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Monday, September 29, 2008

Birthday wishes


I saw this sign near a washroom in one of the department stores in Dumaguete... Now why do you suppose they put this sign up? Are their employees really that bad?

yeesh.

The Sex Columnist

I was wandering around National Bookstore during my lunch-break, and I chanced upon a book called “She’s the one,” by a G. Gilderman. No biggie, actually, it was a self-help book by a sex-and-relationships columnist (who happens to be a guy), telling about how men like their women, basically.

Although I personally deny being “into” self-help books, I usually can’t help passing by that section whenever I’m in bookstores. They’re pretty tempting, plus, I’m a sucker for tips, of whatever kind.

Anyway, I thought the guy was funny…he said that the “Sex and the City” type of lifestyle could never work in a real New Yorker society. Nobody simply had the time to engage in such frivolity as daily lunches with friends, and unlike Carrie, the well-known Sex columnist, who had a swanky Upper East Side apartment, he, also a sex columnist, lived in an apartment the size of a toilet…

He was funny, in a way, because he was just so down-to-earth and practical about relationship advice ( i.e. “Girls, you really shouldn’t be too concerned with your body, or your measurements, WE JUST WANT TO SEE YOU NAKED.” Haha, practical advice, really.)
The self-depreciation turned me off, though…it was on every few pages.

Tsk Tsk…

It made me him sound a bit like a loser.

Sayang.




Knowing the "enemy"

“To win, one must master one’s enemy…”

So goes the “Art of War”. And, so did one particular attending physician at work, who I had a run-in once or twice…

It’s funny, that it is only just now that I have had to realize this very important “survival” tip… and all this time I have been thinking that Pediatrics rotation was such a heavy cross on my back. (Well, it was, until about 16 hours ago, at least.)

This particular Attending was the consultant assigned to handle our morning endorsement conference (she had peculiar ways that she expected everybody to stick to). She’s somewhat of a tough cookie, who always wants to get her way.

And, I had specific instructions not to “ask questions” and to “Speak only when I was spoken to…” this morning. Haha… it made me feel like they thought I was a bit of a troublemaker, so I was pretty miffed at the start. Afterwards, though, I realized that “going with the flow” was a necessary “evil”…

Since everyone “went with the flow”, and did things the way she wanted them to be done, (she gave me plus points for having the UST handbook for history-taking), she ended up happy and contented. And beaming.

Which was, generally a good deal. Now, since she was in a good mood, the residents were in a good mood. And since they were a good mood, that made everything flow smoothly for us interns, and maximum learning was possible...

Everybody was happy.

Lol.

Taking all that into consideration, maybe it works to handle pressure differently, and to deal with things from a different angle. And take a different approach, if you know what I mean. Things don’t have to be shitty if we all work together.

And so, I hereby repeat…

Know your enemy.

(Because let’s face it, a little less stress in life, especially mine, is very, very welcome. :-p )

And, post-script, she was so happy, that she started inviting us to apply for the pediatrics training slots available after we’ll take the boards. Haha.

The Competition

This morning, while I was by the side of the road, waiting for the ride to get to work, a childhood friend and his wife and kid slowed down to say hi. “Kiss, Tita,” he said to the tot. She looked weak, with droopy eyes, and looked slightly flushed, but she did give me the perfunctory kiss, and settled back into her mother’s arms. I asked, “How is she?” Her dad said, “Oh, she has a feverm we’re taking her to the manghililot...” “Oh,” I went, and followed up with, “Have you guys given her paracetamol yet?” His wife said, “Nah, we haven’t, it’s too soon.” And they drove off.

And just like that, they left.

:-p

Really, now, if I were a pediatrician who wanted to set up a good practice in a neighborhood, or a locality for that matter, I’d have to consider the local naturopathist a stiff competition. For some strange reason, he still is the one most people go to when they’re ill…

Now, I don’t mean to sound judgmental or anything, but then it just saddens me that what can be cured by a simple antibiotic (i.e. an infection) or a fever is relegated to the local “natural healer”, for lack of a better word.. Oh well… True, there are claims that these methods work, but I can’t help cringing when I hear of them trying to set a broken bone from a fracture… with just a hilot (massage).Yikes.

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