Temptations & Ambitions

There was a patient. A Chinese patient with language barrier, to be more precise. Surprisingly, some Chinese patients could not converse in Malay, as if they were extracted out of some ancient secluded civilization which had never been in any contact with other culture. So, this patient being unable to converse in Malay had a tough time conveying her message across. Especially when she could mainly converse in Hakka, one of the dialects, and not the typical Mandarin or Cantonese.

Her progress noted stated that her GCS (glasgow Coma Scale) was14/15. Or sometimes 13. But throughout my occasional review of this patient, she had always been a 15/15 to me. Maybe because I am a Hakka and my broken Hakka could reach out to her, and my legitimate understanding of her requests gave her a full 15/15.

Imagine my other colleagues who had trouble understanding what she wants because she could barely string a sentence of Malay! Fortunately, it wasn't classified as "incomprehensible sound" (which would make her an 11 out of 15).

In conclusion, language barrier can be a determinate factor of a patient with low GCS. A lesson to learn indeed.

Let's just face the fact that this has been a much debatable issue ever since gazillion years ago. I think I have even blogged about this issue somewhere in the past, but perhaps no one have heeded the message, because I am merely another citizen, one out of the 25 millions living in Malaysia. My stand is perhaps, there is no stand at all.


I was one of the few who had no choice but to pursue my studies in Science and Mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia. No further options were given, until when STPM was to be taught in English, despite the option of bilingual papers in the exams. Seriously, I have no problems learning in Bahasa Malaysia, because it has been that way since young. Be it "jisim", "isipadu", "pembolehubah dimalarkan" up to the scientific terms hardly Malay such as "centrifugasi", "kalium", "plumbum", it hardly makes any difference if you have the resources and support to enable you to learn them.

Those who fear the obstacle in language is merely fearing the unknown. Who are those who fear them? Adults. Because it sounds horrifying to learn a language foreign to them. Imagine someone telling you that you're supposed to learn a subject in French instead! That is the response that I'm talking about. In children, it is somewhat different. They do have an extremely flexible learning curve, if proper support and guidance are given. Start them young and I'm pretty sure that your child could even learn it in Greek, I assure you. Of course, how well they fare may be another issue, not of linguistic ability, but perhaps more on the cognitive and comprehensive ability.


My point is, if you do have a strong grip on the fundamentals in science and mathematics, it doesn't matter which language that you're learning in. Even so, mathematics do have universal signs and symbols after all, thus there is nothing to worry about. Those who worry, are those parents who are illiterate, or those who are semi-literate, because they blame their inability to master these as a result of language barrier, and not putting in on themselves for not trying hard enough, or other circumstances that prevented them from working harder. For those who are literate, it is just a matter of preference, but the politicization of this issue had made it a grave matter.


But of course, there are a few matters that needed to be ironed out if it should be taught in Bahasa Malaysia. As one who had gone through the system in Bahasa Malaysia, I do feel that I had deserved more rights to justify my suggestions rather than some politicians who had just undergone the arts stream instead, or even did not manage to make the cut at all.

1. Be consistent. If you want to teach it in BM, do it for a period of more than 10 years. If you want it in English, do it for equally as long. Well, the publishers who obtained the government contract would have gained the most out of this constant flip-flop (although I'm not sure if this could be the main intention of the change or not), but this would make it hard for the teaching staff. 5 years would just be the bare minimum requirement to train or retrain the staff in a language, and then a change again would just send back the teachers to retrain for another 5 years at the very least. The teaching competency had already been compromised all these while, so do expect a further dip from all these.
2. Get a Bahasa Malaysia committee catered for scientific terms in science and maths. Rest assured that Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka is not your best bet if you would like to advance BM forward in science. Many scientific words are still in English, and our friends in DBP could only Malaysianize the words at the very best, because they think there was no substitute. Even if there was, there was no one to oversee its implementation. For example, the spinal cord has its equivalent in BM, namely saraf tunjang, but what has been commonly used is spina korda or korda spina instead. And then some fanatics bragged on the beauty of science in BM from the word spina korda, when the truly proper and nice words came from the former. Hence, with a proper committee specializing in BM in science and maths, one could expect it to be able to promote better introductory of new BM terms and hopefully, be able to promote and encourage the use of BM terminologies. Hence, there would be no funky derivation of terminologies which makes no sense simply because it came from an English or Latin word.
3. Give more support to students from rural areas to learn science and mathematics. I know, most would blame the lack of proficiency in English as their inability to master these subjects. But let's face the fact, we are bound to learn English someday if you're going to pursue higher studies for science and maths.Of course, learning it in BM gives you a higher chance to enter local varsities because you can stomach all the facts in BM and vomit them all out again in exams, but that is all in academic sense. In actuality, you can even have medical students who could easily mistaken tendon vaginitis, an orthopedic diagnosis, with the inflammation of vagina! Of course, this is easily forgiveable, but given that particular student had more bouts of concrete thinking without the presence of abstract thinking, one would blame her mental ability rather than her linguistic ability. My point is, get more programmes running to reach these rural children instead of making it backward for everyone to the level of children in rural areas. If that is the case, you can even form special schools to cater for them, catering based on the needs of individual areas. The claim that BM is best for students in rural areas is the worst excuse if you would like to advance BM in science and maths. It's just merely declaring that you would intend to make everything go backwards and stupid so that everyone is equal. And then, in the eyes of the world, we would be seen as a bunch of cavemen, refusing to progress forward.

