Hardware Failure

When it rains, it pours.

On Monday, the printer (Epson Stylus Photo 830) stopped functioning. Actually, it’s been malfunctioning ever since a cartridge of third-party ink was slotted into it a few months back.

Well, if looked at strictly, it’s required constant time and money (spent on ink) cleaning the inkjet nozzles which have a tendency to get stuck. Still, despite third-party ink, functional. Until Monday evening, when J. wanted to print out the Neonatology notes for the next morning. By the way, the printer’s not worth the money.

J. got it free.

If that’s not bad enough, J. came home yesterday to another piece of bad news.

Toronto Notes 2007

The Brother is back in town from Canada, and he comes with a powerful offering.

Behold! The Toronto Notes 2007!

O&G: Women’s Health

One of the problems with constantly being in a public hospital in Singapore is that cases that are seen are the more interesting, the more tragic, the more complicated. And J., halfway through his posting, has seen a fair number of cases.

He is glad to be a man.

That is despite the fact that at all ages, women have a longer lifespan than men. Women in Singapore, once past the age of 55, can expect to live to 83, whereas men can expect to live to 79. Women tend to live longer with disability before they die than men. [1]

J. is still glad to be a man.

Link: Daylight Atheism

Daylight Atheism
Nighttime is for dreaming. Daylight is for action.

Evident in the title is the fact that the author is an atheist and unabashedly so.

The site does not resort to bashing Christianity. It does not focus on the fringe “extremist” groups. It does not continuously rehash old arguments.

The site’s layout is clear and easy to navigate. The articles are well thought out and well-written. It’s worth a read, regardless of your religion.

P.S. Mortimer J. Adler’s How To Read A Book is a great read that deserves an in-depth study. One thing that can be taken away from it is that anything worth reading is worth reading well. Reading critically and reading with an aim to better oneself or one’s understanding. This should probably be bourne in mind.

Friend from Taiwan – Lunch at Banana Leaf Apolo

A few years back, J. went for this tour of Taiwan that was sponsored partially by a Taiwanese group. It was targeted at overseas Chinese (i.e. not from People’s Republic of China, a.k.a. China or from Republic of China, a.k.a. Taiwan).

The tour itself was taken by a group of university undergraduates, a number of whom were majoring in tourism. Their leader, Dab–, decided to visit Southeast Asia, and had first visited a friend of hers (who was also one of the tour guides on the Taiwan trip) who stayed in Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia).

It’s amazing that after all these years, Dab– still managed to contact the group representative, QG. One fine, overcast Saturday morning, she took a comfortable coach ride down from Kuala Lumpur to the DFS at Orchard where QG met her. They then took a train ride to Little India where the entire bunch (who could be contacted) met.

1 day can’t compare to 21 days (the duration of the Taiwan tour). Still, they had to return the favour in any small way, they thought.

Ankle Sprain: Phase II

It’s been more than a few days since J. over-inverted his foot, disrupting the lateral ligamentous complex, most likely the anterior talofibular ligament, during a rousing game of basketball.

Having tried his best to adhere to [unsuccessfully] RICE treatment, J. has tided over the most painful period into the next phase.

Just for interest’s sake, J. looked at the Ottawa Rules (very accurate, the linked study says) and concluded that he did not have a ankle fracture warranting X-Ray. Also, he tested his own ankle for instability. There was no evidence of laxity. Hence, J. graded his own ankle as a Grade I; estimated period of disability: 1-2 weeks.

Now that the pain is minor, despite the lack of use of NSAIDs, J. has started thinking about strengthening his ankle.

O&G: Operating Theatre – Life and Death

J. was recently posted to the OT to watch and hopefully to scrub up and assist. Two operations seen had vastly different implications.

In the first, the start of a new human’s life in the external world began. In the second, any potential for growth or life was detroyed.

Ankle Sprain: Phase I (Immediately Post-injury)

Not a good day for basketball. There was one minor car accident, three sprained ankles and one stubbed finger.

The finger and one ankle belong to J., darn the luck.

Any army/medical personnel will tell you that the management of a sprain is “RICE“. Let’s see how J. managed his ankle in comparison to what is described here in Sprain and Strain Treatment.

Career Seminar – Career Path After HO-ship

In what should be one of the final career seminar talks for the academic year, the focus was on what constitutes a good house officer (intern).

Dr Soumen (Medical Officer) gave “A junior professional’s perspective on HO-ship”
Dr Goh (Consultant) gave “A senior professional’s perspective on HO-ship”

Unfortunately J. was indisposed until the latter part of Dr Goh’s talk and arrived only in time to hear her regaling the audience with a story of a house officer who gave a “chemotherapy drug” to the wrong patient. Fortunately, it happened to be the high dose steroid part of it, so it didn’t do toooo much harm to the young patient with treated otitis media.

What interested many of us was the third part of it.

Prof Lee gave a talk on the “Career path beyond HO-ship“.
(Prof Lee’s degrees, accomplishments and posts held are too numerous to list here).

Fitness Maintainence – 15-min Routine A

During this O&G posting and with the Pathology examination looming over his head, J. doesn’t have time for his usual 1hr30min workout routines. There has been no time for the 8km runs (takes 40min), no time for the lengthy gym sessions (1hr), no time for swimming laps (1hr 10min). It’s been even more difficult given the thunderstorms and the fact that J. has been too sick to stress his cardiovascular and respiratory systems for extended periods of time.

Is he to let everything deteriorate?

Enter the 15-min Routines.