My Taroko National Park weekend pictures are finally up!!

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BURP! Just back from dinner from Ximending...AGAIN! This time, all 6 of us went to 天外天麻辣火锅 (Ma La Hotpot) for a hot and chilly all-u-can-eat buffet for NTD$350 (S$16) to celebrate Mark's belated birthday. It wasn't as hot as we thought and most of us ate till our stomachs gave way. Not to mention the unlimited Meiji ice-cream and fruits delighted our evening.

Today's a lousy day and weather here sucked for the 1st time as it kept pouring and drizzling whole day long. Went for the morning meeting at 7.30am. It's always a tense environment as the HOD (who is nonetheless very knowledgable) always reviews the case presentations sternly and shoots multiple arrows aka questions in all directions from students all the way to senior consultants. He even recalled back 3 young consultants back from their morning sleep to the meeting and scolded them in front of everyone for being careless and not being punctual. But it's also very funny as an overseas student to see how the whole department always stammer in front of the boss. Nobody ever dares to speak up against him... How sad... If you have watched the Japanese and Taiwanese version of "The White Towers", this is exactly how it is like for General Surgery here. Y? Because the story is written after the General Surgery Department here!! Really!! Otherwise, morning has been ok because my tutorial and lunch lecture were cancelled.

My afternoon was spent with a lecture on how laparoscopic surgery works and the principles behind some basic laparoscopic surgeries. Pratical came after the lecture and it was fun to the max. I've never gotten the chance to play with laparoscopic instruments and I must say it is never as easy as it looks on the screen. The 2D pictures on the tv screen always gave a false impression on where the instruments were and we all could not grasp the targets all the time. It's really difficult and I really admire surgeons now who can finish their laparoscopic surgeries chop chop...

By the way, DPP presidential and vice-presidential candidates were giving a talk in the hospital's premises as we were playing around with laparoscopy. What a strange place to give a rally! I hate the DPP anyway... Ma Ying Jeou, u must win!!

Off to rest my stomach and watch some Taiwanese TV programmes... Haven had this childhood pleasure for such a long time!

The fun and exciting weekend is over and it's time for serious work again. Attended a morning of clinics where I saw a variety of patients from paronychia or embedded nails to gastric cancer follow up cases. Amongst them, 1 of the patient's family touched me the most. The mid 20s guy had multiple seeding of an appendix cancer all over his peritoneum of body cavity. His prognosis did not seem very good and while the guy was trying to be ignorant about his condition, his mother was crying, pleading and begging my consultant to do his best to increase his life expectancy. It suddenly got me thinking about how parents would do anything for their children and how short life is and how we must treasure every moment of our lives.

Afternoon was damn slack. I went into the operating theatre with only 1 thing in mind - the free operation room lunch. The weekend broke my budget and I was trying to save as much $$ as I can. The opertion was pretty scary at the start. The patient was given spinal anesthesia to reduce complications. But, the anesthetic drugs did not take effect and the man cringed in pain when my surgeon made his cut. OUCH! As the anesthetist increased the drug dosage, the patient cringed for a 2nd time when my surgeon, who got the go-ahead from the anesthetist, continue to exten his cut. OUCH OUCH! The local anesthesia operation had to be converted to a general anesthesia operation for patient's safety. Ooo... After 1 operation, my day was over and we were discussing where to eat for dinner to celebrate mark's belated birthday when we realised anson could not make it because he had to attend a 8 hr liver transplant operation!!

So we went to ximending again for dinner. Bought 1 bowl of tang yuan-like stuff, 1 bowl of peanut beancurd, 1 cup of bubble tea, 1 bowl of Ah Chung Mee Sua and 2 Dunkin donuts. So much for saving $$ ah. But the above costs only NTD$200 or S$9 plus. Shucks, I'm still feeling effects of the food churning in my stomach as I write this note.

