New lecture hall, but Mac incompatible

My room at A Famosa, Melaka, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

I replaced my colleague yesterday for a lecture and as usual, I was planning to use my MacBook Pro. Got everything ready, connected the Mac to the projector ... then walla! Nothing happens. What?

Fiddled around, tried another connection port, still no joy. Hmmm! Never had this problem and the old lecture hall were all accommodating. This being a brand new one really disappointed me. I'll make a note to sneak in one of these days and check the connection. Even the technician stared at me blankly when I asked if there has been any issues before.

Did the decent thing of converting the file into powerpoint and use the auditorium's computer. The slides came out all wonky, but that is better than nothing.

With Diet Like This, Who Needs Chemo?

My colleague, Dr Edmund with his dental students earlier today

Oh Dear! I thought I've missed it. Was rather late at updating tonight. Just returned from listening to my Boss talking about a not-so-new concept in cancer. It is termed 'epigenetics'. Not so new because it was talked about for the last 20 years or so, but only in the last few years it has gained mainstream medical acceptance.

Contrary to what my MO was trying to make everyone else believe, it is not the 'epidemiology of genetics'. That would be too easy wouldn't it. It is more to do about genes, and how when we were born we carry both genes from our mothers and fathers, but not all of them were expressed in us. Such as my uncles were mostly 6 footers, but yours truly is ... well, not quite that tall!

There is an in-built mechanism that tell our cells which gene to be switched on, and the pattern of the switch is epigenetics. Each turn of the switch bring different consequence, some good, some bad. We are trying to find out which switch were turned on in cancer, so that hopefully we have a way to switching it off, and cure the cancer. Sometimes without even using chemo!

What is curious is, the fact that our diet can play havoc with this switch. Certain food are bad. High fat stuff maybe. Certain chemicals added in food, colourings etc. Others may protect from the 'bad' switch being switched on or off, hence protecting us from some cancers. This is a simplification. Don't go around tomorrow drinking fruit juices or ginseng as they may protect from cancer. I am not saying that they don't but the dose that is needed may be thousand times our normal diet if we want to turn the switch. We are still not certain of the specifics. Diet that has been mooted to be protective were the ones containing ginseng, garlic, the list is endless. So far there are no scientific data to support their use in hospital settings. Don't come around to see me yet for prescriptions. You might get some chemo instead!

To be honest, when it comes to cancer care, there are no EXACT science. I cannot pretend that all my chemo will 100% work. They may in fact kill. It is all about balance. The science behind the use of drugs as chemotherapy are pretty solid. The checklist needed to go through in development including animal testing is complicated and thorough. They are still a lot to explore and each day, the armamentarium is expanding. We are now entering the era of targeted therapy, when the prescription of chemotherapy will be specific to the individuals cancer depending of which gene it expresses. Much like if you have a chest infection, the kind of antibiotics to be taken depends on the bug you carry.

The long and short of it ..... the 'penjual ubat' at your local pasar malam and the annoying salesperson trying to sell you supplements may have a point after all!

Day Trip to Johor Bahru

Had an early start today. Cought a glimpse of the football score before leaving for KLIA. Damn Liverpool leading Real Madrid 3-0. It ended up 4 nil. They are playing United this weekend, and for sure they will get a stuffing. Left for KLIA finally at around 5.30.

Took slightly longer than expected on the empty morning traffic, taking an whole hour. Finally settled in and waited for Zack. He had made an online check-in last night and bringing over the printed boarding pass. Boarded the flight for 7.25. Luckily so as we found out later on that the 10ish flight was cancelled. Seems to be a regular occurrence on MAS now in their plan to cut operating cost. Reached Senai Airport a little after 8.15 and went ahead to have breakfast.

Found out that Dato' Chang was around to do his hospital visit. The CME started around 1.15, with only 20 MOs attending. Chang pointed out that the attendance could have been better with more support from hospital management. Reminds me of my previous talk in Hospital Melaka where around 60 people attended. Rushed to the airport to make the 3.50 flight, in time to hit the KL rush hour on the drive back home.

In the lecture, I touched on definition of febrile neutropenia and approach on the empirical management when it comes to initiating antimicrobials. Went through the IDSA guideline, then pointed the resistance pattern in UMMC. The Q&A was interesting, but hopefully the message was clear enough.

Score being settled

Spent the whole day synchronising my blogs and creating some workflow going. Also had to transfer a large chink of my photo files between my drives, both in the clouds and on the ground. The internet connection has not been kind due t the bad weather today. It has been mostly raining.

Will be back to work tomorrow, then off to JB to give a Febrile Neutropenia update there.

H