marching in the wards

http://efenem.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/housemanship-in-malaysia-best-in-the-world/



i agree to a lot of things prof lokman said, especially about working hours... although i dont agree on 3 points:

1) that the problem lies among people who went to medschool because their parents told them to. while i can see how this can be problematic, it is an old-school line of thinking and is uncommon. the statistic of 1 out of 5 young doctors suffering from some form on depression/anxiety/mental illness is too high to ignore...and i can assure you that most of these people started off fine like you and me, got into med school from hard work and passion, have good interpersonal skills, but they are oppressed by the system.

2) an interview, while may weed out starkly interpersonally-handicapped people or people already with mental illnesses, will not touch the core of the problem, the working place itself.

3) i think all these stresses on "maybe we should choose other people to be doctors?" take away the main focus which is "maybe we should change the condition doctors work in?". .

i get so mad when people stopped housemen from complaining "because you knew what you were in for". fact is, we get out of medical school NOT expecting to one day be treated like a king, but neither do we expect to enter a military boot camp. we do this because we are passionate about medicine, and passion is such a terrible thing to kill. our workplace shouldn't be a survival test, and a good working environment benefits everyone especially the patients. in the end, isn't that what matters most? if u put a good doctor and ask him to work 36 hours with 3 hours of sleep, even he will make mistakes.

i do not mean to make this sound like a complain...because i know issues like these require proactive actions, in terms of "what can i do to remedy this?". i got a backlash once from a friend for discussing matters at home, when me myself am planning to work in the UK for a while. someone i knew also brandished overseas graduates who don't come back straight away after graduating with words such as lacking patriotism, traitors and cowards, but to me, it's a case of misery loving company. if i was in a position to change things, then i'd gladly do so. what use is jumping into a sinking boat when you don't know how to repair it? i do not want to kill the love i have for what i'm doing. don't get me wrong, i do very much want to and plan to come back and return what i owe to my country. but i'd rather come back as someone who holds a position or power to make a change in the system. i plan to come back with a voice, as a specialist who has experience in comparing what works and what doesn't... maybe a consultant. i don't know, maybe these are all just tall youthful dreams. and maybe many of these won't be realised. but whatever it is, u can bet on me not being one of those Napoleons.

inshaAllah.