Of Flooding

We often hear scary stories about flash flooding in the middle of KL town. Yes, it was getting less frequent with the advent of the SMART tunnel, but it was still an issue after heavy downpour. And one such downpour happened this morning.

Luckily the rain abated by 10 am. The main areas where it was still a problem was around Jalan Duta-Semantan intersection as well as Brickfields between KL Sentral and Bukit Persekutuan. I was caught at one of thses points before, and it was so bad that I would avoid these spots everytime it threatened to rain. And I must say the recurring theme at these places were constructions and road building. Bracing myself again this morning.

Gorgeous Blue Sky

I woke up this morning with a bad throat, temperature and body ache. I tried to call for my wife and then I realised that I had no voice. Had a couple of sprays on my throat, the pain was a bit better and the voice was slowly coming back. Reciting the advice from my ENT friend, the worst thing I could do was to whisper. That would cause more strain on my voicebox.

The clinic this morning would be a monster since one of my colleague was away in Kelang, another involved in exams and a few of my MOs were either on leave or ill. My ENT friend told me to take the day off, but looking at the clinic and also the Nurses Day lunch, I think I'd better turn up, at least until lunch.

Rather than driving in myself, I was driven in by our driver to work today - in glorious sunshine. The heavy rain overnight certainly lifted the haze somewhat, but I was not optimistic that it would last that long.

P/S: I would highly recommend hiring a driver if you can afford one. Being driven into work in heavy traffic while being able to surf the net and tweet, plus updating the blog was sheer bliss!

Anjung Siber

A couple of months back, I was disappointed to see one of the badminton court at UMMC - the only one as it turned out as the other one was closed last year and turned into office space - closed for good. The space was turned into an Internet space for UMMC staff and was dubbed Anjung Siber. No it was not idea to give it such a lame name. 

The area was turned into rows of PC stations, all linked to the hospital LAN, but Internet enabled. We were able to surf even Flickr and Facebook - rather lake excuse to ban Facebook when even UM have a UM Facebook Page. I had a quick look at the space yesterday. Visited the blog, my Flickr space, YouTube and Facebook. Speed-wise, there was nothing to shout about - I get faster connection on my iPhone as a modem, although I was sure that the purpose of the space was merely to provide access. Unfortunately, I was not able to access the hospital Xray system from the terminals as I was hoping to be able able to email out some of the CT report to broached into my database. I was able to log into the blood results though.  

On the whole, I think having a dedicated space for staffs to surf the net was avoid idea. The place was not air-conditioned but as it was actually shaped like an airvent, it was not warm. There were fans to keep surfer comfortable. The space was pretty tight though. So if you were looking to do some work while surfing the net, this was not the place. The space was also of available to patients or visitor as you would need the hospital login to access the stations. If the purpose was to be able to surf the net and have a quick peek at your email account, then I guessed the space did its job. 

Last Day! Hurray!

It would come to an end. In fact, I wrote this during lunch, and we would have another couple of sessions before the workshop done. All in all, it has been a success. This was the third time that I was tutoring a similar workshop, and I must say, this has been the best lot. We would be discussing how we could integrate what we learned in the last couple of days in our daily practice, and looking forward to hear what the participants had to say.

Day Two

Day two passed by in double quick time. I was not really that fully awake forget thing after waking up early to catch the United match. After a couple of coffee breaks, I was good to go.

A blurry view from my chairThe first session was notable, much down to the effort of Su May making medical statistics both simple and fun. It was very clear that the participants enjoyed it. This was followed by small group discussion on appraising clinical papers. Before long, it was pretty clear that the participants started to recognise the pattern emerging in spotting a sound paper, compared to the dodgy ones. Objective achieved. Everyone can go home happy, to come back for the wrap up sessions tomorrow.