nerdy jokes
we have been having weekly drug club as a group for almost a semester. we will each get a topic on different types of medications and prepare a 15 mins power point presentation. We had our last drug club today and it was a good one. It was about pituitary and glands disorder and we talked about Cushing's syndrome etc.
it was all very exciting and intellectually stimulating but the best part is this. we decided that :-
dugong = cushingoif mermaid.
and we also had a tutorial on malignancy of the male reproductive systems today. we talked about penis cancer. when we were asked about what are the risk factors for penis cancer, the conversations went something like this
"what type of cancer is penis cancer?"
"squamous cell carcinoma"
"who gets penis cancer?"
".... patients who have more sun exposure to that area. European? ....Nudist?"
then everyone laugh of out. it's hard not to.
- the correct answer is HPV infection and uncircumcised penis.
and a few weeks ago one of us decided that pie is bad.
"You have a patient with peripheral vascular disease. You ask him how far he can walk before he gets claudication. And the patient said yes doctor, I can still walk pretty far. I walk to the milk bar everyday to get my newspaper. What would you ask you patient not to do when he is at the milk bar? What would you ask him not to buy?"
"Pie!"
- the correct answer is cigarettes. but i think pie is bad too.
that is why my group rocks!
Labels: friends n fun, medicine and me
of buddy and friend
To my dear travel buddy/ roomie,
because you are one of my very best mates, and because you are turning a year wiser tomorrow, and because i did not bake you a cake this year, I thought I would dedicate a blog entry for you.
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1st year med (photo taken just before Med Ball): when we were still young and naive
i didn't know you well back then.
BUT N.O.W i feel like i have known you for AGES
which leads me to the conclusion that time passed and we have aged considerably since 1st year.
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3rd year med (photo taken at Movie World): after we spent an exciting, mind blowing and crazy week in Brisbane during the 50th AMSA convention. It was then when we tried suturing for the first time and experienced first hand how crazy and mad medical students can be
4th year med (photo taken in Samrong, Cambodia): when we were on a voluntary trip to rural Cambodia. It was an eye opening and meaningful experience. It was also then when I fell terribly sick (which after 6 months i found out when I was doing my ID rotation that i had dengue fever)
5th year Med (photo taken in Vellore, India) - we embarked on another missionary trip to India simply because part of us wanted to do some good and we wanted to give back.
and just a few week ago, Mel asked me whether I would be interested in attending the Global Health Conference organized by AMSA in June 2011. I would love to except there is a major issue - we have exam from June to July, which happens to be THE MOST heavy weighted exam throughout our entire medical degree. and Mel forgot about the exam. She is THAT into global health.
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next year, we are going to London for our electives. It seems like we are going to be stuck together for quite some time.
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You are truly one of the nicest, kindest, most selfless person I have ever met. You have shown me/ taught me a great deal about everything and I am a better person because of you. I am glad and blessed to have known you.
Happy Birthday my dear :)
and shall I quote "Thanks for being born"
-Phey Yee
Labels: b'day, friends n love, medicine and me
Quotes of the Week
The patient has AF. Let's treat him with some sense of impending doom!
- atropine gives patient sense of impending doom
Hooray fat cells! Let's get ourself ready for the next famine!
- that's the reason why it is so easy to put on weight but so hard to get rid of them
Labels: medicine and me
Quotes of the Week
"If you tried but couldn't find it, that's is fine. You are just incompetent. But if you didn't look for it, then it is negligence."
"The patient is not anaesthetised. Ewwww...."
"Consultants are never late. They are just delayed."
"OSCE is a game. It is a game of getting 40 ticks in 8 minutes."
"Your summary has to be 1 hour wiser than your introduction."
"You get actors in OSCE pretty often. You can't trust them. *silence* They are out of work actors."
Labels: medicine and me
of ice cream and cake
it has been a while since I baked something. Clinical school has been pretty busy. and with the very heavy weighted exam coming up in 13 weeks, busy is an understatement. But it is fun nonetheless. I know I am learning something new, something important each day. so everything is good :) only if I could survive with less sleep, THAT would be even better.
