Recently, I've sent an article to The Star. While it was being published, the main content wasn't. Here's how it sounded like: (Link to article)

"I REFER to “Cheers replace tears for SPM top achiever” (The Star, July 4), and would like to congratulate Mo Ye Vonn for her PSD scholarship to AIMST.

However, there are things I would like to clarify to doctor wannabes.

One should know that a doctor is relatively underpaid. An office worker is paid RM2,000 on average for 40 hours of work a week, with overtime allowances beyond that.

A houseman earns up to RM4,000 a month for more than 100 hours of work a week. For that amount, the doctor is valued as much as a clerk.

Besides, most hospitals are understaffed. Certain hospitals do away with the one day off per week for housemen. Forget the one day off post 36-hours call. It’s just a myth.

In short, consider us more like Filipina maids, without any day off, and confined to the hospital most of the time."

And so it was, left with a question mark. I was relinquishing the thoughts of money in this article, which was supposed to be like the one below:

Letters to The Editor,
More Tears to Come

Refering to the article “Cheers replace tears for SPM top achiever”, I would like to congratulate Mo Ye Vonn for her PSD scholarship into AIMST. However, to our amusement among medical students, we find that the tears shed was out of no reason, for life still goes on, without the need to be depressed. Perhaps it was an exaggeration, along with the loss of appetite to eat anymore, but if it is true, I’d promised that there are soon to be more tears to come post-graduation.

Perhaps, there are things I should really clarify to potential doctors wannabe’s. One should know that a doctor is relatively underpaid. General office work pays RM2, 000 on average for 40 hours worth of work a week, with overtime allowances beyond that. A houseman, meanwhile, earns up to RM4, 000 a month for more than 100 hours worth of work a week. For that amount, the doctor’s value is worth a clerk’s job afterall. Besides, most hospitals are understaffed. Certain hospitals do away with the one day off per week for houseman. Forget even the one day off post 36-hours call. It’s just a myth to appease the public of the housemen’s working conditions. In short, consider us more like Filipino maids, without any day off, and confined to the hospitals most of the time. With that in mind, I can assure you that housemen will get rich in no time, earning all the money and nowhere to spend it.

Many a times, the public and the government had been focusing on the doctors as the main primary health caregiver. We talk about improving doctor’s standards, or their pay and working conditions so that doctors could be more efficient. We even thought of producing more doctors that one day, there would be more doctors than accountants and lawyers! Have we ever thought of the health organization and system? Better trained nurses (with better pay, of course) could relieve the burden of doctors in the healthcare service. In the overseas, the nurses are definitely knowledgeable and well-trained, and are given the ability to make decisions. Imagine the housemen in Malaysia who still have to take blood from the patients when these are done by the nurses overseas! That’s why housemanship period would be the time when time management is utterly valued, for most housemen preferring quickbites as substitutes on the go, or sometimes skipped a lot of meals. It’s true that this gives better training to the doctors, but this is just one of the many examples where delegation would free up the doctor’s time to tend to more patients at one time. Therefore, the ministry and the public should be reminded that doctors are not the only ones involved in the healthcare services, but rather the medical team as a whole, from doctors, nurses, attendants to the janitors! Focusing only on the doctors would not do much to improve our country’s healthcare services.

Another main concern in mind would be the filing system in the hospitals. While teaching hospitals are equipped with computer systems in the storage of patient’s data, some government hospitals (if not all) are still in the stone age of keeping data records! Imagine this, computer systems makes information accesible to doctor with a click of the mouse. Results are available instantenously via the system, saving the doctor’s time from running around the hospital blocks to retrieve reports, and the office job of stapling the results to the patient’s file. These tasks can take up to an hour or more each. Imagine the time running here and there frantically, especially in the middle of the night!

And all the housemen can do is to stay strong, for housemen had no voice over such matter, for fear of their career being in jeopardy. They fear that the 5-years worth of studies would go in the dumps just for the sake of opinion. Or they had tring to swallow it out of the name of passion and joy. But, should this really be taken advantage of? Such silence would be the ironic aspect of a the profession, for we are on equal grounds with the maids, that is, being underpaid and overworked (and potential abuse from superiors as well). That’s why, if you’re crying out of rejection of PSD scholarship, I wonder how much more tears would be shed through this ordeal?



It was a post of doubts, thinking of what a career would we be into. Since it was somehow distorted, a reply came through:

Don’t be fooled by TV medical series

WITH reference to the letter by YM “Housemen are more like Filipina maids,” (The Star, July 6), I wish to advise those who wish to pursue a career in medicine to acknowledge that it is a noble profession.

It is not about money and a lavish lifestyle as portrayed by the American TV medical series.

It will involve stressful long hours of hard work to serve your fellow mankind.

Only your passion towards your profession will be able to carry you through during your two years of housemanship.

If one thinks that house officers are just like Filipina maids, then I am sorry to conclude that he has probably chosen the wrong career. The writer is obviously only motivated by the monetary reward and not by his passion and interest towards his profession.

A doctor’s work cannot be valued with ringgit and sen. We need to serve our patients with compassion with or without money.

POOR DOCTOR, KL

Maybe his ideas were distorted due to the the limits of article space, but here I am, telling him that he's crap anyway. ( I'm free to retort anyway.) As someone who would enter this profession, I say that doctors are mostly liars. They may seem all-knowing, but of course, they are humans too. The public overvalued doctors as saints, and perhaps that's why they think saints can work super extra long hours. The old doctors are worse, thinking that "Last time we did the same training, so why can't they?" But expired doctors they are, things are always different every generation. If we would like to compare, doctors last time have to plant their very own paddy to eat. Such nonsense can only be churned out by such extra-ice-age people. Don't make me laugh at his very own delusion that doctor's a noble profession. This just meant that all he wanted was fame, even if he does not admit it. :P

Besides, passion and interest gets you nowhere. Millions of people with overzealed passion were vying but could not get into this "noble" field, so why do you think yours can? Does passion really matter? Or was it the pride that made him think that it was all passion? Life is not about early passion (much more of delusional, if you'd asked me). In fact, there is no single factor which defines what should we do, but we should ought to do with our concience right. He could be one of those who learned to adapt and never complains, but sometimes, such challenges are what that requires us to improve. So, we, the newer generation should actually strive to improve, lest we get such third world doctors who, well, work well in the 3rd world, but not in consistence with Malaysia's strive to be a developed nation. Perhaps it is time we let go of such super doctors, and learn to delegate instead. We may not be super doctors in the future who-knows-it-all, but at least, we will be having a more efficient medical team and a proper organization and system for the benefit of all.

The conclusion is, one man can't save the world. A man learns to delegate, so he can save more. Many a times, doctors misunderstood the meaning, as they thought that the phrase applies to fellow doctors only. And many a times, doctors refused to delegate for fear of loss of indispensibility. But here, I'll say, work and share with everyone, be it your nurse, your attendant, or your patient. With that, you may not be the superhero doctor who save the world or the one people idolizes, but at least, the job gets done easier.