Are housemans and doctors overworked and underpaid??

Okay, obviously, the answer to the above question is a big YES. Obviously, doctors are overworked and underpaid. SO overworked that it can become a occupational hazard

- working an extended shift of 24 hours more than doubles your risk of being in a car crash

Well, here's a good news for House Officers! Although after reading this piece of news, i was still skeptical whether is it really true that we will get the day off after a 24-hour duty? wow! i thought that it was only true for the anesthetist and psychiatrist.

Having optimal manageable working hours is good, not just for the doctors, but also the patients.

however, i thnk that the government should also address the issue of shortage of doctors.... when they reduced the working hours, the number of HOs for each shift would be dispersed, thus less HO, more workload.. is that even possible?? seriously, we need more doctors in the government sector (like we all don't already know that..)...

And you wonder why there are still so many students who want to take up medicine... but of course, you and i know, no matter how tough life is, this can be a very rewarding job ^^
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
original article here

Thursday December 18, 2008

Day off after 24-hour duty for trainee doctors

KUALA TERENGGANU: Trainee doctors will now get a day off after carrying out their 24-hour on-call duty.
Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said the directive will take effect immediately.
He said it applies only to housemen on active call and at the hospital the entire time.
“We will not let these trainee doctors be overworked. We will look into their welfare,” he told reporters yesterday after visiting the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital.

Pleased to meet you: Liow shaking hand with hospital staff members during his visit to Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital in Kuala Terengganu yesterday.

Liow was asked to comment on grouses from trainee doctors that they sometimes had to work almost 24 hours and then report to their superiors the next day.
Some trainee doctors complained that they had to work seven days a week without a single rest day during their two-year stint in government hospitals as housemen.
Liow said trainee doctors should also be allowed to concentrate on getting the right exposure and medical proficiency by giving them off-days.
A trainee doctor at Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital, who only wanted to be known as Sally, said she was relieved to hear that the ministry would look into their welfare.
“Frankly, we are very exhausted as we have to focus on our training and also carry out clinical rounds frequently,” she said. “It is stressful.”
Sally said she and her colleagues were unable to pay attention during their stints due to fatigue and time constraints.
On another matter, Liow said about 4,000 Chikungunya cases were reported throughout the country this year.
He said the virus was first detected in Johor and spread to several states, the latest being Kedah.

Want to marry a doctor?

most trusted. admired. eligible =P

Are you a Medical person?

Or perhaps a Surgical person?

Anyway, i just got back from work, when my friend, Ric surprised me with a very interesting news from Reuters ^^ So, i shall not comment on it, but rather share the whole news clip with you...

The medical profession is the most trusted, most admired and most eligible marriage partners!!!

OMG!! Now, that's interesting~ haha! (my lecturers and consultants would love to read this!)

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

Want to marry a doctor? Survey shows most do


Wed Dec 17, 10:37 pm ET

SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) – It really does pay to be a doctor, with an international survey showing the medical profession is the most trusted, among the most admired and includes the most eligible marriage partners.

By contrast, actors and musicians, along with journalists and advertisers, were among professionals that people trusted the least, and were also least likely to choose a partner from, according to a survey by Synovate, the market research arm of Aegis Group plc.

"Much of who we are is tied up in what we do in the hours from nine to five, and often way beyond," a Synovate statement said.

"Asking someone what they do for a living is often the first question you ask them; right after 'what's your name?'."

The survey polled about 5,500 respondents in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Malaysia, South Africa and the United States.

It asked people what makes for an admirable job, which professions they trust or do not, who is overpaid, and which profession they would prefer to marry.

Sixteen percent nominated doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals as their preferred marriage partners, higher than any other profession.

Other eligible -- and admired -- professions were education, at 14 percent, and science and technology, at 10 percent.

Educators and doctors were also voted the most trusted by an overwhelming 86 and 87 percent, followed by homemakers and those in science and technology.

Only one percent picked retail professionals as partner-material, and those in media and marketing, as well as entertainers, did little better at two and three percent.

These professions were also among the least trusted by respondents, who, across the seven markets, picked the media as the single least trusted group.

Entertainers, along with corporate executives and lawyers, were voted as being the most overpaid, while homemakers and educators were among those seen as being underpaid.

