Burn, baby, burn

“The strong wind howled in fury as the heavy storm reigned in disdain. Thunder and lightning flashed across the dark skies as people sought cover under sturdy buildings. A group of little boys who were playing football in the field ran for any form of shelter but one of them was too slow and providence had it that he would be struck by lightning. Among the group of children, he was singled out by Fate. A few thousand watts of electricity flowed through his body. The initial agony was mercifully quick as the child collapsed from the sheer heat. As the path of electricity zapped through his body, all the cells along the way were literally ‘fried’ by the high temperature.”

Small towns, especially in states with paddy fields do see a lot of cases of lightning-related burn injuries. The surgical team (plastic or general surgery) manages these patients together with the anaesthesiologist, physicians and so on. These patients has dismally low rate of survival due to the massive injuries. Their faces will be charred beyond recognition and their skin in hard, unyielding pieces that might compromise even their breathing.

“In the casualty, the child was seen frothing from his mouth as we quickly intubated him so that he can continue breathing with the aid of a machine. All the important steps were taken to stabilize him in order to allow him a fighting chance of survival. A few long incisions were made on his chest wall so that the thick ‘casing’ of burnt flesh is opened. This is ‘escharotomy’ a life-saving procedure so that the child’s chest wall could expand. Multiple intravenous lines were set-up and a massive transfusion of fluids was initiated to replace the loss of tissue and fluids. Investigations were taken. There are tubes almost in every body orifices as the child was admitted to intensive care for the biggest fight of his life that is just to stay alive as in this case, it does consume a lot of energy.”

One of the most dramatic burn injuries are lightning-related injuries. The patients suffer from multiple organ damages and the protective skin cover is loss. The heart could stop just because of the massive electrical discharges. The kidneys will inevitably fail. Not to mention, the susceptibility to infections as the patient falls prey to multiple bugs within and without himself.

“His parents waited outside the cold corridor, huddled together in nervousness and anxiety. More relatives arrived to accompany them as each took turns to go into the intensive care to visit the little boy, who looked extremely small and fragile. Most of them gasped at the sight as the normally active, playful, cheeky child is now reduced to a mass of dark, charred flesh dependent on machines to be alive.”

Electrical and burn injuries are quite common in Malaysia. Lightning-strikes are rare and dramatic but household burn and scalds are daily occurrences. We see babies, children, adults and grannies with all kinds of accidents involving hot water, oil, petrol, etc. This is just a grim reminder of how badly a person can get burnt.

“1 week has passed by. The child grew almost emaciated over time. His fever has never settled. The armamentarium of expensive antibiotics couldn’t seem to halt the progression of the massive infection. One by one, his organs failed him. By the second week, the doctors faced the grim, unpleasant prospect of announcing the unevitable…that the child might be taken off life support due to the hopeless situation. The entire family came to the meeting with sober faces and downcast facies as a somber atmosphere descended upon the meeting room. Breaking bad news can be the most difficult, heart-wrenching communication in a doctor’s life. Before long, the whole family came to accept the situation and the child passed on in peace after a few short years on earth.”

Grief can be a healing process for many. When it comes to road-traffic accidents, assaults, severe burns and so forth, the sudden escalation of bad news may be unacceptable to many people. Somehow, we doctors face it so much that we run the risk of becoming numb to the emotional upheaval in order to protect ourselves, our mental health. Yet this opportunity and privilege to embrace life at its core, to deftly handle all the highly-charged emotional situations, is part of this art we call medicine.

By the way, a few friends have asked me about the relevance of the photographs that i put in my blog as it's usually not related to the topic i m speaking about. the only reason is that my topics are usually kinda grim and I need to insert some hopeful, happy pictures to balance up the article.

My love for the written word

Recently, I have acquired the taste of reading non-fiction articles and blogs. Being a bookworm all throughout my teenage years (& maybe until now), books are priceless treasures that will always gladden my heart. I have learnt early in life that no one can steal knowledge and wisdom away from you. Nonetheless, this newly-discovered interest in self-help and non-fiction books sprung out of nowhere and now I am reading 3 books simultaneously on various issues.