Back to baking, or i shall say assembling -
we celebrated Jacq's and Jasper's bday yesterday and I somehow ended up making their birthday cake. I decided on Ice-cream cake because it's something different, something new, something you would like to have in summer and most importantly - something foolproof :P
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or so i thought
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the only thing that went wrong with the cake was the decoration part. I was too impatient to wait for the ice-cream to freeze and settle properly before i put all the fruits on (to my defense, it was pretty close to bedtime). and as a result of my sleep deprivation and hence lack of judgment, the next morning when i woke up, all my fruits sank and were submerged in the sea of icecream =.= it wasn't a pretty sight.
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lesson of the day: when the recipe says wait until the icecream is completely frozen, you WAIT.
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but everything turned out ok, with a trip to the supermarket for more fruits and a little bit of patching up
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mission accomplished
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no drama :)
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i am starting my cardiorespiratory block next. ECG here i come!
Happy Sunday Peeps :)
Labels: baking and me, friends, medicine and me
Sem 9 Week 5
Quote of the week:
"Wound dressing is really important. It would be the most asked question when you are an intern. But it is boring. I am not going to talk about it. So you guys can just suck it up and enjoy your intern year." - Surgeon
Labels: medicine and me
3rd week 1st day of clinical school in a nutshell
I went to the Colorectal Outpatient Clinic today. And I sat in with a fellow. Surgeon said “So Phey, what do you want to do when you grow up?”
And I said “… a doctor.”
Because I thought it was a trick question, and in my opinion, I have kinda grown up.
Then he said “I know. What kind of doctor?” so i realized it wasn’t a trick question.
And that’s when I went on and on about how I thought I wanted to do surgery very badly then I realized just recently that I am not that interested in surgery yada yada. I went on to 'educate' him about AMS, BMedSci and MBBS. Sometimes I probably should just shut up.
Doctor said “What are the causes for Colon Cancer?”
Then I said “75% of them are sporadic, 20% are due to familial predisposition, 5% are due to inheritance or genetic.”
And then I realized quoting percentages is a bad idea. It made me look like a nerd. Not like I deny I am one.
And then he asked me to write it down while he dictated a letter. I think he foresee that I was going to keep on talking for a while.
And then he went on to quiz me about different types of colon cancer caused by genetic mutation.
APC for FAP. MLH1, MSH2, 3, 6, PMS1 and 2 for HNPCC. Again I went on and on LIKE i know a lot of stuff.
Doctor said “So what do they do?”
And I said “I really don’t know” I didn’t expect surgeons to know things at the molecular levels you see. Obviously, I was wrong.
Doctor said “Don’t worry, you will pass as a student but if you were a surgical registrar, you will probably fail but as a student, you pass very nicely.” The surgeon is nice.
Thank god I did my revision. Even though I missed out a fair bit.
I said “the patient had cancer in his splenic flexure but he had his transverse colon, part of his descending colon and all his ascending colon removed. Why is that?”
Doctor said “That’s exactly right. I had the same question. It’s a very good question.”
And then he went on telling me the reason why. I never knew that I am capable of asking good question.
One 3 different occasions:
Surgeon said “T2N0, what stage is that?”
I said “Stage 1” *very tentatively*
Surgeon said “Good guess”
Surgeon said “T3N0”
I said “Stage 2” *immediately before he turned his head around so that if I got that wrong, i would feel LESS embarassed*Surgeon said “good on you”Surgeon said “T3N2, what stage is that?”