Had a sudden thought about my stay in Taipei as I took the Metro today. It just dawned upon me that I am living like a rat in Taipei. Why? It seems that I only know how to get around Taipei by underground Metro only. It's my only form of transport I'm confident of getting around by. The minute you put me up on the surface, I'm totally lost with a disoriented sense of navigation and direction! How sad!

Tomorrow's laparoscopy day and I wonder what awaits me on the operating table. Am I finally going to cut up some stuff on my own? Whoo hoo!

Initial days in Taipei....

I feel very sad now! Just when I’m about to save my blog entry, EVERYTHING DISAPPEARED!! ARRGGGHHHH!!!!!!! Anyway, I shall try to re-write now before I forget everything, AGAIN!

Finally, I see the sunshine peeking out from the clouds today! Yay, it’s a refreshing and happy feeling, considering it has been overcast skies and chilly drizzles ever since touchdown in Taipei. Looks great for a sunny beach party, but too bad, I’ve lessons in the hospital. Damn!

I am now in National Taiwan University Hospital (台北大学医院 or NTUH) in central Taipei for overseas electives for 2 months. I am currently doing General Surgery for 4 weeks from 10 Mar – 4 Apr before commencing General Medicine from 6 Apr – 2 May. In the 1st month, I have the company of Anson, Meng Chon, Weisheng, Mark Sim and Zhongyang but in the 2nd month, I’ll be alone out here! Hopefully I can find enough local friends here before loneliness creeps in then…

It has been 2 days so far since stepping into hospital grounds but gosh, I felt I’ve learnt way more than my surgery posting in Changi General Hospital (CGH), which was 2 months by the way! Right from the word go, I’ve been given tutorials and seen the operations of liver & renal transplant, breast masectomy and herniotomies (or herniorraphy as they call it here). Their etiquette in Operating Rooms (ORs) here is also way different from Singapore. They leave their OR doors for everyone to walk in and out and I’ve seen more than 10 people in 1 OR! In Singapore, we’ll be screwed upside down for doing so and students will be chased out like flies! Also, the way they scrub up, handle and clean their patients would get a big fat F from Singapore!! I’ll be very afraid as a patient for fear of getting bacterial contamination/infection, although I’ve yet to seen any post-op infection cases (because I’ve yet been in the wards… Haha).

Over here, the people give a lot of respect to doctors and likewise, junior doctors show lots of respect to their senior doctors. So far, I’ve yet to seen patients and relatives complain a single word to the doctors and they wait patiently for the doctors to talk to them. How rare it is to find a sight like this in Singapore! We’ll be sued if we let relatives wait for more than 1 min!!! Over here, I’m known as 陈奕勤医师. How cool is that! They are super pro-teaching here, friendly and would go their way out to solve students’ queries. Thus, the students like to ask questions here, unlike in Singapore when tutors don’t give a damn about us. My tutor’s name is 陈炯年医师. He specialises in gastric cancer and is a super friendly man with very straight and combed hair and big specs. So cute…! I also have a chief resident (senior registrar) by the name of 黄医师, who helps to give us plenty of tutorials. He looks pretty funny too but he is damn brainy! He always give us practical questions to think about and supplies answers whenever we have doubts. Thumbs up to him!

Over here, I admire the students for their quest to learn. They just simply are abl to absorb everything that comes along their way. However, they’re less clinically trained and are less willing to examine their patients. Still, I find it difficult to comprehend how they need to talk to their patients in Hokkien, type and write down notes in English and present in both Chinese and English. Haha, their English is damn cui here. However, as they want to keep up with clinical research and skills with the rest of western world, they’re forcing themselves, even the 80 year old professor, to converse in English for their morning meetings and morbidity & mortality rounds. Still, all of us Singaporeans find it hard to comprehend what they are even mumbling and their deciphering of difficult words keep us laughing all the time!!

Ok, it’s getting late. 12.53am and counting. I shall blog next time about the happening things that we do in Taipei. Shall go and dry my clothes now… Yawnz….