Dogs are just barking away somewhere downstairs. Suddenly, there are so many different pitch among the commotion. Sounds like the entire neighbourhood dogs are talking to one another at the same time. Ha ha.. but no worries, there are no major dog fights around. Maybe just courtesy remarks when they met one another for a stroll. What am i talking about? hee hee absolutely no idea... Am i talking sense?

Firstly, i am upset with the increasing number of white hairs on my glory crown. Darn.... wonder how come so many strands pop up over night. Luckily, my hair did not turn white over the night. Must be stressed. Everything just boiled down to how hectic my lifestyle was at the moment. Currently, i am making attempts to make my work less stressful. i am happy with my work just certain areas. Guess i have reached the stage for evaluation of my job again. There are so many rooms of improvements to be made. Last night, my colleague just pulled out an x ray which she did and asked me if there's anything wrong with the image. It took me so long staring at the images. i guess i was pretty tired then and my mind was partially switching off. i could see that there is something wrong but i cannot tell what is wrong. Guess what, dislocation of the knee lah... i was laughing at myself why i could not pinpoint the problem in the first place. Well, there's nothing to be ashamed of that a junior asked me a question but i could not provide the answer. At that point of time, my brain freezed ..cannot think of anything. ha ha ,,busy looking out for fractures. Thanks though... giving me a chance to realise that i am focused on something that i neglected lots of other stuff around me. Time to revitalize and think out of the box again to resolve the current hectic situation.

i kinda give up the fact that bosses could help us to improve the situations. Guess it will be up to us, ground workers to make our life less miserable at work by united together and helped one another out.

One thing i realise this morning, i am not saint.

i should be sleeping now at this time of the day after last night duty and tonight i am on again. i just could not keep that incident off my mind the entire morning, even dreamt about it. This was really ridiculous when that GS person blew up at me saying that i delayed his e surgery and all because of the ct AP scan requested for one of the AE patient. As instructed from my own doc, patient had to drink oral contrast to rule out IO. What's the problem, i had already shorten the timing to 45 mins compared to the usual 2 hours wait before scanning. Any problem with that. The only problem was that he or whoever downstair did not receive clear instructions that the patient was for ct AP. And the minute my doc informed me about the scan, i made a call to AE iso to ask the nurse there to arrange for someone to get the oral contrast from me.. i could not bring down for her coz i was also swarmed with in patients' x rays. That was already 1115pm. i was told that the scan was not confirmed yet and they would get back to me. After 15 mins, there's still no news, i called again. They still trying to find the doc or they were still busy attending other patients. Finally, when they got back to me, it was 1145pm. By the time they came up for the contrast was 12MN. So i instructed to just give as much as the patient could take and scan at 1am. Fair right. Another follow up call was made around 0035 hrs, to check if the patient had completed the drinks or not. i was told still have a bit more and was through NG tube. Better still but of course best was to scan in 1 and half hour time for the oral contrast to coat the intestines. But time was not to our favours. So i happily went over to ct scan room to prepare the room for the scan. There he was sitting in front of the pc and started questioning me what's taking me so long to call the patient up for scan. SO i told him patient needs to drink contrast and will be scanned in 15 mins time. He started blasting me that she was a 90 over years old lady, kept vomitting how could she retain contrast and scolded for giving her oral. I told him off immediately the protocol for IO is best to have oral. Even cannot retain at least try. So u have no reasons to subject her for another scan due to suboptimal results without the oral contrast. Besides your nurse also never mentioned that patient could not retain contrast, if they did, i would have bring her up for scan long time ago. Not that i never asked. And there's delay at the early stage trying to get confirmation for the scan. My fault. U are frustrated,But dun go around venting your frustration on other pple. U scolded everyone who were in the scan room later. But when i said the iv plug had problem due to the positioning of the elbow problem. did u go in and check the patient first before dismissing that the ae team is at fault. The venous access of the patient was difficult given her age and condition. She was restless and we need to restrain her. Where are u when we need u. Stupid idot lor.... Just go around screaming at pple for nothing. I had 30 over x rays waiting for me to do ... not just your scans. you are not the only one who is working throughout the night. WE HAVE OUR OWN STRESS !!!!! Absolutely pissed off.

