Difficult Parents

Sometimes in Paediatrics, the most troublesome part does not lie in the patients, but in their parents who think they know a lot, but in actual fact, they know nothing or the wrong thing.

Take for example today, my colleagues and I had difficult time explaining the importance of CBD urine sample, as part of the prolonged jaundice investigation. After getting consent to proceed with inserting the CBD -- luck did not side us. It was a hard time looking out for that tiny little urethra opening in that chubby little baby girl. And so, the parents who were outside the treatment room, rushed in and started blaming us for "torturing" their baby -- and they asked "is it necessary to have that CBD afterall?" ... "can't you all just use the urine bag for collection?"

Well, mister and missus, your kid has tried a clean catch urine for the past 4 times, and each time was a lousy catch -- heavily mixed growth urine sample. So how many more times you want to take leave from your boss just to come here to the clinic and learn that you need to repeat your kid's urine sample?

Sometimes, parents think very superficially. When it comes to a sick child, they think the doctors are God, and with a magical touch, their kids will recover without any invasive intervention. They will only want some oral medication -- anti-tussive, anti-diarrheoa, anti-fever, anti-vomit, anti-biotics, anti-viral ... and anti-almost-everything-under-the-sun. But when it comes to a hospital setting, they are defensive, they are suspicious, they are ignorant... some are arrogant.

• Blood taking time -- they ask "why are u taking so much blood, my child will be anemic!"
• CBD insertion time -- they yelled "hey can't u just ask the nurse to collect the urine using a bottle?"
• Resetting IV lines -- they frowned "u all didn't set a good line earlier on, huh?! unnecessary suffer for my kid"
• At the A&E -- they asked "why are u not admitting my child?"
• But in the ward, less than 24 hours -- they asked "can my child be discharged today?"

It is easy for others to say -- well, who ask you to do paeds? who ask you to take up medicine as a career? you should be more compassionate as a doctor... blah blah blah

But all in all, I think I have not chosen the wrong career. It's just the public education needs to be strenghtened and the public needs more guided education by the medical staff, rather than letting them to read info over the internet.

Finally Into My New House

After a long one year of preparation and hard work, finally my wife, my baby and I moved into our new house few days ago. Really satisfied with the newly renovated house. With the whole house fully air-conditioned, I think this is one the "wishes" I ever wanted since childhood days -- whenever I stayed in hotels, I had always told myself I wanted my house to be "hotel-like" one day! And now my dream has come true! Breezing cold staying in my house! ;)

And today, me and my wife went shopping at IKEA -- well, to tell you the truth, this is my first time buying things from IKEA. Previously I had always window shopped at this place, but never bought a single thing before. Possibly because last time I didnt have a house of my own, so no point buying things from IKEA -- afterall its a place for home reno and deco stuffs!

The whole afternoon, I spent time with my wife in the family hall -- sitting on the newly bought Rozel leather sofa set -- drinking coffee... hmm, this kinda weekend enjoyment has never been as good before this! And with our nanny taking care of our baby on the second floor -- we were relieved from the parental job for the time being! Haha...

And oh yes, with the newly bought Indesit tumble dryer, there is no more drying laundries in the sun -- we can do the laundry at night, and within 1-2 hours, the clothes will be washed and dried and ready to be used the next day! Wow... marvellous technology.

There are of course so many more things to buy and add on to my new home -- but for the time being I am just overwhelmed by this new home -- just perfect! :)

Another Month Passed By

Time flies... another month has just gone by. I was so occupied and just so busy over the last one month. My baby, my new house renovation, my new Treo, on calls ...etc. Everyday 24 hours just seemed so inadequate for me.

My baby has grown a lot since birth -- well, otherwise all my hard-earned cash buying her the milk would have gone in vain! (Oh please, don't criticize me why we are not exclusively breastfeeding our baby... haha!) I haven't been weighing her regularly, plotting it on the centile chart -- no, I am not obsessive -- but by my clinical judgment I know she is growing well! ;) She has been rather naughty lately, as she loves to sleep in the day and wakes up in the night (maybe she loves to be on call too!) -- Luckily I managed to persuade my wife's confinement lady to continue as a nanny to my baby girl!

My new house is almost ready, and I will be moving in end of this month. From a simple and original house when we first bought over -- now it has been transformed into a beautiful house with all the renovations in place -- my wife and my dream house! :) I am also currently contemplating to look out for more locum posts to replenish my bank account!

My new Treo 680 has been a great gadget so far. I have no regret getting it afterall. Although there is no WiFi, the GPRS has served me quite well all these days -- I mainly use it during on call time, when there is no case, I will update my Facebook, read some newspaper and run through my RSS feeds using Google Reader. Initially I was thinking of changing to DiGi EDGE, but then after checking on my monthly Celcom bill, the GPRS usage is usually just around 20-30 bucks, so it's still not worth while changing to the 99-unlimited package.

The Treo's keyboard seems a little small, but after nearly 1 month using it, I am so use to it now. I can type pretty fast now. And with Mundu IM installed, I can IM with my family members using GTalk or Yahoo messenger. The other program I use a lot in my Treo is Backup Buddy VFS, which I think is one of the most important software in my Treo -- a few crashes on and off (due to software incompatiblity) has been saved by restoring my whole Treo using the backup software.

Well, there is a lot to write up on my Treo. But probably I will do it when I am free the next round. AS for today and tomorrow, it's holiday for me and the whole nation, and I hereby wish all Muslim friends and bloggers -- Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri! :)