Category: medicine

On Passion

It’s great to be surrounded by people so passionate in what they’re doing. They never tire in teaching or sharing their knowledge, they keep pursuing further knowledge, they love that you want to know more and they get excited about you asking questions. And the best part is that no matter what these people are passionate about, their love of the subject, their bursts of energy and enthusiasm never fails to seep out and affect the others around them. It’s just wow. It’s completely inspiring. I’m just grateful to be here, to know these people, to learn from them. 
A professor left us with this before he returned to the States: “You know, I always tell my students, whether it’s clinical medicine, research or teaching, you should pick one and excel in it. It doesn’t matter what. Just pick one and shine in it. If you wanna excel in all three, that’s fine. But if you don’t want to excel in anything, well. Then I don’t know why we’re here at all.” 

Note: Picture above was taken in Singapore Art Museum. I loved it the moment I saw it. So vibrant, so full of life. 🙂

Back to School

It’s not so much the idea of being back to school that excites me, but more of the fact that I finally get to learn all that I want to learn, and do what I want to do. Here’s to another four years of late-night mugging, pots of coffee, exams, sleepless nights and interesting stories. Here’s to ‘a new beginning’! 🙂 

Nurses’ Day

At least in Singapore it’s around this time of the year. International Nurses’ Day is sometime in May. Wonder who else celebrates nurses’ day yesterday.

I wanna say they’re a great bunch of people; taking care of patients day-in day-out. It’s really a tough job you know, especially those who work in the chronic sick homes and the nursing homes. The fact that they have to change them at least 5 times a day, shower them at least once a day, transfer them etc. is back-breaking enough (I know I couldn’t have lasted more than a month doing these); and on top of that they have to feed them, tend to their needs whenever necessary, talk to them cheer them up make them feel loved. Well. Ideally that’s how they’re supposed to be. I often wonder how they do it (then again- there’s the economic incentive, the fact that they have to earn a living and fulfill their Maslow’s basic needs).

Won’t deny there are lots of good nurses out there, but I’m sure that, just as there are some nasty doctors out there who think they’re all that, there are also nurses who can be abusive as well. That Nightingale Nursing Home incident was a good example. From what I gather, at times it can be quite hard to manage them too. They’d do things for their convenience’s sake even though they know it’s wrong. When caught, they’d still try to go about it their own way but improvise such that they won’t get caught. But what I can’t stand are those who’re abusive to patients. For those, I lose all respect for them.

Not that I wanna badmouth nurses on this day, it’s just that while I appreciate the good nurses’ hard work, at the corner of my mind I wonder to myself, what are those ‘bad’ nurses thinking/feeling during this occasion? Are they really proud of their work as a nurse? Are they really compassionate people with just a few terrible episodes that could happen to just about everyone? Really, what are they thinking? If in the future I ever chance upon them, I’d be sure to interview them.

In any case, happy nurses’ day! I hope everyone felt loved and appreciated. 🙂

Woah

saw this video, and i had to share this. being the geek that i am, i always find it fascinating that technology can do so much to enhance our learning experience.