Friday, May 22, 2009
Lag again, been too lazy to blog, perhaps cos of case commentary and all the piling up work. Looking forward to going home! I miss everyone and everything! Maybe not the weather, but yeah, everything else.
Just had a sociology tut yesterday about HIV patients and there was this stakeholder who came to talk to us commented about something negative of our country. Well, medical wise, you would think that singapore is far way advanced then most countries with all the high tech stuff, high funding, high R&D, good management and everything, but morally and ethically, we may be still very backward. This occurred sometime in 1990s when talk of HIV was still taboo. He contracted HIV in Thailand, and was recommended by a friend to come to Singapore for treatment. When the doctor had his first meeting with him, he browsed through the medical records and saw the HIV status as positive. The doctor showed blatantly that he was shocked, jumped back and exclaimed 'i cannot treat you, you are HIV positive'. Maybe this was a thing in a pass, but maybe its still present. It kindda sucks when people are saying bad things about your country, just weird cause we were educated that Singapore is advanced and all and its just so appalling to know something like this has happened.
A lot is demanded from doctors these days, a lot, especially when people start to frown upon paternalism and patients become more aware of their rights. Doctors practise in fear of litigation. And patients expects so much from doctors. Infinite empathy, infinite time, infinite patience. Doctors cannot give all these, and its all about balances. Balance between paternalistic and patient centred treatment, balance between listening more and keeping with the allotted time. Doctors need to be almost superhuman to juggle all these. However, there is one thing doctors can always give, infinite love. And as long as we practise with infinite love, for our patients, for ourselves, for our colleagues and our families, we will become good doctors eventually.
stalin rules
6:30 AM
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