One of my all-time favourite is the ‘Purpose-Driven Live’ by Rick Warren. I have just completed ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie. There is also the famous book on the 7 Habits to achieve an Effective Life by Stephen Covey opened on my desk. I don’t know how I could assimilate all these ideas at the same time but trust me, reading self-help books can be quite illuminating and challenging at times.


Why illuminating? It dawned upon me that I’ve been cultivating wrong habits all this while and perpetuating errors in the way I handle people. Why challenging? There are so many ideas and thoughts that I have yet to bring myself to accept although I do believe that these are very good, noble suggestions. Nevertheless, I’m a fan of this kind of books now.




Then I realized that all these books are written by Western men. It’s not that I have anything against the Western civilization or the male gender. It’s just kind of funny that a lot of fiction and literature materials are written by great female writers but when it comes to good non-fiction, I need to search a while before finding good female writers. Of course, an army of feminists will howl in protest and start hurling names like JK Rowlings, Jane Austen, Virgina Woolf, Agatha Christie, etc but then I start to scratch my head and rethink..





hey they all write fictional, entertaining stories mah. How about some nitty-gritty stuff on world peace, global economy or something like that? (chuckle, world peace is a tribute to all the beauty pageant contestants) Is there someone to accept the gauntlet, this challenge of writing something that can alter the lives of many?


Just the other day, I was wondering whether I could start writing a book on any given subject, especially a non-fiction book. What will it be? Is it possible for a young Malaysian girl to write about something that could transform many people and help motivate someone else?

The normal expectation is that I will write something about medical life and my career but together will my dry style of writing and lack of wit, the end product might be something that is run-of-the-mill, downright boring and uninspiring.

I am still thinking and pondering. Can my online friends suggest any ideas? In the meantime, let me continue to indulge in my twin passions of writing (blogs) and reading (any books whatsoever)

It's not always about me..a community-minded message :-)

Human beings are very funny creatures. There is always a deeper instinct to fight for survival but given a choice, we do have noble and high motives in each of us. True altruism and activism lie within us depending on how much we give others some thoughts in life instead of thinking about ourselves all the time. Being too introspective reinforces our selfishness and self-preoccupation. So today I am going to talk about two topics which are not related to me.



Recently, there was an issue with land instability in a hostel near Gopeng, which is 45 minutes away from here. The students of a matriculation college were staying in a block near a slope. Due to the recent rain, the slope became unstable and the land started to give way. However, before disaster strikes, the students were moved out of their rooms before any landslide or building collapse were to occur.



Then the news died down and nothing much was mentioned about this tale. I found out that for the past few weeks, the students were camping out in different halls while revising for their exams. Others bunked in with their friends on other blocks. Hundreds of students were displaced from their rooms.



It’s weird that construction work and safety standards concerning public buildings seem to deteriorate with time. It was just recently that another state building in Perak collapse. Before long, this silver state will be known as the state with most collapsible buildings. We cannot have ‘house of cards’ being toppled over at the slightest storm or tremor. The quality of buildings should be guaranteed before it was declared fit for occupation.





Somebody from a pharmaceutical firm approached us recently concerning a vaccine which is in the market for some time but slow to gain popularity due to its controversial nature. Why? It’s to prevent infection from certain strains of human papillomavirus that can cause cervical cancer. We all know that HPV is transmitted via oral-genital or genital-genital routes, meaning it’s mostly through sexual intercourse.


Numerous debates raged on in a few developed countries between some moral-religious bodies and the health authorities. Some feel that the use of the vaccine in young ladies/girls (before the age of 26 year old) will promote promiscuity while the health workers heavily promote this vaccine as we cannot regulate human behaviour nor it’s a licence to do whatever we want with random people.


Most importantly, we feel that it’s a tool to prevent the second most-lethal cancer among women in many countries, including Malaysia. As of now, the only prohibitive factors among many would-be takers are the cost, accessibility and the lack of promotion as to many people, cervical cancer is considered ‘taboo’ and most prefer not to talk about it.