I said “stage 3”
Surgeon nodedand so my day ended well :)Labels: medicine and me
a typical day in Sam Rong
i know i know. it has been donkey year since i came back from Cambodia and my Cambodia trip post is looooooooooooooooong overdue. but life has been pretty crazy (and internet ridiculously slow) for the past 6 weeks. So now seeing that I am back in Melbourne, I am back to blogging =)*
I still miss Cambodia. I think we all do. Samrong is hot and rural and internet-less and not particularly clean, but it has its charm.
it's quiet and serene. and the people extremely friendly.
we got to ride the bike 
to and fro the hospital everyday.
and after the daily handover meeting and extremely informative ward rounds
we built pathway and mixed cement, and did things that we would not have done if we weren't in Cambodia
we napped in the afternoon after lunch (usually with an insect repellant patch) in a hammock
waiting for the weather to cool down a little so that it won't be deadly for us to cycle back to the hospital
and get back to work
under the hot hot sun
and when we got lucky
we got to stay indoor and clean the operation room
scrubbing the bed and walls and trays with soap and sponge. you don't see that in any Western Hospital anymore.
and air conditioning - is a luxury in Samrong
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and when it rained
we changed into the surgical gown and wait patiently for our clothes to dry under the fan
and of course good company
and a comfy pair of shoes made a lot of difference
everything was much more enjoyable :)
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next up is a detailed step by step post of an appendidectomy. well not like i know exactly what's going on but hey i am going to start my clinical year with the general surgery rotation, that might help.
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HAPPY MONDAY PEOPLE!
and to all my dear friends who are starting clinical year tomorrow: good luck!
Labels: Cambodia, medicine and me
of fund raising and fun raising
so you probably know this already. I went to Cambodia for a voluntary trip with two of my awesomest buddies, thanks Mel and PJ, this was by far the awesomest trip i have ever had!
Well it was supposed to be a full blown four weeks extraordinary voluntary experience but unfortunately, i fell sick, terribly sick, twice in a row in the second week. It manifestated as fever, constant severe throbbing headache, myalgia and arthralgia, diffuse rashes and we (the doctors included) had no idea what was the cause. It might be an allergic reaction to god know what or a bacterial/viral infection. PJ got it first, but he recovered more quickly then I did, so I am putting my money on infection. My folks were dead worried about that incidence so I was called back. literally. Of course I was very reluctant to leave, especially when I was slowly recovering by the day. the thing is I was the one who intiated the whole voluntary trip and i dragged my lovely friends into it (don't get me wrong, we are sooooooo very glad that we took part) and now i am the one to leave prematurely. i feel really really realllllllly bad, leaving early definitely shucks. i can't believe i actually got ill, it's those kind of things that you think could happen to anybody but yourself. oh well, i just happened to be that 'anybody' in this case. we need to keep the stats accurate, don't we? :p
But still, I am grateful that I got to spent two weeks in Samrong. It was truly a mind-blowing-eye-opening-arse-kicking experience and there will definitely be more voluntary trip down the road. and of course i will keep myself healthy and not fall sick next time. i have had my fair share of illness thank you very much.
I mentioned earlier that the hospital that I went to was a small hospital - Sam Roang Hospital, at the rural area of Siem Riep. This hospital is nothing like what you will ever see in Melbourne or Malaysia and I was utterly shocked by the condition of the hospital. The very limited facilities and resources, running low on/out of medical supplies, fan-less maternity ward, supposedly sterile operating theatre with flies in it and only three out of five bulbs of the operating lamp are working. You can't possibly imagine what the condition is like until you see it for yourself. It is primitive.
Mel and I had a chat on this matter and we decided to raise some funds for the hospital. We know that raising funds can't and won't be a long term solution for the hospital, more has to be done, much more for this case but at this stage, this is the best we could do a part from raising awareness on behalf of the hospital. They need all the help that is available, and this little money and medical supplies will no doubt relieve some of the problem the hospital is currently facing.
Okay, this is the hard part. Whenever it comes to fund raising and donating money for a good cause, the first thing that cross most people mind is - this is a scam. and I don't blame you for that because there are people out there scamming people for a living. I don't have a paper authorization to prove that I am raising money for the hospital, i am not raising fund on behalf of any organization, i don't have a proper official bank account for wire transfer, what i have is the permission from the medical adviser from the hospital to raise fund through my blog and facebook (see right column for her email address), i am just a volunteer at the hospital trying to help. i have no experience whatsoever in raising fund, not through internet anyway, i only did bake sale before. I don't have a target, all i know is that ALL the proceed will go to the hospital and be used to purchase medications for the patients and fans for the maternity ward. So please do help if you trust me. By the end of this, receipts will be issued by the hospital to every donor and I will either email, snail mail or pass the receipt to you in person. Every cent counts people.