it's been a long time since i hit my fist against the wall. Yesterday i did it more than once. Surprisely, my hand still intact.

i have so many x rays, then the second ae CT AP again did not come up coz too busy downstairs. So they said they will inform me when they are ready. So i did not dare to call down too many inpatients x rays for fear that the AE case would come up anytime and those not too good condition patients could not wait outside my room6 for x ray while i do my ct scans.For the past few hours, i have completed almost all the cxr xrays i was left multiple which might take longer time to complete. Hanging in the air for another hour. Finally, i decided to call AE to check on the status. Even more frustrating..... the doc told me the scan was cancelled and patient was already sent up to ward. THe GS person said no need the ct scan. Come on lor, this was not the first time, i was the last to know that the scan was cancelled. But dun they realised that the delayed they have caused to the inpatient's xrays. From 9pm to 3am i was still clearing the left over office hours scans with no surcharge. After that, then i could cleared the rest of the stats cases ordered later the night. This was very bad. The response time was so damn slow... if the patient has any critical condition, i really dunno who is going to answer for it.

i really dun understand the logic of doing the chest xrays before 8am when in half hour time, there will be no after office hours surcharge for the patient. Why made the patient pay more because sometimes pple overlooked that doc had ordered chest x ray the day before and need for review by 8am this morning. it could be done yesterday during office hours.....But sometimes want to go down for x ray also cannot, coz our side are swarmed with requests and could be done on stipulated time too. So many requests with only one room and only one radiographer lifting all the patients. And most of the time, the smallest and skinniest radiographer was assigned to that duty. This is crazy... Next month my turn to be in that room.

i wondered how i pulled through the afternoon shift just now. i was able to complete most of my ct scans except for 2 brains which came later, and the x rays and left about 6 for the night person.busy busy busy ,,,,, all the way from 2pm to 9pm. Running from ct scan room to room 6 and then back to ct scan room, makes u feel like running shuttle run over and over again. End result? panting lor....

People told me that i have lost some weight again since i starter this ct shift business. Of course, my temped just flared anytime and anywhere. With all the frustration bottled inside, how can i not lose weights? sob sob*

if everyday is like today,think my lifespan will be shortened as well ... hee hee

Yes, i finally completed my roster planning for may 2008. Finally , managed to get rid of that. However, there should be more amendments coming up after some of the events are confirmed at later dates. That's why it is always very tiring to plan the roster when there are so many uncertain events coming up. With the limited manpower, sometimes it is really difficult to support the requests. What to do , that's life?

i finally finished reading my march issues, Scientific magazine. There is this write up on Bluefin tuna fish being the endangered species as overfishing for shashimi delicacy. Personally, i dun eat tuna very often even for shashimi. i prefer salmon to tuna and i also like swordfish. However, this overfishing problem is long standing especially when the population is still growing but the fishes needs time to breed and grow as well. We just have to rely on modern technologies to derive any ways or means to increase the production to meet the consumption of human being. We could not control the consumption as who will be bothered if they will run out of food when they have plenty now. No one will worry about tomorrows when the tomorrows never come yet. sigh.....

Think i am really very very exhausted. For the past few nights, i could not even keep my eyes open past 2am. Why is it that when it is my turn to plan roster, i am always loaded with many other stuffs?

Sometimes i am just too stubborn to admit that i need rest. My body is already telling me everyday i need to rest. But i just go on and on torturing myself to do such brain taxing tasks that drained me mentally even more.

Everyone is telling me i looked half dead... but dun i always looked like that......

