Saturday, February 7, 2009

Summary of my first week in HRPBI

I’m back to city life again! Yes…putting me into the city of limestone and chicken noodles after DC was like immersing myself from lukewarm water to spicy hot soup. There are just so many things to do here, especially when it comes to work. I’ve not heard of doing morning rounds until 2 p.m. or morning clinics until 3 pm for the past 2 years. It reminded me of my house officer days of yesteryears. I guess I was slowing down to a different pace and its time to push up the intensity.



My first few days were filled with upper GI bleed and severe hepatobiliary sepsis. We were inundated with many patients vomiting blood, passing out bloody or blackish stool, jaundice and fever and all the lethal combination that we see once or twice a day in DC.











In this place, it’s almost once or twice every 4 hours and as a result, the wards are perpetually in overflow state. I really pity the patients being crammed into such inhumane small spaces but we had no choice as most of them are still ill and not fit for discharge. There is a serious need for more wards in Ipoh as people are flocking to general hospitals due to the economy downturn.




Personally, I don’t mind the work as I enjoy it so much. All I need is adequate feeding and so far, my meals have been out of sync. We often advise patients to take regular, small meals but we are the biggest culprits, often being dehydrated, missing out on meals, eating at odd hours plus eating cold, oily and unhealthy food due to the poor quality of food in hospital cafeteria, etc.








Well, the best part about this place is that I’m staying with people I like, i.e PS and Mich. Both of them have been great in welcoming me to their nice condo and I think it’s going to be easier for me to readjust back to Ipoh with these two cool people around. Not only that, it’s easier for me to plan to go back KL as there are so many doctors originating from KL, thus we could carpool back on any given weekends. Hooray!
P.S : HRPBI is the name of my new hospital. Go figure...

2 comments:

imissw said...

hospital raja permaisuri bainun, ipoh?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for serving the patients at Hospital Teluk Intan. We may have never crossed paths but as a local TI boy now working abroad, my hats off to you for a job well done!

Cheers!