(Writing by Miral Fahmy, Editing by Gillian Murdoch and Bill Tarrant)

Click here for original article....

too many movies perhaps?

i think most guys would love this!

Doctors are human too, not God..

i was surprised to see this article on the Headlines of The Star, this morning..... seriously, i wonder where does Tan Sri gets his data... and base on what parameters do he want to screen the students? MMSE? personality test??

and i think, sometimes, they tend to forget that doctors are human too, not God.... under such circumstances; not just the work load and ridiculously long on-call hours, these doctors are not just physically but also emotionally, mentally and spiritually challenged... knowing that you have done your very best, yet you could not help the patient further... losing hope, seeing deaths,... tears and disappointments,.. under such circumstances, anyone with a heart may break... many people falls into depression with MDD(Major Depressive Disorder)... should we deny this group of people treatment and the chance to live their dreams?

more importantly is when people break, they should be allowed a moment to weap, learn, heal, recover and rise again.. i have known doctors, good doctors, who had psychiatry illnesses like MDD and general anxiety, yet, having symptoms under controlled, they make a great doctor...

and i believe that medical school is just a small part of life, if we cannot handle the stress in med school, the future would be very difficult for us... passing exams is not the hardest thing in medical school, but rather, learning and obtaining as much skills, knowledge and wisdom as possible within these 5 years, so that we can use them to help our patients, heal illnesses, save lives - that is perhaps an even tougher thing to do...

give your very best for each patient..

do your best, and let God do the rest...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Article from The Star:

Sunday November 30, 2008

At least five doctors to suffer from mental woes every month

By M. KRISHNAMOORTHY

KUALA LUMPUR: Every month, at least five doctors are found to be suffering from mental illnesses, director-general of health Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican said.
He said these doctors were either psychotic or neurotic but still managed to get into medical schools because these schools were not screening students meticulously enough.
“When the doctors complete their two-year housemanship and their applications are submitted for registration with the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC), they fail to get registered.
“Their supervisors do not certify them as fit to be registered because of indiscipline and poor attitude arising from mental health problems.
“The mental cases range from psychotic to neurotic. Psychotic cases include delusions and hallucinations, and neurotic behaviour includes anxiety, fear and anger due to the competitive environment,” said Dr Ismail.
These medical graduates, totalling about 60 cases a year, are unable to cope with their housemanship as they may have been pressured by their parents to take up medicine.
Dr Ismail said it was disheartening to note this emerging trend due to an inefficient selection process, adding that the mental cases were referred to the Medical Review Panel (MRP).
Since many of these graduates have spent a lot of money on their medical education, the MRP may extend their housemanship and at the same time send them for psychiatric treatment.
“In the event they are assigned to work, they will be thoroughly supervised and counselled by experts and given light duties until their mental condition improves.
“I am not so sure whether we can identify those with attitude problems during an interview unless such problems are obvious,” Dr Ismail said at a forum on Training Future Doctors: Have we got it right?”
About 2,000 medical doctors are registered annually from 21 local medical schools and 400 recognised schools overseas.
Different medical schools around the world have different selection criteria for their students, Dr Ismail said.
However, he said that the ministry was also planning some form of examination to check their attitude, knowledge and experience after they complete their final examination.
Most of the mentally ill students, he said, could have undergone pressure and depression while studying and faced difficulty in coping in a hospital environment.
The other weakness was a lack of proficiency in the English language.
Higher Education director-general Prof Datuk Dr Radin Umar Radin Sohadi said the ministry was currently reviewing universities’ curricula to ensure high standards in medical education and training for doctors.
“Uppermost on our minds will be the safety and well-being of patients,” he said.

8 things we didn't know when applying for med school

You know, back in those days, when we graduated from high school, and eagerly filled up the application to medical school, there were a few things, we didn't realise we CANNOT do, in medical school... i shall mention a few here:

1. NO unusual piercings


2. NO tongue piercings

picture from: flash your tattoo

let's break for some interesting fact: Here's someone who broke the Guiness Book of Records

Brent Moffatt from Winnipeg, Canada, pierces himself with surgical needles as he sets a Guinness record for most body piercings, in Montreal, December 13, 2003. Moffatt inserted 900 needles into his legs to break his previous record of 702 piercings - 12/26/03 (scary, isn't it)

3. and definately NOT this... super gross wehh... i dare not even look at the picture... :P

picture from: too many piercings

4. NO nail polish
hmm.. i secretly adored nail polish.. but i guess it's not a luxury i could afford... and nail polish is actually rather bad.. it hides the clues for diseases, which we find in the nails, like vasculitis, leuconychia, splinter hemorrhage, etc..