I will publish multiple posts over the next few weeks on my trip to Cambodia and the bits and pieces about the hospital. Please bear with me and email me for details on making a donation.
Be part of this people, it's not everyday that you get to save a person's life.love,Phey YeeLabels: Cambodia, for a good cause, medicine and me
of dust and sweat and cambodia
greeting from Siem Riep :) again!
internet here is scarce. really, really, reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally scarce and by the time i come to the city, i have completely lost track of what had happened over the week. so bear with me :p*
this is where i stayed in my first weekend in Siem Riep
the Smiley Guesthouse
and this is where i stayed for the past week and will be staying for the next 3 weeks 
mel and i shared a room and it's a big one
and since malaria is extremely common in cambodia, our beds came equipped with mosquito nets
which i slept OUTSIDE of. because it's just toooooooooooooooooo hot.
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i can't begin to tell you how different Sam Roang is from Melbourne or even Malaysia
I have never ever been to a rural place like this before
and i was utterly shocked when i saw what's the surrounding is like
it was a 2 hours ride from Siem Riep to Sam Roang
and people this is a big chubby pig in the basket there
anyway, it's a 2 hours car ride with and hour of proper road and another hour of bumpy dust road
and when i say dust road
i really do mean d.u.s.t road
imagine cycling on the road.
it's nothing different from eating and breathing sand
trust me. u won be needing foundation, the dust will do all the trick
the dust is all red and natural and full of cow dung
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and people, this is our ONLY mode of transport in Sam Roang
cycling to and fro the hospital
two times a day
6 days a week
and that's how i get my tan
like very uneven partial tan =.=
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the hospital that we work in is a regional hospital with very very fundamental facilities
this is the patients' cooking area. because the hospital is understaffed, they are unable to provide food for the patients, so patients' familiy members would hang around and take care of the patient's meals.
this is one of the many water pumps scattered around the hospital and is always our last stop to clean our feet before we head home from the hospital.
this place doesn't need any introduction but it is worth mentioning that despite the very scarce resources and limited equipments, i have witnessed two of the most interesting surgeries of all the operations i have seen. a Cesaerean and a hernia repair. needless to say, i was thrilled.
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and they have the most colourful scrubs ever. torquise green pants. blue shirts. maroon colour mask. and apple green head cover.
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oh and we cleant this operation room too. with soaps and used surgical clothes.
now are u impressed?
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we got to do a lot of clinical stuff for the past 5 days. We attended the hospital handover meeting everyday at 7.30 am and went to the ward round. we have covered maternity ward, paedaetrics ward, general medicine ward, emergency medicine and surgical ward and i am so very keen to see more. Most of the doctors here are extremely friendly, not all of them know english but they sure tried their very best to teach us a much as they could. i heard my first heart murmur on Thursday! it was indeed a very special moment for me.
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of course a part from the clinical stuff, we helped out with a little bit of construction on site as well
and this is one of our project coordinator/ construction advisor
and this is the path that we built to connect the toilets to the cooking area that you saw earlier
it was a very sustainable construction project. we scaveged rocks and sand and broken bricks from within the hospital compound and builr this path from - scratch.
and you can actually see the progress that we made over time.
the path on the left is less crooked than the one on the right. No?
we worked 'part time' on this path in the afternoon when there is no surgery
and bit by bit, the path started to take shape
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and this people, is our master piece
and the sweats and tears that we shed for this path
all the UV lights and heat that we absorbed
each stone and sand particle
each drop of cement
every brick
we made it the hard way.
and this is usually what happened in a normal day.
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the local people would happily stare at you as you work. you just have to get used to that.
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and mom, this is for you
Happy Sunday People!
i really hope that i won't get tooooooo dark by the end of the trip. i can see myself getting darker and darker by the day and i am not happy with that.
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take care people! i wil see you in a week
Labels: Cambodia, family n love, friends n fun, medicine and me