There are of course much more input, but I'll leave it at that to keep this short. With so much careful study, we know what is best for all. Of course, proclaimed studies with no figures merely make it an arbitrary fact or just a figure of speech. After all, all these commotion makes me even glad that I am a survivor of the education system. What are we without such obstacles? What does not kill me, makes me stronger.


Or perhaps, making me weaker for the next thing to kill me.

It has been a far long absence of mine from this site, while I had been busy immersing myself with the workload that would never seem to end. In a place where entertainment is scarce, the hospital is the place of entertainment for relatives of patients. 20 people can come to visit for every single patient, staring either at a healthy patient or a sickly ventilated patient. Yes, it happens here. You may think that they are concerned are whatsoever, but think again. Everyone shirks their responsibility when they are requested to take care of the patients, their very own relative. They can cry all they want, pray as holy as the sky can be reached, but most would not even lift a finger to wipe even a drop of sweat. The best is, sometimes, 20 patients can stare blankly at the patients who may have collapsed, doing nothing, and have a staring buffet out of it. This is how it is here.

Or perhaps how illiterate are the people that they would insist to bring their infants and toddlers to the wards where the place of infection is the highest. No one would doubt that the downward drift could have possibly happen due to infantile exposure to infection.

Sometimes, you get funny encounter here. Sometimes a guy can come in demanding to visit his wife, without telling others what is his wife's name. And then, on further enquiry, he actually did forget his wife's name, and that particular patient could be in another ward. Mind you, he was already told of the ward by the security downstairs. All the man wants is to create a ruckus and demand that everyone search for his wife. And this happens quite often that I would almost conclude that wives are really forgettable people in our lives. *sigh*

And then there are almost these rapid tests and rapid treatment that are expected by people in the era of modern technology. A recently taken blood culture and sensitivity had been asked of the results immediately. Or perhaps a patient who had been admitted to the ward for barely 5 minutes for some bone fracture had been asked if the bone has healed. Such high expectations are unachievable yet at the moment, perhaps maybe in 50-100 years time.

Even now, we have what you could call "Bomoh Tulang", a rather famous job here. It is so common that a lot of people contemplate of trying it instead of fixing their fracture the operative manner. They would usually request for "At Own Risk" discharge, inadvertently ending up back in the wards few weeks later with a complicated fracture, either from malunion or fibrous tissue which would make the surgery harder. Or perhaps the latest "teleconferencing" long range bomoh tulang that is able to heal from afar. Just give some particulars of your relative in the wards and he can heal your fracture in no time, or so what they think.

The health awareness here is rather low, such that I;m sure community medicine would have worked better here than in the urban settings. Until then, here I am encountering odd jobs here and there. Until then.....

Somehow, in medical, there is this term used very much. 

Jonah. 


"This guy very jonah lah!" "That lady super jonah wan lah.."


It's not exactly new, but many medical personnel somehow took a quick affinity to the word. Without knowing who is this fella named Jonah.


Of course, I'm sure the Christians would know.


Jonah is one of the prophet mentioned in the Old Testament in the bible. The word Jonah is from Hebrew origin, hence from the Jews (Or more appropriately the Semitic language). One can argue the origin here, but that's besides the point here. The question is, why Jonah? Not any other prophet?

I'm sure anyone who had read the story would have known about him being swallowed up by the whale. The famous act of all time, apart from dividing the seas or even walking on water.


Jonah is a prophet who was supposedly ordered by God to prophesize the impending doom of a wicked city, but he went the other way around to flee from his "duty", in which he boarded a ship away from the designated mission.


While boarding the ship, all sorts of disaster follows through. Everyone on board was trying to save the ship but to no avail. It was all due to that one single "unlucky" person on board who had earned the wrath of God. Jonah himself. Jonah finally realized it and even stepped out to volunteered to be thrown off board. The crew hesitated, and tried all methods, but they finally resort to throw Jonah off the ship into the sea. It was then right after that the storm calmed down and the ship was saved from the disaster.


