A Family Doctor's Tale - MEDICAL COLLEAGUES

MEDICAL COLLEAGUES

The good , the bad and the ugly - as in any department, medical colleagues may be any of these.

However in the medical department of the Thomson Road General Hospital, most of my medical colleague are of the first category(that is) The Good.

The medical posting was a relatively slow paced easy posting with early daily ward rounds, clerking of new and old cases admitted and relatively quiet night duties. A normal duty may start at 8am in the morning and ends the next day at 1pm after night duty.

Most of the patients were
1.chronic medical conditions patients such as chronic heart diseases( A Simple Guide to Chronic Heart Diseases), uncontrolled diabetes(A Simple Guide to Diabetes Mellitus), chronic lung diseases(A Simple Guide to Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease) (mostly smokers) , chronic liver cirrhosis(A Simple Guide to Liver Cirrhosis) .(mostly drinkers)

2.acute conditions such as suicides by insecticide or barbiturate poisoning, unexplained fever(A Simple Guide to Fever), acute asthmatic attack(A Simple Guide to Asthma)

 Most of the consultants were friendly except a few who were a bit aloof and spoke to us through their trusted medical officers.

Most of the medical officers are friendly and helpful. 
One of the medical officer is my best friend to this day because we work so well together. 
There were the few medical officer who hope to further their career by sycophanting the consultants  and trying to get a traineeship which were very rare and difficult to get at that time. Sometimes you do not see them in the ward the whole day because they were too busy searching information for their consultant to write for the journals.

Illnesses which require operations were sent to the surgical wards.

We also have a weekly medical conference with the doctors and consultants of a nearby hospital the Tan Tock Seng General Hospital which was famous for their neurologists and the single neurosurgeon .

A consultant neurologist from Tan Tock Seng Hospital was famous for his neurology methodology. 
He used to teach me neurology when I was a medical student and is still teaching students from the major Government hospitals today.
 He was a real gentleman with perfect bedside manners and has perfected his medical examination of the neurological system to a simple step by step technique which is why the University of Singapore continue to employ him to continue teaching even after he left the public service. 
He reminds me of the need of life long learning.
He treats all the doctors consultant, trainees, medical officers and housemen as equals.
To me he was the perfect physician to emulate.
To this day I have always refer neurological cases to him .

The nursing staff at the Thomson Road General Hospital were mostly friendly although there were a few cynical nurses who have seen housemen and medical officers pass through the ward every 6 months and know who were the good, bad and ugly.
Happily most of the nursing staff were kind to me because I was willing to work and I also help them with their work when I am free.

It was on the whole one of my best posting with lots of happy memories. I have learned a lot from my medical posting and I was glad that I was able to contribute to the treatment of a few memorable cases such as the Malaria case(A Simple Guide to Malaria) and barbiturate poisoning.


Soon we will be leaving the department having finished our housemanship and hopefully try to get a good medical officer or  a traineeship posting. That, however, is another story.