The Motherland

Herrow, apologies and thank you for your emails. You re all beautiful, give your selves a cuddle from me..

Im alive but being in Malaysia made me loose my blog mojo. something about being in familiar territory and comfortable.. figured you didnt want to hear about how fast my cousins are growing or the addictive food my talented aunts can cook.. secret ingredient: cocaine. ..though they wont admit to it.

aaanyhow.

im in Kuala Lumpur, living with my gorgeous cousin. ive adopted her as my big sister.
the vibe here is much much different from japan. theres less raw fish, chopsticks and crazy vending machines for one thing.. i guess the main thing i miss is the beautiful Japanese culture of respect and politeness. also Japanese service is second to none. i cant explain the feeling of getting bowed out of a simple coffee house.. you just have to experience it.

but enough nostalgia.. im back in a hospital so i now have tales of interest to tell...

still early days as i happened to join in the time of public holidays - from chinese new year to fed territory day to thaipusam - but its shaping up to be sweet.. see alot of MVAs which is elitist speak for motor vehicle accidents.. until i know what im doing, have taken a back seat on them.. but im already gaining some decent trauma experience.. yay.

some of the students here are surprisingly stupid... (i feel a rant coming on.. must restrain, im sure they're watching for they are everywhere) ..... to illustrate said stupidity:
an elderly gentleman arrived this morning in a pulseless Ventricular Tachycardia.
myself and malay student #1 are on the receiving team .. ive been assigned the task of IV access.. she is excess and has been assigned the vague task of assisting when required.. we, the team of 6 plus axillary malay student #1, are fluidly (if i do say so myself) proceeding through the advanced cardiac life support protocol and defib dr is about to administer shock when MS#1 yells out that the monitor is still on!
..she rushes to switch it off.
..everyone rushes to stop her.
the monitor she refers to is that which displays the patients ECG rhythm and also happens to be a part of and connected to the charger for the defib machine.
why she thought it appropriate to turn off the monitor and therefore the defibrillator, is beyond me.. truly truly bizarre.

this is of course an extreme example of idiocy and many other students here are bright little buttons and shiny gold stars but she in particular makes me feel like im gonna be okay in this crazy world of medicine.