Madhouse

Despite our small number, the higher ups still make unreasonable demands.

It's as if they don't care. As if they're ignorant as to how we're also struggling to perform our most basic of duties, and yet they continue to pester us by making things more complicated, more convoluted than necessary.

It's bloody stupid.

Just leave us alone, damnit.

No matter how I try to push myself to go beyond my limits, there are always obstacles.

Is it fair that we the innocents must pay for the follies of the idiots in the management department, and the selfishness of those who only seek to save their own sorry a**es?

The answer came to me on a fellow friend's facebook entry on my newsfeed:

"Nasib baik ada Akhirat"

Because He is the Most Just of Judges.

...and at times I figured it's selfish to ask for life to be a breeze all the way. Because life's not a bed of roses. Especially when you realise that you have pricks in power.

Current Music: Love Story meets Viva la Vida - The Piano Guys

Going Down

"One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful" ~ Sigmund Freud

1. If you will pardon the words that will follow - the hospital is going to the dogs.

Maybe that's why my current MO & specialist are trying to seduce me into O&G. Not because I'm capable or knowledgeable or anything, but because the department is losing people and they're trying to maintain the number.

Stupid policies are stupid. They're treating us like kids.

It feels especially insulting when you know you've been doing your best all this while, and yet...and yet you can't change people's perception, opinion, biases for the better.

But one may argue: screw what people say. You're not supposed to let them bother you so much, especially when you know that they themselves sometimes don't know any better. Give them some benefit of the doubt, or something.

But you're supposed to be doing all this, working, struggling in God's Cause, yes?

Ideally speaking, yes.

2. Resentment is easy. Easier than trying to find the obscure, almost nonexistent positive aspects of things.

It's easier, but it's just not right.

3. So if anyone's still interested to know, yes, most likely I'll be applying to return to Selangor once I'm done with housemanship.

Am I even worthy of wondering if there will be one who will try to change my mind?

Current Music: La La - The Cab

Intermission #46

1. In almost every situation, there is a high chance that there will be one mood-maker; One whose mere presence gives what kind of atmosphere the rest of us will be in.

Generally in the ward, this role is filled in by the specialist. If s/he is irritable or just being a pain, then chances are the rest of the day is screwed.

Actually it doesn't really matter which department you're in, but here in O&G and Surgical, you can practically feel the tension growing in the air; so thick that you might need a chainsaw to cut it.

The point is, don't abuse your power. This includes the tendency to inflict some indirect psychological insult.

2. Yesterday at work, while my specialist was deep in thoughts thinking on what to do about a suspicious CTG tracing for one of the patients who was in labour, I was in my usual pose - right hand poised with my trusty pen in position, ready to jot down whatever he might have to say. Then he glanced at me, and just gave me an amused smile. He commented how us HO's are always writing down stuff.

I blinked cluelessly, stared once at my pen, recapped it and chucked it into my pocket.

"Ah, that's better," said he.

I gave a measly smile, and stared at my half-written entry.

Then he ambled next to me, whispering, "You know, house officers are not clerks. You're a doctor. Aku dulu pun tak suka clerking, tulis-tulis..."

And, surprising even myself, I blurted out, "Yes, actually I'm confused too."

He chuckled silently. "Don't be."

When he already left me, I just stared at the still unfinished entry.

Yes, I think I'm very much confused about my job description.

I think I'm so used to being a mak turut, merely following orders and running here and there, that I can't even develop my own thinking skills; instead finding myself being so scared of questioning authority blatantly, even when I know they're being unreasonable.

3. I kind of envy how some people are not afraid of speaking out when they see injustice. Maybe they have this air around them - what they say comes out as a constructive criticism, a mature observation of human fallacies.

And me? Maybe people just perceive my words, my opinions as childish complaints, nothing more.

4. I'm very tempted to leave this hospital once my time for MO-ship comes. Especially when the lab is being an absolute pain in the arse, because there's no way I can bear taking up Pathology - if the chance ever presents itself - when I absolutely resent their policies.

Current Music: Angel with A Shotgun - The Cab

P/s: I'm getting really lazy with titles, am I not? Pfft!