Nexus Karambunai

Just came back from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, for the East Malaysia Atherothrombosis Meeting, sponsored by Sanofi and BM. I stayed in Nexus Resort, Karambunai, which is 30km north-east of Kota Kinabalu town. From the airport, it took about 40 minutes to reach the resort.

The beach view from my room is just magnificent. The breeze caressing my face and the sweet chirping sounds of the birds are just making me feel totally relaxed! Truly an escapade from the urban lifestyle... The buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner were all sponsored by Sanofi and BM too, and if you were there yourself, I bet you wont even pay for those meals! Coz the breaskfast alone costs RM45++, and the dinner RM74++!! ;) But I must say I really enjoyed the stay there, besides getting updates from the prestigious speakers, among those were Prof Sim KH from Sarawak Cardiac Centre (SGH), Prof Soo HH (Neurologist, Normah Specialist Centre) and Dato Seri Dr Robaayah (Head, IJN).

And best of all, on my returning trip, my friends and I were all upgraded to the Business Class seats! We really enjoyed the 1 1/2 hour journey back from Sabah! :)

Dell Boleh!

My Dell overkill machine which I blogged weeks ago, has finally given way... for whatever reason, I dunno! The speaker is no longer working, and it crashed earlier on needing a total hard reset (too much PDA jargon -- I mean it needed reformatting!) And the technician has come a few times to my house to troubleshoot my problems, but to no avail! :( Dell has sent me a new sound card, a new set of speakers.. but still they don't get my problem solved

Finally Dell called me up and apologised to me about the recent "mishap" I have been going through! And they willingly do a one-to-one exchange with me! Becoz the current system I have (ie. Pentium 630 with 3GHz chip) is no longer in production, they have willingly upgrade my system to the Intel Core Duo 820 running at 2.8GHz!! Hurray, now I will not only have a brand new computer, but also a free upgrade to the Intel Core Duo technology! They also promise to deliver it within 5-7 days! That's really efficient of Dell!

So, Dell Boleh! :)

VeinLite Demo!

I was blogging about the VeinLite product few days ago. See here. Today, I was surprised that the VeinLite company rep came to my ward, looking for me to demonstrate to me the VeinLite product! In fact he is also the CEO of the company based in KL.

He only brought along the VeinLite, and not the pocket-sized VeinLite set (coz its not available in Malaysia yet). But after trying out the unit on a few of my patients, age ranging from neonates to 4 years old, I realised that it is not so useful afterall! ;( Firstly, the C-shape LED illuminator is a bit too big to place properly on that forever-agitated-and-struggling pediatric patients! Secondly, the light is just too bright, and when tilt a bit (or when trying to adjust the position on the skin) the light emitted from the unit will cause temporary blindness to the operator or the people around. Therefore, after that it is even harder for us to concentrate in looking for the tiny vein which we have just located, becoz of the "ghost images" we are seeing due to the light effect!

Each unit is priced at around RM6000+!! And the coming-soon pocket unit is around RM3000+!! So do you think it is worthwhile to purchase it? ;) I don't think my boss will even think about it! Our nurses are just too good in setting lines... we don't need one yet!

China University Promoting Warez?

I came across a prestigious China university website, and I was shocked to see that its online library has a whole lot of iSilo files (from Harrison's Medicine to Nelson's Pediatrics) for free download!! As far as I know, this is not legal! ;) But I am sure with this, many of the Chinese in this particular university have gain lots of benefit from having these iSilo files in their PDA or PC for reference, and save lots of money not needing to purchase those expensive books!

Veinlite LED

I was reading DocFiles today and saw this interesting device called Veinlite. It is essentially a powerful LED transilluminator, useful in finding veins in children and old people. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I get calls from the ward nurses "Doktor... line bumped sudah, tak dapat set-lah, u boleh tolong-ah?!" And with my squint eyes, I really find it difficult at times to get another peripheral venous access. So I am really interested to know more about this gadget! Perhaps the next time, I can boast to those nurses "Set line? Haha... BOLEH... senang aje!" ;)