Bootcamp In Taiping Hospital

The Hell🤣

I didnt get to share with you my struggles my humbling experience doing internship back home in 2010. I was sick, had to be rushed to St James Hospital the night before my final med exam.

As a result, i missed the exam but was allowed to sit for exam at the later date and thankfully passed and graduated with the rest of the class.

I somehow missed the internship application for that year , so i returned home.

I dreaded going home because i knew the internship is a lots harder but serving the country was justifiable considering that I was granted government scholarship to study medicine abroad.

How can i not write something about Taiping Hospital which I served more than a year.

Taiping Hospital was indeed brutal .

If you survived the internship here you can make it anywhere .

The hospital was my first preference for internship due to its location.

Rougly about 30mins drive away from my hometown.

Taiping itself is a beautiful historical city , known for its picturesque Lake Garden, waterfalls and my all time favourite the Taiping Zoo, which i visited many times with my family when i was young.

It’s also a foodie heaven, great food and still fairly cheap.

The Hospital itself is big and as expected very busy very demanding.

After registration, i quickly checked into my hostel room which was a very basic small room with less than a decent shared bathrooms.

Not surprisingly, the new nicer accommodation blocks were fully occupied.

Anyway,at least i still got in hospital accommodation otherwise i would be crying to find a last minute place to stay.

My first internship rotation in Taiping was medical- Deemed the hardest according to the admin lady that i just met.

She was not joking!

I was so lost on my 1st day and still lost for the many weeks and even months.

Very confused.

The system was completely different and so as the medical management.

There were many things that I didn't know and time wasn’t ours.

At the beginning of every rotations , we did the 2 weeks of long tagging period to help us settling in from 7am to 8pm.

It was really self learning, the seniors and the ward were usually very busy to facilitate proper teaching.

We were divided to different wards, male and female .

Male wards were usually way busier and messy compared to the female wards.

The number of intern allocated to each ward usually varies depending on number of interns available at a particular time.

Like the majority, i had to learn on the job and pretty often from mistakes.

I never got scolded but the rotation was intense and I was not surprisingly extended.

The ward itself was very busy, a lots of sick patients that will mostly managed in HDU/ICU here.

I still remember when i had to ambu bagging a patient alone at night for hours because no ventilator available.

The typical day started early like 0630 in the morning and will usually finished around 1800 if you lucky.

Despite our very best ,usually there still plenty of jobs left due to endlessly busy ward and new admissions from casualty around the clock.

Plenty of the 4 hourly bloods for dengue,leptospirosis, malaria and DKA patients to keep us running around like headless chicken.

Patients "collapsed" was not uncommon in the ward.

The collapse actually means cardiac arrest instead of syncopal episode which commonly used here. Arrest simply attended by ward staff( doctors, nurses, health care assistant), whoever available.

There was no dedicated arrest team in place and the resuscitation can be messy.

I have huge respect for all the doctors who are doing or have completed their internship back home. It’s very hard and soul crushing where seniority and ' yelling /scolding are the culture.

Most of the poor interns didn't even have time for break.

We always working most days and the salary will just go untouched.

Then, come the oncall where you expected to cover the gruelling 36 hours busy shift.

Nightmare.

The training was indeed brutal but for those who survived the internship , the are usually very competent doctors at least from skill point of view who then be running the smaller under staffed district hospitals.

Interns were expected to able to do long line, intubation, starting inotropes, chest drain and the usual lumbar puncture.

All advanced skills which are not expected from the junior doctors here who are usually assigned to easier jobs such as discharging patients and writing prescriptions.

We were overloaded with works but poorly supported because everybody just mad busy.

I remember the disaster when i admitted a new patient to the ward from casualty.

Typical GORD symptoms with working diagnosis gastritis as per Ed admission.

Very nice middle aged Indian man with a loving children.

Later to my horror i was told that he passed away suddenly in the ward.

'Missed MI or heart attack'

And the blame was on me.

Not a single person comforted me or addressed the situation properly.

Imagine our very first Medical Oath says' Do no harm'

And now am being blamed to cause a death of a patient when that was never my intention.

To make matter worst , i was oncall that night

Night went on very slow, i wasn't mentally able to do the call but I had to.

I did it anyway.

I prayed that the night will be kind

I prayed my call wont be very busy

I did the call to the best i can, slow and steady so i woudnt missed anything major.

Night eventually over , it was probably the longest and worst call ever in my life.

Then with zero energy left brain fried, continued with day jobs,

By noon , am totally shutdown.

The endless joy of being doctor which many can relate to.

Its heartbreaking knowing cases where junior doctors committed suicide or crashed in accident because of overworked or exhaustion.

Never do medicine because you think it's cool, because you did well in exam or because of your parents.

This is no Greys anatomy no House series.

Find your passion and do what you love the most.

One lucky day , I hit the lottery i was accepted for internship in Ireland.

That was the last time they saw of me in Taiping.

That was when i ran faster than Usain Bolt.

Next time if you see a doctor

Please be kind

A little smile and thank you is enough to brighten up our day.

Hold that temptation to complaint.

To my ex colleagues in Taiping- Thank You for everything!

To those struggling , keep pushing to the very end !