Under the knife!

Writing this post at 11.53am on 1st July 2009, so I've no idea which block we were in, but I remembered that we had a hospital attachment, and my group was lucky enough to sneak into the operation theatre, hiak hiak hiak...

Before entering the theatre. *scissors*

My group member Ling. (eh your mask tercabut la)

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We were told to wear operation cloth before entering. The surgeons wore green ones, while the helpers and *ehem* keh poh chis wore purple ones. Easily distinguished.

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"You DON'T come in and out of the theatre ok? We emphasised on absolute sterility, so only 1 of you can be inside at any 1 time." We nodded, but somehow, all of us were inside later on...!

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During the operation. There was a woman with a tumour at the right side of her cerebellum, so the surgeons needed various angle of her brain scan, like a map that shows the way into this little tumour.

Some views of the theatre. All the equipments were so damn expensive that their total cost might exceed the cost of a Perodua Kancil. The cost is equivalent, not the quality :)

The operation started at 11 something in the morning, after they properly anaesthetised and secured the patient. It was a pretty major and invasive operation- they had to first shave off half of the patient's hair, mark and cut open the affected scalp area, and expose the part of the skull. Since cerebellum is under the skull, they had to drill a hole to access to the tumour.

There was 2 types of surgery drills: big and small. The big one was for rough drill, while the small drills delicately around the intended area to get to the tumour.

So they were like grabbed the drill and "weeeeee~~~" drilled into the skull while the debris of the bone were flying everywhere like snowflakes!

One thing I had respect for the surgeons was they carried out the operation for 6 hours without stopping. By the time he said: "You guys may leave now. Leave! Before I change my mind!", it was already 4 something in the afternoon, and they had just finished clearing up the tumour.

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Being a surgeon is my dream, but maybe not brain surgeon... made me thought of form 3 Kemahiran Hidup class, haha.

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Why there isn't a movie theatre in Kelantan?!

Community placement

Finally, today we went for the oh- so- looked- forward community placement, which will be organised by every small group discussion of first year medical student. My group went to Yayasan Orang Kurang Upaya Kelantan or YOKUK. Our schedule:

9 am - Arriving YOKUK/ Watch introductory videos by YOKUK
10 am - Performance by us/ Games
11 am - Birthday celebration
12 pm - Lunch
2 pm - Interview with OKU
4 pm - Back

Basically it went well. After we performed by singing I Have A Dream, Kenneth said: "Did you see the look on those kids' face? As if they're forced to listen to us!" Well at least they did not close their ears la, so we assume we done great, haha.

The birthday cake, after some AEIOU games. It's specially for kids borned in November.

Hey Kiet, look, his phone is even better than yours. Hmm.

This guy was the only chinese in YOKUK. He looked perfectly fine, just that he had some problem in speaking.

Isabelle. Occupational therapist from Spain. She came all the way from Spain to Kelantan. So noble. Felt so small beside her, haha.

When we were tidying up the premis, all of the chinese in our group did this... Hmm whose idea was this? =.=

After the morning session we had a 2 hour break, and we had our lunch just across the road. As usual, only 2 or 3 stalls were opened in a huge food court. Maybe they left the empty spaces for cat- rearing.

After lunch, we paid a visit to the therapy room, specially designed and equipped with items to aid recovery of the impaired.

These light- emitting optic fibres was aimed to help those visually- impaired and also incapable in sensory touch, if not wrong.

Optic fibres. Safe for the children.

Eh wake up lo, we got work to do.

After the visit, we resumed our activities for the afternoon session, which is interview with the impaired.

The first client my friends and I interviewed. He was actually fine, just light effect from cerebral palsy, which costed some of his speaking abilities. Well he looked ok though, having a wife and a decent job now, in this organization. What surprised me was that he studied electrical engineering last time, before he got infected. He deserved better I guess.

The second and third we interviewed. Honestly, I did not see any problems on the man, and he did not want to tell. Speaking disabilities for the woman. They did sewing work here to earn some living. By the way, the man is looking for his partner, he is perfectly alright actually, so anyone interested can contact me ya, haha.

Went back at 4.30 p.m.. Basically most of the disabled are still quite capable, so I think they deserve a decent job, according to their limits.

Compensation

Today we had our pratical on method to separate plasma protein by electrophoresis, that is using electricity to separate components of plasma protein in blood based on their different electrical charges. There were 24 groups of students in total, so first 12 groups did it first for today.

When we settled down and turned towards the scientist, he explained the method, and later he said:

"The fact is, we only provided 9 sets of materials. So you guys share among... "

How could this happen laaa?! So disappointing!

But I managed to get 1 set, heheh.

Left: Chun's agar plate. Right: my agar plate.

The above were the result of the separation. Notice that my separation column was shifted lower compared to Chun's.

