Congratulations All Around

My Boss for the last seven years had just been made a full Professor. She took me and the rest of the crew out for lunch earlier today. The initial plan was to go to delicious, but judging from how they messed up our orders the last time we went over for lunch, we decided to give it a miss. After much deliberation we decided to go for Madam Kwan in Telawi. Fearing the place would be packed, we booked the table beforehand.

All was done .... burp!
We reached there in good time. All my previous tutors were present, which was nice. We caught up with news as some of them had retired. It was quite a long affair and it was way past 3 pm when we reached the ward. Then, the work piled in .......

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 .....

Working Saturday

I left some documents at the office which I needed for the weekend. So I ended up heading back to the office, which brought back the memories of working on a Saturday.

I remember at the beginning of working in Malaysia of working on every Saturday. A fee months Ayer reporting to work, the then Prime Minister, Pak Lah announced that Government Servants only needed to work on every alternate Saturdays, followed by a year also later, the ruling that Saturday ws now off.

Working on Saturdays were actually useful for my Unit as the headache of organizing the weekend rounds were a lot less, the Saturday Day Care gave us opportunity to see sick patients, and scans and other tests could be organize a lot faster.

I also remembered the dress code. It was batik, but I prefer short sleeves and no tie myself. Usually we had sessions with the Medical Students and usually it was full I banter. The only problem was the traffic to get home after that, that I ended up usually leaving after 2 pm as we tended to get stuck along Federal Highways.

To be honest, I do not really mind working on Saturdays as long as other people does the same as well. I could still get a lie in on Sundays.

Monday Morning Traffic!

Monday! Argh! At least the weather was dull, so one dis not feel too much of a Monday blues having to be tied indoors at work. But one thing I could do without on this fine Monday was getting stuck in traffic first thing in the morning. Unfortunately that was what happened this morning. I got stuck again at the Duta flyover into the new Istana Negara. This was starting to become my pet rant. I now wish that a public transport service was able to take me to work everyday.

Even though I got into work well in time, I must say, the amount of time I wasted in traffic was a hell of a lot. UMMC was not exactly people friendly as far as public transportation were concerned. Yes, much was made about the bus service from the Universiti LRT station, but one would still have to wait for the bus. If only there was a direct service into UMMC by tram, a lot of problem could have been solved. We could have cut down the number of cars into the carpark at the hospital for a start. Not only it would benefit the patients and staffs, visiting the place would also be much easier.

I thought, one of the main emphasis in face-lifting UMMC might not be just new buildings and more car park spaces, we should have been planning for the long term. These extra car park spaces might be good for the next five years or so, but eventually, a more long-term strategy were needed. Trust me, an LRT station right next door. Would this make too many people, specifically those who might be up to no good turning up at the hospital? That argument was rather lame. Especially at a hospital where security was only taken seriously very recently - only in the last months that the staffs were assigned smart cards to access the doors to the wards and the main entrance at off hours.

Well. Long term solution for the traffic situation was definitely needed. Getting in and out of the hospital was slowly becoming a drag, and not just for the reluctant patients.

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 …..