Workshop at School

Idlan's school was the type which approach children education holistically and there were plenty of investment into the pupils home environment and getting the parents to be involved with the school activities and mantra. Anita went to a few courses - mainly how to use the Google Suite as well as utilising the school library. Last Monday, I went to a workshop on bilingualism.

The school wanted us to us Bahasa Malaysia - or our mother tongue - as much as possible as the children's command of English would be upgraded in school anyway. Both Idlan and Irfan could converse in English without any issues and the feeling was that the children would be missing out if their mother tongue was left behind.

The workshop explored our concerns and the advantages of speaking in our mother tongue at home environment, how it actually enriches their command of English rather than curtailing them. Something which I find quite interesting on the whole.

So, cue a few awkward conversation on the dinner table in the coming weeks ...

Last Day and a Half

The weekend passed me by super fast. On call on Friday, hence I was floating on the clouds all Saturday. But not at home resting though. I was at Saujana Hotel in Ara Damansara attending a workshop by Ramsay Healthcare about steering the organisation in the coming years.

At the workshop went on all Sunday, while I was still doing rounds and covering the ward all day.

The first activity on Saturday afternoon was to build something from Lego bricks. I had Google to tell me what to do ...Coffee fuelled Luckily the workshop venue was only 10 minutes away from SJMC.

The workshop was a heated affair at times and we got plenty of thoughts across over the couple of days. Skepticism still ruled as we left the event yesterday afternoon with the Doctors crossing their fingers hoping that their plights would not fall into deaf ear, appreciating that the management may have their hands tied in terms of ceding on the points agreed during the workshop.

I was in the pick group. Real men wear pink after all.Group discussion, with even the CEO joined in.Dato' Rozalli was our group's designated speakerOur action plan. Hopefully not our "action only" plan.But a couple of days taken away from my weekend was a drag though. And I would be on call again next weekend. Luckily Anita and the boys had already moved to the apartment as the school holidays approaching, saving me from the 3 day drives across the hospitals on Monday and Wednesday.

Time to get ready for work then. Happy Monday.

Bad Start

I had a better sleep last night compared to the evening before. Woke up in time for a morning read of the news, shower and breakfast before starting the car up. Pop came the warning. Coolant level low …… Hmm! Since I would be going to ParkCity this morning, better not risk it. The car needs to go to the workshop. And I will be driving the MPV for today!

Hopefully the rest of the day pans out better ……

Pushing and Shoving

The initial plan was to have the boys joined by their friends on Monday and spending it at Kidzania. Unfortunately, it didn't go as planned, and they ended up with just Anita.

After my wars round, undecided to join them at the venue to make sure everything went according to plan. And oh boy, I was glad I went along as I didn't think Anita would've coped. The place was a mess!

I will blog later about that an how things could be improved as I was certain that it only takes small steps to make a huge difference. In the end, it put my boys off, and after one station, Irfan refused to join another with all the wait, pushing and shoving involved. It was partly my fault as well for teaching them to be disciplined and gentlemen, rather than push people about. You obviously needed a bit of crassness to get on with this world. If we could take anything from the day out at Kidzania, it was that the mor pushy you are, the higher you get in society. Reality I supposed.

But again, I believe that things could get better. As today, their friends would be joining them, they would be going to Kidzania again. At least Anita knew what to expect this time. There will be blood .....

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.