A Family Doctor's Tale - THE THOMSON ROAD GENERAL HOSPITAL

 THE THOMSON ROAD GENERAL HOSPITAL

After my 2 short postings in the ENT Department and Anesthetic Department, I now have a long posting of 6 months in the medical Department of the Thomson Rd General Hospital, a small hospital catering to the satellite town of Toa Payoh and surrounding area.
It was later named Toa Payoh General Hospital and is relocated later in  the East as the Changi General Hospital.


The Head of the Medical Hospital is Prof Lee who was also the personal physician to our Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew. 
He was also the first doctor with a law degree.
He was usually quite busy and left most of the work to his deputy.

Our posting here consist of 3 months in the woman's ward and 3 months in the man's ward.

As usual the day starts at 8pm with a ward round where the medical officer will go through the previous day problems of all the patients staying the ward for the Consultant in charge of the ward to suggest better investigations or treatments. 

There was a woman in the ward who has staying in the ward for unexplained fever for 1 month for which the diagnosis could not be found in spite of  all the laboratory tests and x-rays. We the new doctors were asked for a possible diagnosis to the woman. My guess was malaria but the blood film for malaria has been done and was negative so malaria has been ruled out.


Then there were cases of 
1.chronic heart valvular disease admitted for heart failure, 2.chronic obstructive lung disease admitted for breathlessness, 3.chronic liver cirrhosis admitted for liver failure and loss of appetite, 
4.acute asthmatic cases ,
5.severe food poisoning, 
6.severe gastric ulcer, 
7.uncontrolled diabetes, 
8.kidney disease and 
9.attempted suicides.

Night duties were 3 days apart, not too bad compared to my last postings. The hospital was small , patient load was not too heavy, and there were 8 house doctors 2 for each ward and 4 medical officers. The present batch of medical officers had just completed 1 year of posting there and a new batch of medical officers will be coming in a fortnight.

Ward work includes taking blood for testing, registration and clerking of new patients who were just admitted through the Emergency Department and the outpatient specialist clinics.   

Clerking of patients was just a term for writing in the complaints of the patient, your examination of the patients, writing the findings and suggesting the investigation and symptomatic medication for the patient.

We have to do the paperwork in order to prepare for the next day ward round. 

Of course if there were any patient or their relative in the ward who have questions and needs answers we have to attend to them.

There was also paperwork to be done for those who will be discharged on that day. 

Once I have finished the paperwork , I normally go round the ward one more time to talk to the patients. 

Then you are free to do what you wish until the next patient comes or there is an emergency such as the stoppage of heart of a heart patient.