Singaporean Television Drama – The Oath

Loathe as I am to admit it, the medical drama The Oath by Wawa Productions, is actually quite entertaining to watch.

The Oath

It’s so bad, it’s good. It’s like how forensic experts roll their eyes at the popular show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and lament how juries in the US nowadays expect the same impossible magic before convicting criminals (“What, you don’t have DNA evidence + tire trails + electronic money trail + 5 CCTV surveillance tapes + trace chemicals matching the one from this obscure chemical plant 20 years ago, we can’t convict this robber!”)

Similarly, we have actually had people ask: “Can poking the fingertips and rubbing the ears help to treat acute stroke?”

The Oath Episode 1

Then there’s this blood-vomitus-inducing car accident part at 12:30 of the above video that explains why the character acted by Christopher Lee basically got kicked out of medical school for general quackery. First, please contrast what happened in the above video with the below video (read: Singaporean scriptwriters may have copied a few things from more successful dramas)

Iryu Team Medical Dragon Episode 1

It starts from 0:45min, where they make a judgement after listening for breathing and percussing for hyperresonance that this lady has suffered bilateral spontaneous pneumothorax requiring urgent needle (pen) decompression to buy time pending arrival of the ambulance.

Now compare that with The Oath, where the medical student played by Christopher Lee on his way to an exam runs to a polytrauma patient from a road traffic accident, does not try to assess / open the airway, does not listen for breathing, and proceeds to jab a pen into her chest. Nice. The blog link above says it’s a cricothyroidotomy but the area of insertion is wrong, it’s more likely an improvised needle decompression.

Donorweb – Your blood is replaceable… a life is NOT !

As a practising physician who uses blood products, I feel compelled to walk the talk and donate blood on a regular basis. If you are keen to donate blood for the first time in Singapore and are not sure how to go about it, go onto the website and take a look.

Donorweb – Your blood is replaceable… a life is NOT !

On Donorweb, you can see the current blood stocks in Singapore (at the time of posting low in A and O), upcoming Bloodmobile Drives to look for one near your place of residence/work, see where you can donate blood at Bloodbank@HSA, Bloodban@Woodlands, and have your queries on the forums.

That said, you can also donate blood at NUH, as I just did a couple of days ago. I have a fondness for NUH because it’s the first place I donated at. If you drive and park at NUH you can get a carpark redemption voucher. Unlike my previous post which stated 3 months, now the time in between donations is 16 weeks (4 months)

Go forth, you can save lives too!

Coffee – Yahava KoffeeWorks

Friends of a friend of mine went to Australia and tasted the coffee from Yahava KoffeeWorks. They were so taken by it that they decided to franchise it and bring it to Singapore.

Another of my friends gave me one of the coffee tumblers she bought from Yahava KoffeeWorks. The power of the tumbler allows me to obtain 50 cent discounts off drinks at Yahava. 50 cents a lot of money!

Yahava Keepcup ($19.50)

I have heard that the main business of Yahava KoffeeWorks was the supplying of coffee beans. Unlike illy, which produces only one blend, Yahava provides a range of coffee blends. Their shop along Upper Thomson Road is supposedly more for people to sample their coffees and being a café is not their core business.

Tempering my expectations with that in mind, I made my way down to check out the place for myself.

Fortunately, I am familiar with the area (due to frequenting Plum Village) because it isn’t one of those places that is very visible from the main road and can be a little difficult to find. Looks promising!

Fitness: Walking

Sometimes people ask me: J., how do you maintain your fantastic 6-packs, broad shoulders, Arnie-worthy biceps and defined calf muscles?

Then I wake up.

That said, it never hurts to try to maintain some fitness, and one thing I do do is walk, even though it will never get me Arnie-worthy deltoids.

It’s one simple activity that I tell all my patients who are keen on weight loss to start doing.

Drinks: Gas Chamber Shooter @ Chupitos

No pictures… the lighting wasn’t good enough to take one.

The drink itself looked innocuous. A shot glass filled to the brim with transparent green liquid.

Only a moron calls a shot glass filled with transparent green liquid innocuous. It looked deadly and venomous, unlike the cheerful looking Pandan shot topped with whipped cream.

The server lit it on fire and quickly covered it with a glass and handed me a straw. She removed the glass, taking care to maintain the fumes.

I drank the shot. I had to cough as the Bacardi 151 and absinthe green hit the back of my throat.

I then inhaled the fumes from the upside down glass.

Tasted terrible. And it did go somewhat to my head, though I suspected the light-headedness was from the coughing because it only lasted for 30s. Hmmm… really wouldn’t drink it again. I like to enjoy my alcoholic beverages, not torture my throat with them.

Watch: Seiko Orange Monster

I’d been looking for a diver watch, and found the following:

The Seiko SKX781 Orange Monster

It’s an entry level automatic (translation: self-winding mechanical) diver watch by Seiko. It has all the requisite diver watch requirements: bright lume, unidirectional bevel, screw-in crown, solid stainless steel case.