Mar 19, 2009

tap project

grateful to: clement for this awareness

Photo © UNICEF/HQ96-1166

before we move on to Earth Hour.

I guess we should know that next week is World Water Week, March 22-28, 2009.

And the water that we take for granted. The tap water we left flowing

special tap


Every day, 4,200 children die of water-related diseases. Nearly 900 million people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water.

Someone really wise once mentioned that the great inventor in medical field is not the antibiotic's Fleming, but rather the inventor of the flushing toilet.

Dirty water or the lack of water is almost equal to death.

In 2007, the Tap Project was born in New York City based on a simple concept: restaurants would ask their patrons to donate $1 or more for the tap water they usually enjoy for free, and all funds raised would support UNICEF’s efforts to bring clean and accessible water to millions of children around the world.

Growing from just 300 New York City restaurants in 2007 to over 2,300 across the country in 2008, the Tap Project has quickly grown into a national movement. Restaurants, corporations, volunteers, advertising agencies, community groups, local governments and everyday diners participated to save millions of children’s lives.

If you have that extra bucks, donate it. For every dollar raised, a child will have clean drinking water for 40 days.

If you don't have it, simply cherish the water that you have and stop wasting water.

This year, the UN World Water Day theme is "Shared Water–Shared Opportunities."
Special focus will be placed on transboundary waters. This year on World Water Day, we call attention to the waters that cross borders and link us together. Whether we live upstream or downstream, we are all in the same boat.

child_drinking_water.jpg

Mar 18, 2009

common sense 1


sometimes, there's more than one.

there I was suturing up in C-Section, the phone in MOT (maternity OT) rang, and the SN of MOT asked me someone in the O&G clinic asking me whether or not I am busy.

FGS(for goodness sake), I am performing a C-Section.

The question on whether or not I am busy while i'm operating - is that

A. a question?
B. a joke?
C. a sarcastic remark?
D. another average Malaysian's common sense?

Lost: 7,8

Grateful to: all the SNs in OT for running around trying to find the perfect connectors for the hysteroscope, yet couldn't found one.

Little Aedan is becoming more and more cheeky. I don't know whether that part of the gene is from me.

At least I know he is not as quite as I was when I was small. Today, he got a bump on his head. He couldn't get the things he wanted and he ran around like amok and knocked his head onto the wall. Too late for anyone to stop him. It's time for him to understand the consistency of the wall - hard.

I know I surely wouldn't run amok when I was a little kid, because I was too fat to be running.

He's been learning a lots of vocab from that AAA ciplak Baby Einstein series from JB. He is currently even learning about the animal I don't even know of. One example is caribou. The nearest word I knew to caribou is probably Karembau.

And the most hopeless thing to do is for him to count 7 and 8. always and forever missing.

Me: One...
A: one... two... theeeeeeeee....
Me: Four...
A: fourfivezix...
Me: Seven...
A: Nine, TEN!!!! YEAH!! (and he clapped wildly)
Me: No, Seven!! (Serious face)
A: Nine, TEN!!! YEah!!! (again the wild clapping)
Me: Aedan, what about seven?
A: Nine, TEN!!! YEah!!! (again the wild clapping)
Me: Aedan, you say seven, eight... we go kai kai...
A: Selen... Nine, TEN!!! YEah!!! (again the wild clapping)
Me: Where's eight?
A: Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai... Kai Kai...

I guess you know where this conversation ends.

7, 8 goes kai kai everytime counting started.

Mar 17, 2009

at your 'cervix'

grateful to: Bayer's Yee Ling for the little guide on all the latest contraceptives of the world.

It was a busy day. Diving down to help out my colleagues who are really busy and practically (probably) seeing her world turned upside down or other way round.

I was called to help out as the 2nd call colleague stuck with C-Section.

I was told there was this massive PPH secondary to ? cervical tear happening in the ward and sending to OT for EUA and proceed. EUA is just another fancy term meaning examination under anaesthesia, meaning we try to knock out the pain maximally in order we could position this lady for a better view of the problem.

This was the same lady that gone through ventouse earlier this morning by my junior colleague supervised by me. I was really stumped because there was not much bleeding after the ventouse and there was definitely only small first degree tear.

My junior colleague told me it was probably a cervical tear and she had bled 750cc so far, by pad and gauze calculation. Gauze nowadays are getting thinner and thinner (probably thanks to CSSD earning kopi duit from taking those ciplak stuff in), I guess she may have overcalculated. But still the bleeding was real.

I cleaned and did a simple digital vaginal examination.

Hmm. It looked like the cervix, bled like the cervix, torn like a cervix, but it definitely doesn't feel like cervix. It was somehow less fibrous and less firm. Anyway, post partum cervix may have felt that way. But still not that bulky.

With simple strength, I try to pull out that piece in the vagina. It got torn off.

Bright light in OT.

This is definitely no cervix.

It's the placenta and I proceed to grab another big chunk of 500mg of it out.

Ta daaa...

Bleeding stopped.

Reexplored by ERPOC and did some simple suturing of minor vaginal wall tear.

Re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-reviewed the post delivery notes: placenta and membrane complete.

Most probably diagnosis: Succenturiate lobe. In layman term, it's another satellite lobe from the main lobe. Not an everyday diagnosis of PPH.


tip of the iceberg

Iranian judiciary orders jail term for news agency headThe Malaysian Medical Council has acted against 13 doctors — including striking the names of two of them off the medical register — for various offences last year.

Among them are:
1. Dr Nusyirwan Mohd Syukur - using UKM instead of the real uni (fraud)
2. Dr Zuabidah Zabidin - allowing an unqualified person to attend, treat and prescribe scheduled poisons to patients without her or any other registered practitioner's supervision. (dangerous)

This news came as a warning and also a timely regulatory, but with lack of knowledge, lack of practical training, lack of commitment from the medical school, and finally with increasing patients load, patients' demands, red tape in public practice and politic play in medical practice, this is as what Winston Churchill once said, " This is not the end, or the beginning, this is the end of the beginning."

Time will tell whether we'll see beyond the tip of iceberg.