5. NO long finger nails.. finger nails have to be clean and short as we would be examining patients... and percussion would be darn painful if your third finger nails are short... if you noticed, all medical doctors and students have short finger nails, especially the third finger on the right hand...

6. NO hair dye (besides copper/brown/black)
i don't know who made this general rule... i once wanted to dye my hair blue, with a tinge of silver lining.. but well, in the end, didn't do it.. i can't imagine the expression on my supervisor's face if he sees me like that... so ya.. this is one of those things, we are not suppose to have..

picture from: your color ideas

7. NO unsual hairstyle - this is obviously, out of the question lar....
8. NO tattoos - and there goes my tattoo dream~

picture from: tattoo.about.com

i goggled this and found this tattoo pretty cool...
~the last supper~
very artistic... i bet it's painful too....

Buckle up, think of your love ones...

An article from The Star Newspaper:

Saturday November 1, 2008

60-day countdown to rear seat belt use starts today

By ROYCE CHEAH

(Use the rear seat belt now.) Otherwise the police will stop you, question you and give you a pep talk.... DATUK SURET SINGH

KUALA LUMPUR: The 60-day countdown to the compulsory use of rear seat belts has begun.

Starting today, authorities will conduct daily operations to ensure rear seat passengers buckle up before it becomes compulsory on Jan 1.

Road Safety Department director-general Datuk Suret Singh said motorists must ensure passengers wear their seat belts if they did not want to have an interrupted journey.

“Otherwise the police will stop you, question you and give you a pep talk,” he told reporters after carrying out a road safety advocacy campaign on the Sungai Besi highway here yesterday.

Suret Singh said a survey among 2,000 respondents found that 70% to 75% were aware of the importance of wearing rear seat belts.

“However, 60% said they would start using them only when it becomes compulsory while 80% are not even aware that it will come into effect on Jan 1,” he said.

He also cautioned parents against having children under five wear adult seat belts and advised them to use child safety seats instead.

“As for those between the ages of five and 10, they can use the adult seat belt but will need a booster for height,” he said.

Suret Singh said that Proton and Perodua would be announcing in early December the schedule for the free fitting of rear seat belts for cars that do not come with them.

He said motorists with such cars need not rush to fit the rear seat belts as the department had given the manufacturers three years to ensure all such cars were fitted with rear seat belts.

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

Because 80% of Malaysians were not aware of the implementation of compulsory rear seat belts, which will come into effect on Jan 1 2009, i shall blog about this today.... In fact, if you drive a Proton/Perodua, there will be free fitting of rear seat belts this December for cars with no rear seat belts.

NEWTON FIRST LAW: MOMENTUM

"A body continues to maintain its state of rest or of uniform motion unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force."

Understanding this law, something of which we would have learned during physics lessons in high school, we should understand that when a car suddenly stops, (whether in a crash or emergency brake), the occupants will continue moving in the fast initial velocity and will either

1. be crashed into the vehicle structure

2. be thrown out of the vehicle and crash into a wall/road/another vehicle/ other static objects/etc

3. crashed into the other front occupants

The front seat belts only prevent the formal two, having both front and rear seat beats on would prevent all three.. The middle rear seat passanger can also be prevented from being thrown out with rear seat belts. In a collision (even at a mininum of 50kmph), any occupant in the vehicle will be thrown forward with a force of between 30 to 60 times their own bodyweight.

Let's say you weight an average weight of 50kg,

and 50 x 30 = 150kg,

F = ma , F=50 x 30 x 10 = 1500 N

or perhaps a more precise calculation:

and F=ma

a = (V-u) / t

{acceleration = currant velocity minus initial velocity, then divided by time}

So, if you are breaking from 100km/h to 0 km/h in say 2 seconds,

a=50 m/s2

F= 50 X 50 = 2500 N

that's the amount of force you put on the driver/passenger in front of you!

and of course, if you were speeding, like at 140km/h, the force would be: F = 3500 N !

