Uhoh… here we wander into dangerous territory. Because rare is the person who’s done medicine postings in both TTSH and SGH. And it’s obviously unfair to compare Ortho in one hospital with Internal Medicine in the other… because it’ll be completely different even within the same hospital!
With his incredible powers of projection, empathy, and plain guesswork, J. tries to look at calls between… dum dum dum… SGH Internal Medicine and TTSH General Medicine calls.
This is a short match slated for 3 5-min rounds… here we go!
To begin with, SGH Internal Medicine has 6 HOs on call every night… creatively named HO1, HO2, HO3, HO4, HO 5, HO6. Whereas TTSH General Medicine has 4 HOs on call every night… imaginatively dubbed HO1, HO2, HO3 and wouldn’t you know it… HO4.
Let’s be honest, guys, TTSH has a ridiculous zone of coverage in Singapore. Everybody in the north, northeast regions goes to TTSH. SGH, with its reputation as the Central Hospital (中央医院) obviously gets a shitload of work as well. And sick internal medicine patients are… well… sick. What do you expect? So in any hospital, in terms of patients having altered mental state, chest pain, difficulty sleeping, constipation which bothers them at 2am in the morning for some strange twisted peculiar wtfaretheythinking reason… it’s largely the same.
This round goes to TTSH, which scores a vicious takedown slam of SGH and controls him on the ground for a largely boring -yawn yawn- lay and pray victory. Here’s why.
Location, location, location.
TTSH:
HO1 covers Wards 5A,5B,10C,10D
HO2 covers Wards 8A,8B,8C,8D
HO3 covers Wards 7A,7B,7C,7D and Lvl 11 (Surgical floor with the rare GM overflow case)
HO4 covers Wards 9B, 9C, 9D and Lvl 12 (overflows once again, rarely called)
As you can tell, the wards that the HOs cover and closely spaced, making for easy access… making it easy to rush to one area when they call and say ‘Hello doctor, active DIL case BP unrecordable”.
SGH:
HO1 covers W45, 58, 73, Blk 4 overflows
HO2 covers W46, 53, 11, 12, Blk 7 overflows
HO3 covers W48, 54, 72
HO4 covers 63, 78, Blk 5 overflows
HO5 covers Ward 42, 64
HO6 covers W74, NICU
Considering the sprawling layout of SGH, this designation is absolutely brutal. Look at HO2, he/she covers every single building there is. It takes 5min to walk briskly from Blk 4 to Blk 1. Then from Blk 1 to Blk 7 is a good 10-15min. You’re doing supercircuits on call!
Sorry, I know SGH looked like it was doing so well in this series but this time TTSH takes the cake with its simple ward coverage.
practicality 