Chan Weng Kit's Blogspot: March 2022

Mar 8 - 26

1. Time to update my long-overdue blog - this time with my recent posting in Taiping Hospital for surgery. Having previously completed two weeks of medicine in Taiping Hospital, we returned now for two weeks of surgery instead. For the first week, we had daily bed-site teachings (BSTs) with the surgeons, and in the second, we had our sub-internship week where we would be expected to observe, assist and perform basic procedures that a house officer would be required to do.

2. My initial thoughts were that our surgery rotation seems to be more intense than medicine. While we only had 3 BSTs during medicine, we have one everyday during surgery. Also, our contact times with the surgeons are much more uncertain due to the very nature of their jobs - surgeries could be more complicated than expected, or emergency surgeries may pop up at any time etc. Therefore, BST's have been postponed or replaced far more often in this rotation compared to medicine.

3. In Taiping Hospital, there are only two surgical wards - Ward 17 and 18, for females and males, respectively. Every morning, ward rounds are conducted, in which the house officers do a round of presenting the patients' cases to the medical officers, who in turn do another round of presentations to the consultant. My friend Helmi and I would attend the ward rounds, then proceed to clerking and examining the patients ourselves.

4. During our sub-internship, we managed to practice some basic ward procedures, as well as observe some minor and major operations. The minor operations we saw included an excision biopsy to remove a sebaceous cyst from a patient's back, as well as another excisional biopsy to remove a submandibular swelling, the latter requiring general anaesthesia as there were multiple swellings below the neck. We also saw various endoscopic procedures, including a polypectomy - where polyps are visualised with a colonoscope and then removed with a snare.

5. In my opinion, the most interesting procedures were in the operating room. We managed to see four operations in total - a laparoscopic cholecystectomy to remove an inflammed gallbladder, an excisional biopsy to remove a right breast fibroadenoma (= benign breast lump), a wide local excision to remove a pilonidal cyst with rhomboid flap, as well as a right laparoscopic hernioplasty. Operations tend to be long and complex, and I've noticed that the procedures can change depending on what is discovered during the operation. For example, the laparoscopic cholecystectomy was converted to a partial cholecystectomy due to inability to visualise Calot's triangle (i.e. the gallbladder was contracted and embedded so could not be removed in its entirety). Another example was the wide local excision for pilonidal cyst - initially planned for rhomboid flap, this had to be converted to just the excision without flap due to the patient experiencing pain over the flap site despite analgesia.

6. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy - so the saying goes. In line with that, we managed to really enjoy ourselves in Taiping, trying the infamous Antung coffee (served everyday in our hotel), going for lunch together after classes, and even going as far as Kuala Sepetang (Port Weld) over the weekend for seafood. To cap off our rotation, Helmi and I had a really nice brunner (breakfast, lunch, dinner) at Sushi Mentai - where the servers immediately recognised us as RUMC students, probably due to our classmates coming here often. As we left Taiping, a small part of my brain (probably the hippocampus) reminded me that only 44 days remain till our final finals.

7. That's all for my blog today. I reached Penang safely despite the rain and traffic yesterday (Friday) evening. Thank you very much for visiting as always, and have a great one. Cheers!

Scrubbing in for surgery - Taiping Hospital

First day of surgery rotation and lessons were cancelled unexpectedly - so onwards to breakfast then :)
This is the famous Hutton Lane Roti Bakar

This is their roti canai with chicken curry and soft boiled eggs

- sounds like a strange combination but it tastes absolutely delicious!

Very unassuming location except for the long queue of people waiting for their food

Bringing the whole lot here today
L-R: Shang Chen, Yasmeen, Ishraq, Aiman, Midun, Rachel, Myself

Watching a minor procedure today

ERCP procedure - to visualise the hepato-biliary tree and also remove any gallstones if detected

Legend Inn - undoubtedly a legend amongst RUMC students

Kinda nostalgic to return to the Legend Inn

- after staying here for two weeks during medicine rotation

Back at Sri Annapoorana Restaurant for some delicious banana leaf rice

(and post-prandial somnolence after that)

Trying out Sejati Restaurant for lunch today

- catfish, fried green beans, and potato curry on a bed of rice

Okay how difficult is it to spell "Kevin"? Apparently quite...

