Satay at Kajang

Since we went to Kajang yesterday to visit my sister - she has since moved to Kajang a few months back upon her husband taking up a job at a private Medical Center there - it was customary to have some satay. She promised me the best meal in town, and it was quite near my brother-in-law's hospital. A small little shop ran by a middle-aged couple.

The main specialty of the shop was satay made from the intestines - we called it perut. It was cut thin and had the fat all trimmed off. Unfortunately, it was not very nice and according to my sister, it may have been because of the marinate. It certainly was rather bland, a dash of salt could have done wonder. The peanut sauce however was very nice, and it came with some sambal for extra kick.

To be honest I was expecting something since Kajang was famous for its satay. Maybe, I should give my sister and the shop the benefit of the doubt and give it another try.

HD it was

We just got the Astro Byond set box installed yesterday morning. As I was on call yesterday, I did not really have the chance to play around with it until earlier today. I tried the recording system, rather fiddly at the beginning but soon after got used to it. And the quality of the HD pictures through my LCD TV was really impressive. The movies looked great and the Discovery Channel documentaries looked amazing.

And then came the real test. Watching the football matches on HD. Did it live up to what Fernando Torres been trying to tell us? Well, it sure did. You can reality see the drip of sweat on the players faces on close-ups. Much betters than I was expecting.

As with a typical ManYoo games, I went through my rituals. Picked up an order of Tandoori from NZ, got into my Veron shirt and sat in front of the TV. Within the first 20 minutes, United were down by a couple of West Ham's penalties. What have I done wrong? A mini disaster! Was it the TV? What it because I was watching on HD?

I persevered. Rooney came to the rescue by bagging a hattrick, saving our season quite literally. After watching a match with such clarity of HD, it would be difficult to turn back.

Dreading the calls

The Final MBBS was finally over. At least I can now say that I was involves without being told off. However the results won't be known until Tuesday morning.

I was involved yesterday afternoon, and I was so proud that the performance of the students during that session was better than I expected. In fact it was amongst the beat session I had in years.

The afternoon session however was very trying as it only finished near 7 pm. I got some food, then it was time to do my evening ward round. That was when my mood changed. There were clearly too many patients for the system to cope without making short cuts. Some patient were down in the Emergency Department from the day before as we were not able to clear the beds out in the wards for them quickly enough. Coupled that with the notion that our Casualty was the beat in the country maybe as there were a couple of patients in the hour I was doing the rounds whose family actually discharged the patients from another hospital and got them admitted here even though a perfectly reasonable treatment could have been offered at the initial centre. The sad thing was, the patient came as far away as JB. I thought that was really out of order. Yes, it was a government hospital. But it was a government hospital for PJ. It was not our fault that there were no government hospitals in Subang, Shah Alam, Damansara and Puchong. But I was sure that the system was not designed to cope with family taking their relatives from out of town to fill in our quota!

I felt that I should have been more strict, or allowed to be strict, and insist on catering on the local residents. Those from outside should only be entertained if the we agree to take the patients on upon consultation from the referring units. We just did not have the financial, logistical and staffing means to cope with such unreasonable demand.

Enough rubbing for today as on the whole Saturday have been kind to me. It was time to spend with the family, and I will blog about that in the later entries.

Eye Time

Left for work extra early this morning. Mum has her eye appointment, and the conclusion was that she would need a pair of bifocals to see better. She got the glasses prescription and maybe in the next few days, we would be dropping by a friend's optician store in Selayang. Mum and Dad regularly visit it.

I'm currently back at home and about to get to bed as I have a long day tomorrow. A couple of patients wanted me to do procedures on them first thing, then the usual long Friday Clinic, followed by exam duties. This weekend would be a long Abd busy one as well as I will be doing some visits. More about those visits in the future entries.

An Inspirational Talk

I had the privilege of being in audience for the inauguration lecture of one of the my most respected Professor at UM, Prof Adeeba Kamarulzaman. She is the Infectious Disease Physician at UMMC and currently the Chairman of the Malaysian AIDS Council. Her lecture was mainly on the problem of HIV infection and IV drug user, and how the "tough love" approach by the authority may not be the best way forward. After all, addiction should be seen as a disease which should be approached medically in a systematic manner.

Though I missed the first ten minutes if the talk, I managed to sneaked through the back door and for 45 minutes, she presented arguments on how the problem above should be approached in the future. Even though those nay be ideal, she appreciated the hurdles faced in our community both culturally and politically.

At the end, when the lights were undimmed, I then realised who was in the audience. There was Marina Mahathir, a few of her collaborators home and abroad, a few dignitaries including ambassadors from Europe - Netherlands included which she made the point of the impact on addiction as the ban against marijuana was lifted. Not least was her uncle, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. The University's top brace pale in comparison to these distinguished guests to be honest.