fear of the unknown

we are gripped by fear everyday.

fear of price increase of everyday needs.
fear of war outbreak in the middle east.
fear of radioactive contamination in the east coast.
fear of losing political power in putrajaya.

in hospital, the managers fear for declining profits.
the doctors fear for declining patient numbers.
the heads of dept fear for nurses shortage.

and, the patients fear for their medical condition & their ability to pay the bills. on the operating table, they fear for the outcome of their surgery. whenever i sense such fear in the patients, i try to reassure them. if they believe in God, i offer a prayer for them. if they are muslims, i invite a muslim colleague to berucap with them. & of course, if they have a request for a prayer item, eg. from a medium or temple, that they want to keep close to, i'm more than happy to accede.

after all, i think there's no greater fear than the fear of the unknown.

You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
psalms 91:5,6, 9-11

electricity & water don't mix

in the old days, which is as recent as last month, the Xrays, ultrasound & CT scans taken at the radiology dept have to be physically transported to the wards or clinics, so that the respective doctors can view them. but a lot of things can happen to these hard-copies on the way out from the xray dept. they could be lying around in the dept while waiting for the porter to pick them up, the porters themselves could take their sweet time with these films or they could be misplaced just about anywhere else.

all of which add to the delay in which a diagnosis could be made or treatment started. even if nothing life-threatening, a patient may still have to wait hours waiting for the doctors to review the films. how inconvenient!

well, guess what? the hospital finally invested in an online system where the xray films are immediately uploaded & these can be reviewed immediately at anywhere a viewing screen is installed.

i saw one of these in the wards but it was placed just next to the wash basin.

i thought it was unintentional but the same thing was done at another ward.

you'd think that with it's team of IT-savvy staff & electrical engineers, the hospital would be advised to keep the computer & wash basin apart.

perhaps somewhere along in our education system, while we're striving to train rocket scientists (or astronauts?) & genious mathematicians, someone forgot to teach the students to use common sense.

03-2266 2222

this call came thru this morning & that's the official looking number displayed on my hp.

the voice on the other end was gruff & official sounding, & was apparently a high-ranking police officer from bukit aman who could identify my name. he went on to ask if i knew 2 names he mentioned. when i said i didn't know them, he proceeded to elaborate that they lived in my area & were involved in large borrowings from banks in hong kong. he 1st spoke in english, then mandarin.

i've received many scam emails before from persons in africa who wants to use my bank account to deposit cash due to me from generous but unknown politicians. i've also had youths with neck-ties coming to my home asking me to scratch their lucky draw cards.

but this is the 1st time i've had a phone call like this, so i cut him off in mid-sentence. i figured if he was genuine & serious, he'd call back & i'd apologise for the poor connection. but he didn't.

you read the papers & everyday there are stories of deception where people deposit cash to a stranger's account to gain more cash or to cement an ambiguous relationship. they are gullible maybe because of desperation or greed.

after all, desperate situations demand desperate measures.

& nothing ventured, nothing gained.

my neighbour just bought a whole bunch of watches from a friend in a business deal. now, she's asking the wife to help peddle them for a commission.

who was it who said there's one born every minute?

a twist in the tale

you must have read this somewhere but i'm going to post anyway.

a tourist to spain made a point to watch a bull-fight in madrid. he was impressed that the matadors on that day seemed to effortless stick spears into the bulls & thus killing the animals. at the end of the spectacle, he opted to have dinner at a nearby restaurant. he was fascinated that the most popular dish looked like what he thought was meatballs. he asked the waiter what they were & was told that they were actually deep-fried bull testicles, from the animals that were killed at the bull-ring. he was initially aghast but curiosity got the better of him as the diners seemed to enjoy their meals. he made an order & he was indeed convinced it was the best meat-balls he's ever savoured.

so good was the dish that he returned the next day to the same restaurant & ordered the same. however, this time he was disappointed that the meat-balls were much smaller in size. he asked the waiter why that was so, to which the waiter replied:

sometimes, the bull wins.

i remembered this tale because of a patient who came for minor surgery today. he was involved in a road traffic accident where the car he was travelling in crashed into a tree. he was a back-seat passenger while the driver & front passenger died in the head-on collision.

and he wasn't even using the seat-belt.

he was extremely fortunate. in a collision like this, he only sustained a cut on his shoulder while his 2 friends perished.

yeah, somtimes the bull wins.