Sunday, July 26, 2009

Yasmin Ahmad 1958-2009


Yasmin Ahmad
1958 - 2009

I feel like writing something about the demise of Yasmin Ahmad.
It was confirmed that Yasmin Ahmad, aged 51 years old has passed away at 11.15pm yesterday in Damansara Specialist Hospital.She was in a coma for 3 days(I think!) after suffering from a haemorrhagic stroke.3 days prior to admission, she was in a midst of a discussion with Dato Siti with her old husband wtf in TV3 HQ Bandar Utama before collapsed.

To me, she was an icon legend.It came as a shocking to me becoz she was one of the few directors in Malaysia who can actually made a difference in the local entertainment scene.She was well known with her movies such as Gubra and the latest Talentime.Though I didnt watched all of them but from the outstanding reviews and the awards that were received, I am sure Malaysia is and will always be proud of her.

This prolific director has her own unique way of reaching to Malaysians heart through her tv commercials for Petronas.Some of them were witty,funny and some were of coz deadly sad.Nonetheless, all of them had special meaning to it.
This was a big loss for Malaysia.Great minds like these dont come very often.Let us all pray for her peace and may Allah bless her soul.Amin.

p/s I went to the gym early in the morning and work my a** out and currently energy-less .zzZZzzz...Have a nice weekend everyone! =)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Critical appraisal

My groupmates and I are currently doing critical appraisal on a medical journal.The title is

'Effect of long-acting Nifedipine on mortality and cardiovascular morbidity in patients with stable angina requiring treatmet (ACTION trial): randomized clinical trial'

Doing clinical appraisal is not an easy task.Now is the time to apply all the knowledge and thats when then the problem comes.
I'm tired and I juz wanna sleep.

edited at 9.15pm today.

This posting is good coz one of its main objective is to ensure u on how to critically appraise a journal so that u wont be duped by a short-wearing skirt drug representative,promoting their drugs later when you work as a doctor.Sadly, there are significant numbers of doctors out there who are clueless/confused about evidence based medicine, therefore become prey for drug companies.
I didnt know that there are a lot of types of medical journals out there .eg diagnostic,prognostic,therapeutic etc.Tomorrow is exam.byebye.



p/s: The Good Clinical Practice (GCP) certificate exam is next week.comon bebeh, nak jadi certifified medical researcher.

p/s2: omg.so many technical terms involved

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Bersosial

Went for workout at the gym just now.Currently having abs cramp, contracting intermittently...

Will be having elective proposal presentation with Prof Khairul tomorrow at 1.30pm....

Will be watching the NEW Harry Plotter movie at Cineleisure tomorrow with a couple of friends....

Will be watching Nik's band performing at the Laundry The Curve Damansara tomorrow night...

Who says medical students cant have social life?

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

And so the NEW semester starts

Yes, and so the new semester starts.Will be doing a posting called 'Research and Evidence Based Medicine' or in short 'REBM'.
I quote from my course handout:

'It is crucial and indeed critical for future doctors to be trained in Evidence Based Medicine and how to apply it in daily practice.Many universities neglect this topic, some do not even teach it formally at the post graduate level.Clinical epidemiology is the basis of Evidence Based Medicine, a mantra repeated by many,understood by a few and practice by very few'.

Learning on how to think (critically, laterally and creatively) are essential in a doctor's life.We wudn't want to be duped by the drugs rep when we work later.We need to be able to critically appraise medical journal which are needed to know which facts are fake, which facts are true.Critical and analytical mind plays vital role in the success in this field.

This course will only be for 4 weeks, in which I will b sitting an internationally recognised exam in order to obtain 'Good Clinical Practice (GCP) certificate'.Passing this test will mean that I'll be an internationally accredited as a researcher in medicine( so I was told.I wasnt interested yet upon hearing this).I will b able to conduct experiments using humans!(Now I'm all hyped up!Conducting tests with humans, how cool is that!!!)This course are usually offered at post graduate level but I am indeed lucky to sit this test during my undergrad.It is indeed expensive to sit for this test if u r an independent candidate,probably need to pay a few thousand RM.I dont need to pay a single cent.Now how cool is that.I hope and I will try my best to pass the test.

REBM looks challenging.

ps: I didnt know until about few days ago that there actually people who consistently, diligently read my blog.Looks like I have to take blogging a little bit more serious.yeah?

Friday, June 12, 2009

And so the semester ends....

Alhamdulillah...

Maka dengan ini tamatlah pengajian perubatan saya untuk tahun ini...

Had my long case clinical exam last Monday.Dapat COAD case.Malangnye patient was rather a poor historian.History was rather here and there.Rasa nk menangis pun ade masa clerking.However, I still managed to get good differential diagnosis in the end.Differential diagnosis sangat penting because without them we cannot suggest relevant investigations to the examiner which carries 20 marks in exam.Discussion part was okay except kantoi sket bila ditanya pasal 'What do you know about H1N1 epidemic?Like need to know how many positive cases so far, mortality rate etc'Nampak sgt tak tekun membaca newspaper...