As a young doctor who is within the targeted age group, I welcome and highly-appreciate any form of enquiries or discussion about this cancer, the innovative and easily-available vaccine and any thoughts on prevention of cancers among women in Malaysia, especially breast and cervical cancer.


Oh, talking about breast cancer, of course for now, we cannot prevent the development of breast cancer but early detection is life-saving and breast self-examination is the among the simplest, routine action any woman can do monthly.

My Funny Friend & I

For the first time in my life, I think I have found a girl with the most humourous life and funny spirit. She is working in the same hospital as me and she really does the darnedest thing. I mean, the things that happen when she is around is downright hilarious and offbeat. Of course, this kind of things could be worrisome at times but hey, we always have a good laugh about it later.





For example, we all know that the price of steel and metal products is going up. As a result, metal thieves are having a field day stealing any form of metal things. Covers for potholes, steel pylons and even electrical cables are the most wanted things in Malaysia.


In TI, certain houses have potholes right in the middle of the front gates. In normal scenario, the covers will be intact and functioning well. However, my friend had her pothole cover stolen but we didn’t know about it. On fine night, exactly like Mr Bean, she didn’t see the gaping hole and fell into the open sewage hole. She literally disappeared into the face of the earth before our eyes!

Of course, she suffered from some injuries to her legs but you could imagine our initial shock and the later laughing sessions. It was really now you see her, now you don’t :-p

The next occasion was something that just happened recently. She was having some stomach pain and took a sedating painkiller. Mind you, it was just 1 tablet and she is a healthy young lady. Before long, she became very sleepy due the medication right in the hospital. In fact, she was so drowsy, she fell asleep in the casualty.

Being doctors, her colleagues were so worried that we ran a battery of tests for her and even set her up on an IV drip. However, all she wanted was a good sleep for a few hours and she achieved that…in the casualty department! This sleeping beauty was so knocked-out that when I went to collect her, I sent her home and she proceeded to even more sleep.

So this article is all about my cute friend who lightens up the lives of all her friends. Here's a big cheer to Emily C :-)

Durian Fever

Malaysians love durians. Therefore this is a season of love as we begin to find this thorny fruits in abundant through-out this country. All durian-lovers welcome this period of fruitfulness with eagerness and exuberance. As for me, I haven’t eaten this fruit for nearly 2 years and so I was very eager when a few friends began to tempt me with this indulgence. We made a date to consume this ‘heaty’ fruit on a good Friday evening.




After work one fine Friday as I was walking back home from the hospital, I exited the casualty and lo and behold, there was this car filled with durians. Being a very curious person, I approached the makcik who parked her car quite near the red zone (resuscitation exit) to see what’s going on. To my pleasant surprise, she was selling durians!!

Yup, exactly on the day we wanted to have a durian party, the durians came to us right to our doorstep at the front of the casualty. I was thinking of a durian-related injury or something like that but seriously, only this kind of funny event can occur in a Malaysian hospital. Leave it to the spirit of entrepreneurship! In Malaysia, we not only could find pizzas for delivery but we could even get durians delivered to us!! Moreover, the makcik comes from Kg Gajah, which is a town very famous for good durians in Perak.

I couldn’t resist the temptation and called my friend from the labour room to come out and help me pick some of the fruits. We’ve gotten a handful of big durians at the price of RM10 and within minutes, a group of us were in my apartment eagerly consuming the sweet flesh right after work.

I guess we will never understand why foreigners detest this awesome fruit as we greedily feasted on the scrumptious fruit. Of course we already made a date for the next party! So is anybody keen to join us in D.C for the next gathering? The King (of fruit) is here!

P.S.: Serve me right for being such a glutton. I woke up this morning and lo and behold…pimples! Yup, had a minor breakout on my face due to the ‘heaty’ nature of this marvelous fruit. Should have taken some mangosteens to balance thing out. Hahaha…