Talk was Done

After a cumbersome couple of days getting my slides in order, the talk went without a hitch. It was held at Renaissance and the topic was "Current Coagulant Landscape".

My talk was before lunch, so I was able to sort out my rounds before going into town. Anita was kind enough to loan me her driver for today, so getting to and from the venue was without hassle. I was able to finish off my slides on the way in and blog on my way back to Subang. Unfortunately I had clinic this afternoon. I could've just cancel it and listen to the rest of the talk but it was too much of a hassle.

Tonight, I promised Irfan to take him to the mall. He wanted to play Animal Keiser again. I wasn't able to take him last night since I was busy with my slides. So, will be out again tonight.

Sunday mix-up

But a pleasant mix up I must add. Turned up at the ward this morning to do my National Service - also known as weekend ward rounds - to fund that one of my Senior MO was already there. It turned out that since I only mentioned rather than booked my name for the Sunday lost, the juniors was not sure if I was available.

Well, we finished the rounds in double quick time. Now heading back home, but would probably be out for lunch as I have some errands to run. Maybe drop by at Low Yat as well as I have some thing to browse there. Such a nice Sunday morning it turned out to be then .....

Not that bad

I was actually bracing myself for a heavy clinic this morning. With the school holidays just passed - patients were known to skip or cancel appointment during that time to go on holidays - and I was away last week, I was expecting plenty of patients. I had only about 8 requests today and after seeing a few more from the common pool, I was done just after midday.

The fact that the tsunami of patients did not materialise did help, but it was more to do with the number of doctors available. We had all the lecturers in, including Habibah who is back from her maternity leave. We had a Final Year MO, plus 4 others to help out. In the end, we had about eleven Doctors running the clinic which was a rarity. So, I ended up taking extra time for lunch before going for Friday prayers - I usually had to rush through, and even on a few occasions, had to come back after prayers to finish the clinic.

It was left to do some paperwork and letters before I was off for the weekend. I gather that I had some errand to run for the school concert tomorrow. I would have plenty of time for that after work …..

Saturday Teach-In

Dr Zanapiah

Yesterday, members of my Haematology team at UMMC were invited to participate in a new initiative by the Academy of Medicine. It was a teaching program for the more junior member of the Medical fraternity as well as students and non-Medical Doctors. It was held at the academy’s impressive brand-new building at Jalan Tun Razak, right opposite Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

 From chatting with the Academy staffs, I learned that this was the third of such meetings. The first couple attracted about 100 participants. The event yesterday was attended by more than 180 attendees from various backgrounds as diverse as Medical Students and General Practitioners.  I also recognised a number of our Medical Officers from UMMC attending the talks. The morning session was basically a series of didactic lectures. I kicked things off with a talk on clotting disorders. This was followed by my Boss, Prof Gan, who talked about emergency in oncology care. The morning session was finished off by my former colleague, Dr Zanapiah from Hospital Ampang, who spend about 45 minutes talking problems in blood transfusion.

My Boss, Prof GG GanYup! I was there.Dr Bee finally get to pack up. He had so many fans. I must confess that they were more participants than I anticipated. I pitched my session mainly for Medical Officers doing a Masters program. But since most of the attendees were Medical Students, I had to slow down the pace and explain a few more things in I needed to. I ended up needing to leave a big chunk of the talk out to keep to the time. At the end of the sessions I felt that a lot of people benefited from the talk. We had some lively discussion before lunch.

 The afternoon session was an even more intimate shop in smaller groups. The participants were divided into three, with me taking one and Drs Zanapiah and Bee picking the others. The group then swap around after 30 minutes. My session was on bleeding disorders - they don’t call me Bloody Doctor for nothing. Certainly I openned a few eyes on the concept of von Willebrand disease and haemophilia. The next trick was trying to upload the slights. Ending of the session I realised that I prepared around 150 slides, all in Keynote rather than PowerPoint. Converting them created a bit of an issue. The slides did not convert properly, especially the one that were heavily animated.

 For those of you who attended this session yesterday and wanting to download the slides please click on the following link that will take you to the Haematology Unit website. The file will be in PDF form. I only managed to upload a handful of slides due to bandwidth issue.

 Concerning the running of the session, I felt that the organisers did not anticipate such big turnout. We were short on food, and I ended up almost skipping lunch. Zanapiah was told off taking extra kueh during breakfast, which was amusing. We also realised that there were no members of the Academy were present apart from a couple of secretaries. Even though things ran smoothly, it could have been a lot better. Maybe a member of the Academy could end up in the morning introducing the speakers rather than us being left on our own to organise things. Nothing much, just a courtesy show of face.

 And in the future would be more than happy to participate again. Maybe I will be there a bit better knowing the demographic of the attendees. For those interested, this Saturday kitchen at the Academy runs every first Saturday of the month covering all the main topics in medicine. The next talk in February will be on the Dermatology. I am sure that you would be able to find more information from the Academy website.