This is because when I applied the plasma protein onto the agar plate, the plasmas were accidentally applied lower than the expected margin. Thus the plasmas diffused all along the way until they 'collided' with the printed numbers.

Since the resources were so scarce and everyone in my group was staring at me when I was doing the experiment, I was so anxious that it could not make it and that the plamas would diffuse out of the plate.

Luckily the plate was made to be much longer that needed. To compensate careless mistakes made by people like me, haha.

No matter what we do, we should consider also the compensatory action, in case mistakes occur. Isn't that wonderful?

Ponteng

As a first year medical student, all of us are required to organise and visit a charity establishment nearby Kelantan. We need to plan activities to be carried out at that establishment of our choice and spend not more than RM 400. Some previous visits done activities like gotong- royong and sukaneka.

Contohnya.

So exciting.

Anyway, my group decided to go to Yayasan Orang Kurang Upaya Kelantan (YOKUK). As there was a period of free time right after the first lecture in the morning, me and 2 of the other group leaders drove to Padang Tembak to get approval and discuss details of the one- day- activity with the person in charge there, Puan Habibah.

After the first lecture ended, we went out around 10am, headed into some wrong directions, twisting and turning then finally reached YOKUK. The meeting went well and everyone was happy and anticipating.

We came back to lecture hall at 12pm.

Obviously, we missed Mr. Vitamin's lecture. So disappointing. By the time we reached lecture hall, the lecture just ended and people were walking around doing things.

It was like we woke up from a coma. Everything seemed unchanged, but changes actually took place, that is we missed Mr. Vitamin's lecture!

But I think it was for a good cause. For charity sake. And this was my first time missing lecture.

But why Mr. Vitamin's?!

Nobody

Today we had our first chance to examine a body-

No. Actually, it was just a plastinated specimen. The arm. The specimen was soaked in formalin for preservation. But too bad, after numerous examinations by previous students, many of the nerves and muscles were maimed and undiscernable.

How good if we can dissect cadaver... Heard that some students in other public U choose their own cadaver for dissection. Hmph.

My lair

Outer views of my hostel building.

I like this hostel except for a few things:

1) Small rooms (quartet somemore)

2) Lousy cafe (no, cannot say lousy, because it is closed down)

3) Full of cats, full of sh*t (I once saw a notice on a toilet room: 'Tolong tutup pintu supaya kucing tidak masuk :-)')

4) Feminished male wailings (midnight. sigh, pathetic creatures)

Oh man that meow-ing again...

First time!

Hey look, this was the first time I had the chance to sit so near to the lecture stage! Heheh.

Although I shall have numerous chances to sit here in the future, I wonder why.

Start of block

In my medical school, each topic is referred to as 'block'.

Today is few days after the start of Nursing block, and some medical personnel were invited to share their respective experiences.

In this field, one man show does not exist. Doctors need pharmacists to dispense drugs, raadiologist to handle medical imaging, physiotherapist to take care of impaired patients during their recovery, dietitian to give advices etc.

Left to right: dietitian, radiologist, pharmacist and physiotherapist.

Library

Perpustakaan Hamdan Tahir.

I like the library... From the day I started being a librarian, I never thought that a library can be that quiet.

So quiet, you feel uneasy. Eerie, perhaps.

But the good thing is the amount of books in this compound is huge. Especially academical references, you can get it all here.

Although what I see every time was messy collections on 'popular' shelves with nothing much left. Like these people have not read a book for centuries.

Shrink to fit

My desk in my hostel room.

It was a quartet room. 4 desk with 2 double- deckers behind them.

So when your roommate walks past you, you have to shift your chair forward a little, or else your coffee will spill.

The hostel management said nothing regarding this.

Yes they did. They said that if you are not active enough in extra- curricular activities, you will be kicked out and forced to stay outside, instead of giving you another room like this.

The golf- course area covers half of the entire campus area!

Communication?

If I'm not mistaken, they were having a short sketch on one of the types of communication.

Gossiping? You are probably correct.

Second Day!

Today we had a lecture with the topic : " Respect for teachers".

Then I talked about Miss Tan, my form six Pengajian Am teacher. I respect her, as a teacher, the most.

I miss them.

How are you, Miss Tan? And Miss Lim? Madam Ho? Is Madam Teo alright? Mr. Koo, any new and prettier anak angkat? Haha.

First lecture!

First lecture!

Our class is super big! Around 360 first- year taking medicine and dentistry, including 80 repeats. Sometimes I wondered why shortage of medical personnel still happens with this kind of enrollment rate...

But then, maybe many of the graduates disappear upon graduation... Where are them?

Anyway when I got into the lecture hall at 9.45 am, this is where I sat.

OK lah, not very far from the stage lah. Not yet the back row lah. =.=