Theory paper was today.The questions looked easy but actually tricky.Quite frustrated with the Single best answer section.SAQ and EMQ were okay I guess.I seriuosly cannot forget my pre clinical basics because they will still ask them in clinical exams.Like how am I supposed to remember the name of the stain used for Cryptococcus neoformans.The answer is Indian stain by the way....

Went to help my juniors with revision later in the evening.They are about to sit for their first paper tomorrow.Professional exam babe...jgn main-main punya exam.An exam that will determine them whether they are fit,worthy and most importantly safe competent medical students to roam the wards.Good luck guys.

Its 2am,just got back frm 'lepaking' with my old friends around KL.Its good to update myself with their latest gossips hahaha.just kidding

Okla.1 month holiday.Any suggestions on how to spend the holiday?

p/s: Finally Ronaldo is leaving Old Trafford for Bernabeu at a whooping price tag of 80million pound sterling.A warm goodbye to Ronaldo-he's been a good servant , and all parties got what they wanted.Let's leave it at that.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Air mata

Dear blog, u know what....I have a confession to make.I cried this week!

It happened 2 days ago during bedside teaching with prof.I had a patient who had stroke 2 days ago.She is a 43 yr old Indonesian lady, came to Malaysia about 6 months ago utk mencari rezeki yg halal,workin as babysitter.But she developed stroke and now is paralyzed on her right side.Everything went ok, but soon after I performed neuroligical examination of the lower limb on her in front of prof and my colleagues, she suddenly grab my prof's arm and start to say things like, 'Tuan dokter, tolong obati saya.Saya tak mahu jadi begini.Tolong.Tolong.Tolongg..." Allah...dats when my lacrimal gland starts to produce tears.Ok.I was like wtf, stop crying silly!(umm..I was saying silly to myself n not to d patient)Anyway,its not like tears running down the cheek.Its more like 'air mata bergenang-genang di kelopak mata"I can see that my colleagues are experiencing the same thing.We tahan.Try to look professional.But again, we are also human beings and the emotion sort of transcends right into our hearts.
Similar things happened towards another patient.It occurs the same day.She is a middle-aged Malay lady, came in with intermittent vertigo(dizziness).It was rather an interesting case because she had cerebellar signs such as nystagmus, intentional tremor,ataxia,dysdiadochokinesis etc. Again, after Hanan performed physical examination to elicit cereballar signs on her, she started to say ," Tuan dokter, ni can... can... cancer ker?"...and she started crying.I really admire the way how prof handled and tackled these emotional moments.He motivates patient.He tell them to think positive and be optimistic.By the way, we dont think its cancer because the history does not suggest that it is.Moreover, the cerebellar signs are not vivid.Even if it is a CP(Cerebello-pontine) angle tumour, the ENT surgeon can easily remove them.
It break our hearts to be in this situation.Its hard to be optimistic when you know that the disease such as stroke do not have a good prognosis.There is nothing much we can offer!Once kena stroke, poof... its hard to predict.The only thing to do is to motivate patient,telling them that they cannot lose hope.Patient come to us because they trust us.They hope that, with the help of Allah and to our utmost capabilities ....we can cure them.Ok.This is dilemma right there.I better stop now.Nak pegi dinner......

p/s: My long case clinical exam for internal medicine is on this Monday(3 hari lagi!)at 2.30pm.Doakan ye.... =)

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Paeds Surgery



Me and Hannan went to the Paeds Surgery ward in UMMC for the second time(and yes during the Sunday).Today we followed the morning ward round, headed by Dr Syariz Izri the Paeds surgeon MO (he is my cousin by the way).Managed to see a few cases such as pancreatic pseudo cyst, cystic hygroma, Hirschprung's disease, imperforated anus etc.

Later, we discussed about the topic regarding stoma, since that it can come out in our short case surgery exam.Stoma literally 'mouth' in Greek or Latin.The other name for stoma is colostomy or ileostomy.Depends on where the stoma bag is.There are many types of stoma but the popular ones are loop-type and double-barrel type.We also discussed about the important points that we need to mention during the short case exam.They are:

1.Sitting of a stoma (as a rule of thumb, stoma must be placed away from bony prominences such as the ASIS and away from the umbilicus)
2.Type ( Loop or Double-barrel)
3.Content of a stoma bag (feces colour, consistency etc)
4.Complications ( skin excoriations, paracolostomal hernia etc if visible)

We discussed about few other things la such as indication and complications of stoma.Umm malas nk type dah....
We pinjam-ed a baby who has Hirschprung's disease.Did rectal examination and boy there was a sudden gushed of feces coming out just right after removing our finger out from the anal canal.A sudden gushed of feces is a pathognomonic feature of a Hirschprung's by the way.

Later that day, spend a few hours in the gym and later rushed to Shah Alam for Eda's sister wedding.

ps: OMG logbook internal medicine masih agakkk kosong.Abeslaa 2 minggu lagi dh nak kena hantar