At the rate i am going for the new inpatient and ct shift work, i will be down with high blood pressure instead of low blood pressure soon. My temper was very very bad throughout the shift work dealing with the nurses and doctors. Of course, i seldom and should not vent my frustrations on my patients. As much as i tried to refrain myself from being rude and crude, there's just this limit to how much i could tolerate for their demanding requests. Some are nice, they know i am busy and understand why i did not agree to send their patients down for x rays while i still have ct scans to be done. It is totally unfair for the patients to have them wait for me over at the x ray room while i do ct scans. But there are times that i could not help it when they just happen to clash big time when the ct request came after i asked the wards to send the patients down. Then i could not put the ct on hold especially when they are mostly urgent cases. so i just have to cross my fingers and pray that either one came earlier so that i can settle at least one side before the other one arrived. However, that ideal situation rarely happens. For example, last night i happened to have a long case with both femurs and both ankles including borden views for the ankles case. i nearly fainted looking at my uncle's condition. i knew i was going to take sometime to settle the x rays. Then another case came down and patient "sob". Darn.... the nurses were arguing on who to do first and naturally the long case one started to point finger at me saying i wasted her time when she waited for me sometime ago while i was settling my AE head scan. At first, i called her ward, they say they sending another ambulant patient first, how on earth did i know that they actually sent down 2 patients together. How i know the other one is SOB case. They wasted so much time arguing who to do first and scolding me for asking them to come down and waste their time. I blew my top at them in the end. Like only they were the only busy ones in the hospitals. From 9pm to 3 plus in the morning, i had not cleared my bladder, had not a sip of water, i was just working through for that few hours. After that femur ankles case, my arms were sore coz i got so fed up with the nurse going in and out of the room knowing that i needed to help in turning the patient that i gave up opening and closing the door asking her to come in. FED UP !!!!!!!

By about 4 plus in the morning, i finally able to rest for a while, but i was too tired to move already. Wanted to go down AE to help out coz downstairs also busy, Was too tired to move. i just slept a little before another round of x rays requests came in. i really dun understand why there are requests for x rays at 7am when about one half hour later there will be no need to surcharge the patient. just for the simple reasons that docs ordered to be done at that timing. That's simply adding on the patient cost. Patient had to pay more because of that. Is that necessary? That's one of the main reasons why the healthcare cost in singapore are going up and up. All the unnecessary scans too are adding on to part of that too.


( The nurses only see it that i am just trying to turn away the request simply because i was lazy and dun want to do the cases. And i just wanted to them to explain to the patients that at times when they are sent down and i happened to have urgent trauma ct scans, i will have to send the patient back and come down later for the x rays coz one trauma case can take almost an hour. Such simple explanation could save a bit of trouble and patient will not be so mad later if i really need to do that. i also could not control the timing when the ct case will come u too. that's why i dun stop the patient from coming down usually coz i might spend 45 minutes waiting for ct cases with nothing to do. that's waste of time too.)


just hate the healthcare system in singapore...... then again the situation might be the same everwhere else.

Although i missed the sunset once again, it's a rather enjoyable trip with so many memorable events. Just waiting for my friends to pass their photos to me so i could sort them out together with mine and upload them in facebook later.

The kelong itself was on renovation into cemented floors rooms for visitors. Sooner or later there will be no more traditional kelongs if many more them decided into resort style. What can u do in kelong? Well, there's many activities, uncle brought us out for a swim in an island with nice and clear water. But there's where i got the sunburnt as there was no shade and i dun swim. =P We have banana boat to play, most of them has fun with that. Then there are also mahjong sets to pass time, singing rooms for karoke lovers with many oldies. Of course, kelong must allow us to fish. We had nice time watching counterparts waiting patiently for squids at night.

i think i had the most sumptuous meals there over the weekend. endless seafoods and all. i would say the menu for the meals were pretty good. And in between meals, they served deserts and all. The green bean soup was refreshing especially when we are dehydrating fast out there in the sun. Of course, dun expect to have water heater for shower. One would welcome the cold bath after the activities in the day.