Even if you were driving at 50kmph breaking in 1 second, your F = 2500 N

Now you see, the impact you could have towards your front driver or yourself..... To solve this problem, there is only few solutions:

1. Reduce the 'a' - Drive slow and safe, DO NOT SPEED!!

2. Reduce the 'm' - Loss weight? haha! another benefit of weight reduction, i suppose.....

3. Prolong the 't' - by using seat belts, etc..

Restrain systems, eg seat belts are designed to help keep people in the vehicle, away from the vehicle structure and other occupants, and to distribute the forces of a crash over the strongest parts of the human body, with minumum damage to the soft tissues..

In fact, countries like Hong Kong, had understood the benefits of wearing rear seat belts and had implemented this rule much earlier.

There is however a set back : The adult seat belt is designed for people 1.5m or mote in height. Therefore, for children/babies, an appropriate child restraint includes a baby carrier, child seat, harness or booster seat suitable for the child’s weight is necessary. I hope the government would take this into consideration.

Do make a point to make sure everyone in the car has their seata belt on before driving.

Final words from me : Buckle up, think of your love ones...

the dream for a longer penis...

An interesting article from The Star..

Welder put out of nut misery

Solid metal: A nut similar to the one that was removed from the welder’s penis.


Sunday August 31, 2008, JOHOR BARU: The welder who was hospitalised after he used a nut to elongate his penis was finally put out of his misery when doctors removed the offending spare part.

It is learnt that staff from the Hospital Sultanah Aminah drained out some of the blood and cut away some skin on the upper layer of his organ to remove the nut.

The 20-something welder was trying to increase the length of his penis ahead of his engagement next week by weighing himself down with the nut when the nut got stuck following an erection.

Director Dr Daud Abdul Rahim said doctors got the nut off at around 11pm on Friday.

“The patient is now recovering and we hope to discharge him today,” he said.

Dr Daud declined to say whether the patient would suffer any long-term injuries.

The welder, who works in Singapore, but is from Taman Sri Skudai, sought treatment at the hospital on Thursday afternoon after he was unable to get the nut off himself.

Both hospital authorities and the state Fire and Rescue Department were involved in attempts to remove the nut.

This is the second case in the past week involving objects stuck on penises.

On Aug 25, firemen were summoned to the University Malaya Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur to cut a steel ring from a patient’s penis after numerous attempts by doctors failed to dislodge it.

It is believed the patient, in his 20s, had slipped the ring onto his penis to increase his sexual prowess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTERESTING ANCIENT GREEK REMEDY:
Hanging is perhaps the oldest self-applied method of penis enlargement, with evidence suggesting it was practiced by the Greeks and certain African tribes as long as 2000 years ago. Weight hanging consists of attaching a device (usually a rope or a strap) that grips the glans or just behind the glans and allows a weight to be suspended for specific amount of time. (OUCH!)



Fresco of Priapus from Pompeii. Depicted weighing his large erect penis against a bag of gold. Ancient Romans admired the large penis of Priapus.


MODERN DEVICES:



A penis pump is a cylinder that is fitted over the penis, with a manual or motorized pump to create suction. As the apparatus creates a vacuum around the penis, blood is drawn into the penis, helping it to become engorged. As vacuum increases, the difference between the inner blood-pressure and the pump pressure increases as well; excessive pressure causes vascular damage rather than a harder penis.Pumping must be done very carefully to avoid injury. Over-enthusiastic pumping can burst blood vessels and form blisters

OTHERS : Penis enlargement (girth) surgery, (injection of silicone, PMMA, and other materials into the penis and scrotum, to achieve girth enlargement) or Penis enlargement (lenght) surgery


FACT: According to Psychology Today, which surveyed 1,500 readers (about 2/3 women) about male body image. Many of the women were not particularly concerned with penis size and over 71 percent thought men overemphasized the importance of penis size and shape. Details were examined among the women with a size preference. Generally women cared more about width than men thought, and less about length. "...the number one reason women preferred a thicker penis was that it was more satisfying during intercourse." It's suggested this is because a wider penis provides more friction to the clitoral area while a longer penis reaches an area less stimulable.

COMMENTS: I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry when reading this article from The Star... Some people would do anything to satisfy their other half.... even painfully embarrassing things..