learning never ceases i guess

they sure aint kidding when they say the biggest brightest brains are hiding behind our nations top university.

today is indeed a day well spend.

the need to practice evidence based medicine is ever in demand. i doubt it will go out of trend. in fact, i think we started late compared to developed nations. knowing my statistical skills are in shits i enrolled myself into an overview talk about evidence based medicine.

it is intimidating as i was surrounded by people who have long did research, those who have worked for some years and people from clinical research centre.

nonetheless i found my inspiration here. its not common these days to find speakers who can hold my attention throughout the whole talk. yet today as i listen to a few speakers, my brain went wow! thats how i want to end up to be.

everythings pretty new to me. today i discovered that if i like medicine and i like money, theres always a field called health system informatics which i can prod to. at least i know that life in medicine doesnt always have to be clinical work. it covers alot of stuff ie dengue, how cpg are written, how to analyse systematic review, cochrane n non cochrane sites. well.. statistical jargon on the side, i think this is pretty much a good start to revise some statistics.

hope this new found inspiration benefits some cells in my brain.

Hades

Dogs never fail to amaze me with whatever they are capable of conjuring up.

2 years ago when i adopted hades, the only reason why i took him was because he was a retriver mix. he looked adorable, scrawny at that time. since i couldnt get a real retriver why not get a mix retriver.
I had to name him, and this time i wanted to give my dogs a cool name. not some names like brownie, blackie, etc as what happened in the past.
i still remember that time i just watched percy jackson, so i favored greek names. i remembered dogs can only remember 2 syllable names. options like poisoidon, athena was out. i didnt like the name zeus, it sounded too powerful for a dog.

a thought strike me, what if the dog becomes what its named after. eg. if i name it angel its going to be angelic. i remembered the name hades from the movie. hades = the god of the dead = the ruler of afterlife.
i had a wild idea, i wonder if by naming him hades will he be able to see ghosts? wild as it may seems, i named him hades.
at first it took a while for everyone to be able to pronounce his name. but it settled down later on.

few months later he begun to have skin issues. he was itching daily, his fur changed to be patchy, his skin looks blackish, his skin just looked terrible. even the brown streak of fur on his back was gone, a streak i love. he looks whithist now. surely he didnt look like a retriver mix.
trips to the vet, courses of antifungal and antihistamine medication, thrice weekly baths, and fish oil supplements became part of his daily routine. the best thing was he like car trips so calling him into the car was easy. he is prolly the only dog ive had who can sit in the car and enjoy the ride.
my parents did however got naggy over how costly of a dog he was. how hes not one bit of a guard dog.

time passes and he has grown 50% of his original size. he is now what i call fat. his skin problem still persists. bringing him for a walk is a no no. beyond the gate, he sprints in full speed, pulling anyone who brings him out. not a good candidate to bring out as he goes and drive the neighbourhood dogs crazy, pee everywhere and on anything in the street and have a hard time getting back into the house.
the first time i realised he was different was when 2 of my other dogs fight and he appeared so chill. he wasnt bothered about their fight, he just went on continuing his nap.
i didnt knew if i should laugh or be alarmed.

while other dogs can be trained by giving treats, hes a very stubborn dog.
delay the treat giving after he gives his paws or sit down, he will walk off.
i tried tricking him, by giving many commands without giving treats. he responded by ignoring me.
the only command he knows is sit and paws. i dont think he can ever be trained.

today he saw me sitting in my room, the door was open. i must have been absorbed looking at my laptop when i heard a loud bark. i turned and saw him sitting outside. my mom said he has been staring at me for awhile and then decided to bark at me.
should i be proud that i get a bark from him? im not sure but i did feel like laughing.

sometimes i think he is a child in a dogs body.
i still enjoy looking at him sleeping sometimes. the paws moving mid air, lost in his doggy dreams with the deep doggy sleep look. its pretty cute.

i wonder what else hes capable of. 

the bro code

My brain begun to have its qualms after a conversation with a friend.
i wasnt expecting to be hit with a cold hard truth.
the aftermath of that cold hard truth lingered after that conversation. its there behind my mind. lurking while my subconcious mind tries to churn it away.
today i finally realised the truth of that cold hard truth. i saw the photos. i wasnt upset, nor was there flood of emotions. what rang inside my head was the exact same sentence  that my friend  said.
thank god i have friends who knock sense into me when i go senseless.
i thank god too that i havent done anything to sabotage myself.

truth is, often we go after those who doesnt care about us, enslaving ourselves to their existance yet we dont do enough to those who love and care about us. we are always blinded by those who stood rock hard by our side, catch us when we fall.

moments like this is where i feel touch.

maybe this is why they say 'bros before hoes'.

A hiatus moment

Theres nothing much going on in my own life so far.

There had been many plans made previously but one or another they got delayed. Its always easier said than done. Thinking back i think i was like a bull who kept charging when it sees red. there was no proper planning or backup plans. 

Graduation was exciting until the months of inactivity came. routine mundane work is not my strongest point. sometimes i have a sense of disbelief that its the same situation im in when i finished high school. karma is such a bitch.

The goverment has alot of reform ideas but none that can solve the oversupply of medics. Ive attended a few talks by the ministry, just to have an idea on how realistic things are. to be honest, the biggest set back for all of us is money. however big our aspirations were, whatever grand plans we had, it all boils down to money.

i never thought i will say this but theres nothing medically we can do that can generate income. till now i have understood why so many people go into finance, accounting and marketing. reality is whenever i try searching for jobs these are the fields with the most number of jobs. 

its always a dilemma to me, as to find a job to earn money or get a medically related job. truth is, even a clinic nurse job requires experience which i do not have at the moment.

the next question is usually how long am i able to commit. i find this question a real deal breaker. till this date i dont know exactly how long i have to wait. from the moment i got the temporary registration number i had been waiting. days flew by, months went by and i was still waiting. the surge of happiness came when i received an email stating for me to attend an interview. after the interview its back to waiting again. 

this is the kind of uncertainty that makes it difficult to get a job unless its sales job. heck if i was interested in non medical stuff i wouldnt even spend 5 years of life studying hard.

there comes a time when someone put ideas into your head about building your resume. resume, a piece of paper whereby you write your acheivements (real or fake). volunteering is an excellent resume builder someone told me. sure, i got inspired and i filled up forms and wrote emails. i had replies but it isnt that kind of volunteering that every medic dreams of. the idea of saving lifes in red cross camps, the situation whereby your the sole medic and life hangs by you. no, it doesnt happen that way. with zero experience, ive come to realised that medic or non medic, mbbs doesnt carry weighage. you are as good as a non medic. 

most volunteering organisations require people that could volunteer for a long period. im afraid i am not a good choice because of the spontaneity of the situation i am in. 

sometimes i feel like saying screw this but i ended up sucking up my ego and doing however tiny bits of volunteering i can. the idea is that everyone starts at the bottom. 

i know i am not the only one out there who feels frustrated. i am indeed lucky that i still have my parents as my financial pillar. being ingrained with the asian virtue about respecting parents, there are times whereby i felt i was a useless child. at the age of 26, i was supposed to be independent. 5 years of education, supported by my parents, in the eyes of society i was supposed to be taking care of them but its not happening. sometimes i think i can understand those cynical comments about how medical education is not worth it. 

till then, im going to try stay afloat of these hard times. the negativity of all this isnt doing anyone any good. i tend to think of these hard times as a true test towards the medical passion and a test of our characters as well. the character of steel was made with preserverance and thus i will try to preservere as well.