Port Weld Restaurant in Kuala Sepetang (Port Weld) for some delicious seafood

I'm not good at translating names - suffice to say there were fried mantis prawns, steamed mussels, spicy squid, steamed tofu (beancurd), fried baby crabs, a bread bowl with prawn curry, and yau mak (i.e. Romaine lettuce)

L-R: Esther, Rachel, William, Khang Way, Myself

Khang Way and myself used to clerk together during paediatrics rotation when I was in C2021, so it was really nice to catch up with him over dinner :)

Raintree Walk @ Taiping Lake Gardens

To digest all that good seafood

An impromptu movie sesh (The Theory of Everything) with Rachel

Essentially a biographical drama of the life of renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the young age of 21

P.S: Sorry Helmi for using your bed

It's been a while since I had Nando's

Discovered the bottomless meal at Nando's - essentially free refills of either rice or coleslaw, as well as free drink refills. Because if there's one thing Malaysians love more than food, it's free food :)

Trying out one of two famous cendol restaurants in Taiping - Ansari Famous Cendol

My honest impression is that it was alright but nothing to shout about. The second cendol place was a lot better

Catfish, tempeh, and beansprouts on a bed of rice - a steal at RM10

Wan Ikan Bakar for lunch today - as recommended by Midun

L-R: Helmi, Rachel, Midun, Myself

Beansprouts, begedil, with the main course just out of view :)

The mains: A quarter leg of roasted chicken as well as a bowl of siput sedut masak lemak

(sea snails cooked in chili cream)

Contemplating my life choices after standing for over four hours observing a complex procedure in OR

22 plates of sushi and proud of it :)

What a memorable way to finish our two weeks here in Taiping!

Feb 21 - Mar 7

1) This post marks 2,000 days since I first began my journey as a medical student. While there were no fireworks or partying to celebrate the longevity of my blog, there have been a few other milestones that make this post that extra bit special.

2) To start off, we had our final posting in medicine last week. Previously, we had spent two weeks of our medicine rotation in Hospital Taiping. I don't recall visiting Taiping often while growing up, but being in a different environment (after so long in Penang) was certainly very refreshing. We had our sub-internship week in Taiping as well - to observe, assist, and perform whatever procedures or examinations which we could. Overall, Taiping was both fun and surprisingly quite relaxing for us. Unfortunately, we weren't able to explore the city as much as we would have liked, mostly due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases at the time.

3) I would be remiss not to talk about exams. At the end of our medical posting was an OSCE examination. Initially scheduled for May, this was brought forward to the beginning of March due to changes in our schedule. In order to standardise the OSCE stations with those of the surgery examination, the time in station was reduced from 7 to 5 minutes, with only 1 minute for discussion. While some may be relieved owing to having less time with the examiners, I personally did not, as I felt the reduced time for examination would disrupt our overall flow and thought process.

4) Regardless, we finished our final medical OSCEs yesterday. As with most exams, I knew I could have done better, but I had already given my absolute best. Now that we're done with medicine (at least until May when we have our written papers and long case exams), we can focus on our final rotation - surgery. In my mind, surgery is more labour intensive than medicine, mostly due to us having clinical sessions every day from 8-12, with afternoon online classes thrown in for good measure. At the end of the day, I keep telling myself that this is indeed the final rotation of my six-year long journey, and that gives me the motivation to see this through.

5) Here's to the last two months till our final examinations. And with that, I'll end my blog post here. Thank you very much for visiting as always, and have a nice week ahead. Cheers!

And that's a wrap - final medicine rotation complete!

L-R: Helmi, Omar, Lilin, Myself, Sean, and Kuhan

Taiping Hospital - one of the first hospitals in Malaysia and the first to introduce the "Roentgen Ray Apparatus", otherwise known as an X-ray machine!
Interesting, the first X-ray taken here was of a pomfret - very clearly detailing all the little fish bones