Confessions of a house officer #2 – Tagging

For the benefit of non-medical related readers, allow me to first explain the term ‘tagging’. You know, when a House Officer just graduated, they are usually assigned to a senior doctor (HO/MO) whom they would ‘tag’ with. Meaning, following them around, learning about how to manage patients, how to fill forms, what should be done, etc.

So, my Tagging period started last Friday Night, 5:00 pm. We were each assigned to wards. Dr Laila and I was sent to Ward 4-1. Female Ward.

5:00 pm – Reporting


5:11 pm- Laila & I were assigned to beds to a cubicle to manage patients and do the evening reviews. (Yup! On the first day itself! Correction: at the 11th minute, literally). Which I was pretty scared at first. But of course, whenever we are unsure, we consulted our senior HOs and MOs.


Myth: Housemanship is a time for training. We can study for exams during med school and later learn how to work during housemanship.


Fact: What you learn during medical school really effect life in housemanship. And it’s not just knowledge, but also the skills and ability to analyze the patients’ condition and manage them.


Moral of the story: Make good use of medical school. Yes, you are expected to ‘WORK’ right after you graduate. Good knowledge on history taking, physical examination, investigations, and management is very important. Skills especially blood taking, branula, etc is imperative. And the best time to learn is at medical school.


12:00 midnight – punched-out. Need to be back to prepare for morning rounds 630am the next morning. Then, a bunch of discharge summaries.

So the tagging schedule in Hospital Malacca is 7am-11pm.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

shinyin’s diary:

I salute doctors. Not that I am proud of becoming one, but, being in their shoes, I realized how much they had sacrificed. Watching them, I feel sad for them. Lunch hours, Dinner dates, sometimes, even the luxury of FOOD in general, health, gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, risk of contacting diseases, needle prick injury, weekends, weekdays, holidays, kid’s report day, girlfriend’s birthday, phone calls, sleep, relationships, sometimes, even more…

Did I mention that I have only 10days of leave(cuti rehat) every 4 months, and that MCs are considered as cuti rehat? Means, I have to pay to get sick. Meaning, we cannot afford to get sick. Go ahead, abuse PCM (paracetamol), abuse antibiotics, abuse painkillers, do whatever it takes so that you can appear to be fit enough to work. Otherwise, risk losing your holidays.

And what the Pengarah Hospital promised to us during induction, about at least one day off during a week, well, it’s just a fantasy. THIS DOES NOT EXIST IN HOUSEMANSHIP IN MALAYSIA! And about what the ministry of health promised to us, about the day off after post-call (36 hours oncall), also a myth. THIS DOES NOT EXIST HERE!

So, if you are about to be a house officer, please be aware of this.

for the first time, I learned to eat alone. Not only that, I learnt to eat alone AND on the go.

I salute doctors because they had the stomach to withstand the acidic peptic juices. I wondered how much of metaplasia would have taken place.

I salute doctors because they had the ability to stand for hours, then run for blood perhaps, and continue standing for hours, then run to resuscitate patients, and continue oncall, do not sleep, and continue standing, and run, stand and run. And above all, still have sufficient glucose to supply the neurons in the brain.

Matriculations results just came out. Congrats to my evil brother, who just got into E&E, UPM. STPM results would be out soon. There will come again, the issue of top achievers not getting places into med school.

Think again, why would you want to be a doctor?

.
.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.
.
.
Okay, I do not want to be demotivating.
I think it is easy to like this job, this field.
But you have to be prepared to face the harshest conditions.