.

No one knows everything all the time.

If you think you do, probably you should set up a sect or temple after you.

And last, but not least, the next best thing to do is probably to stretch out your hand and ask for forgiveness from my colleague.

That would probably driven her to tears, but then again, that is absolutely a good reason to shed few tears.

gilbert & casey as one flesh

Call me sua ku (in hokkien, meaning mountain beetle or turtle) if you want to, but that was the first time I attended a church wedding.

Happier still was the fact that I was given the honor to be one of the hengtais for my close high school pal, Gilbert.

It brought back fond memories seeing 4 of us together – Gilbert, Gabriel, Kar Loon and me.

Back when we’re in Form 6, we’re classmates and we’re probably close because we’re sort of lepak buddies, and after-school-eat-in-the-school-canteen buddies.

Back in those days, Gilbert and Kar Loon were the two fellas sitting right in front of the class, almost in front of the teacher’s table. They’re neither kiasu nor having severe uncorrectable refractive error, but I guess they enjoyed the convenience of being able to ask the teacher any question, lame or serious, without causing any unnecessary distraction to the rest of the class.

In the same row, Gab and I would be the last person sitting at the back of the class, right near to the window. We’re neither lazy nor uninterested, but simply I guess our table position in the class has its own perks ie.

1 more oxygen and fresh air from window. How fresh air helps to create a healthy competitive brain is no rocket science. Something you can figure out.

2 easier to raise simple debate or conversation between us without causing distraction to the teacher

3 we can choose and plan our own daily academic activities, and not dictated by the school time table, ie. we can choose to do more Add Maths practice when the PA teacher is teaching us crap and most of the time doesn’t have an inkling on what she’s teaching.

4 grand master Swee Leong sits in front of us – chief reference for knowledge, wisdom, humor and homework.

As for after-school-eat-in-the-school-canteen buddies, we’re probably nerdy, economical people who don’t go out to chow much during those days. Anyway, my school canteen served delicious Char Koay Teow back then.

Fast forward.

Last day of May.

Early morning, I made the journey to Gilbert’s house. Took a simple breakfast, great cooking by Gil’s mom.

And we’re off to capture the bride at Batu Ferringhi.

Easy tasks at hand, leaving the photo-taking to the hired Pros.

Nothing the brotherhood of heng tai couldn’t handle.

Gilbert got Casey, kiss kiss hug hug and off to Casey’s grandma’s house to pray and pay respect to ancestor.

Kar Loon and I together with our missus made the early journey to the church to meet up with Choy Mei as Sheau Wen’s unborn child by Chinese belief should not encounter with the bride before her prayers.

Choy Mei, Gab’s gf, was put in charge of the deco for the church mass, mainly about the balloons.

And while waiting, lots of fine pics with the balloons were taken.

Initially planned to tie each balloons to every row of seats in the church, however, was stopped by the person in charge.

“This is church, not hall. Not balloon allowed inside. Thank you.”

He does have a valid point, and he made his point in the most polite way.

And so we’re left with flowers and confetti.

All stood up for the march in.

Armed and ready to let loose colourful petals and confettis into the air. Sheau Wen and her cynical grin.

The mass began.

The celebration was bigger as Gilbert and Casey held each other tightly, walking out of the church, follows by short photo sessions.

Lastly, the beautiful bouquet of flowers was being gracefully thrown to mark the next bride-to-be among the bridesmaids.

Gilbert and Casey: Two hearts that beat as one. As one flesh.

smoking HOT!!!

thanks to palmdoc for the lead in.

here's 45 most creative anti-smoking ads.

Here's my personal poster on anti-smoking...

once upon a time in sarawak

this one completely ciplak...

balloons...