And it was then that Jonah was swallowed wholely by a whale and the biblical story continued thereafter.


And so, Jonah was the one to be blamed for all the mishap. Admission of numerous patients to any ward is considered a mishap by medical personnel due to the workload. When an individual had been singled out to have cause such incidence by luck almost everytime, he or she would have qualify as "Jonah".


But I'm not into superstition. It's all humor after all.


But just to reiterate one more thing. There is a Malay translation for the word Jonah. Yes, anything in the bible's Old Testament would most likely be in al-Quran. Prophet Jonah is indeed Nabi Yunus.


Not that I have any strong conviction for religion, but I do know that some would prefer not to speak of the names of their prophets as freely as that. I'm just curious if those who mention it are aware of their deeds or are just plain ignorant.


Beats me. But curiosity may not necessarily be a good thing. :P

 Convocation has never been a thing for me. Wearing a dumb-looking hat and a paper scroll which is obviously not your degree certificate because they are afraid that everything may get lost in the confusion. Seriously, how symbolic can this get?


Of course, I am not going to go for a ritualistic conversion of everyone to boycott their convocation. I just find the significance dwindling down to some cultural thing that "I did because everyone else does".


In a way, it signifies the ending of the journey that you partake once upon a time, many years ago. This journey would be rather long instead if you're taking a 5-years course, or maybe longer if you had to resit or repeat any academic year. An ending, once and for all, before you start on another new journey.


And so, which is why, convocation should be held under two conditions. One, it should be held where you started your journey and spend your time mostly there. Two, it should be held BEFORE you crash down the job reality.


For me, I supposedly started my education journey in UKM Bangi campus for a week there. However, it bears no significance because I did not spend my time educated there. In fact, I was in Kampus KL (near KL General hospital) for 2 years and UKMMC campus in Cheras for 3 years. To "complete" my journey in Bangi fish out no remnants of whatsoever nostalgic feeling  deep inside me. It is a place so distant that I can do without. Like parting with a stranger you've just met for five minutes. No hard feelings.


Furthermore, we have another convocation for our very own faculty, usually a day before. This convocation is usually held in or near our hospital, UKMMC, and so, this had more memories for us than the "formal" one in Bangi. Walking down this path was more enduring, and the shivers and chills when we thought back of the fresh nightmarish experience we had back then. Of course, the fond memories never failed to carve a smile as well. The joy and fun that we had seems like it was just yesterday.

But this year, we might be holding it in Titiwangsa, our hostel for KL campus. Well, that is still acceptable, although the memories appears to be far off distant. Well, better than none in Bangi. That's what I think.


And secondly, is the point that I would love to emphasize the most. Convocation should be held before we start our work! Imagine this, the excitement that had been built up for this day. The anticipation to join the work force and to serve the nation. The confidence that we had of our equipped knowledge fresh from the professional exams. The fiery speech from the chancellor, dean and the student rep motivates us to strive ahead for the future, for what lies ahead of us, the unchartered territory, and all the promises to keep in touch no matter what. Oh, if you'd seen those pair of fresh sparkling eyes of the eager young fresh grad doctors, you'd think that their passion level would be at 110%. 


I think that is what convocation is all about, apart from being a fool awaiting the death march down the path of "glory".


And now, we are already into reality. What excitement we had, had dissipated into thin air. The anticipation is gone, and the confidence of our knowledge had been squashed akin mashed potato. No matter how fiery the speech can get, no lies or sweet talk could get through us anymore. All you can see is a pair of dreary tired-looking eyes, some zombie-looking, some dejected, though we still see some glimmer of hope behind the despaired. We could only smiled, and meeting up with old firends is the only consolation, which could be done in Titiwangsa, where the KL city center is just nearby for a stroll or to hang out at a cosy cafe somewhere, instead of being under the hot sun in Bangi, sweating like some smoked bacon. Oh well, maybe there's sate Kajang, but it's just not the same.  


Working life is no fun, otherwise it's called hobby. But we do get paid after all. And life has to go on. On the other hand, I don't feel like wasting my precious holiday for such trivial matter(convocation). I'm seriously contemplating not going to Bangi for the convocation. Anyone with me on this? :P

Little did I know that I'll be a quarter of a century old in an hour's time. Last year, I was in Slim River. This year, I am in Temerloh. Perhaps, the journey from home starts with celebrating your birthdays away from home. It does not bring any significance, apart from the fact that I am another year older, but not necessarily wiser. A retrospective look at my very own history showed that I've came a long way to where I am now, but compared to the journey of time, my experience is no more than a budding stem without a clear steer of goals. I am but just, still at the very beginning of time.