Chinese new year 07...

...Is definitely not a fun one to start of with... b'coz I was needed to work from 9pm till 9am on new year's eve and new year's day. Freagin hell....

And we had outside food for reunion dinner. And we had left over for new year's day dinner.

Where are you mum!!!!

Doctor vs business man

I've been questioning myself lately, what role do I play the most when I become a specialist - a doctor or a business man?

I can't deny the fact that doctor as a profession can be lucrative. Everyone believes that, including me. And that can be a big driving factor for a lot of doctors in-training. In fact, a lot of the time people want to specialise because it makes them "special", and hence enhancing their money generating ability to the next level. Do we really need so many specialists, or is that just a trend to achieve wealth?

I still recall the very first day of I attended my first lecture for medical course, it was pure excitement. Excitement about taking the first step to achieve what I have dreamt to be, what I was dying to be called - doctor. It is the desire and drive, wanting to obtain a pair of healing hands; the joy to be infused by knowledge and skills to provide the healing touch to my patients. I simply wanted to help and contribute to the community, and the money sign had never crossed my mind.

Until I met with more and more doctors along my path. Everyone is talking about generating money in the shortest time with the easiest way. Become a surgeon - long training, hard work, common legistic issues, but extremely financially rewarding. Become a non-intervention physician - relatively short training, hard work, better life style, less income in comparison. Become an intervention physician - similar to surgeon but shorter training, usually deal with single organ diseases, life style in between, income in between. Its all about the type of services and the type of rewards. Its simply, transaction.

And to earn "big money" we need a private practise. We need a room. Its like a retailn shop. We need business partners, i.e. other doctors, to share the cost for establishing and maintaining the practise. We have meetings, not to discuss how to cut down the charges for patient, but to circulate around the topic of tax deduction, purchasing new equipments and hence charging more from patients, or simply to fight that my benz is better than your BMW. We pamper local GP so that they will refer more patients to our rooms, and during christmas we will send them the biggest hamper as appreciation. Its about building relationship. Its simply, business.

It is so commercialised that the medical field is no longer medical in its purest form. Even the public system works in a similar way, but its the governement who does the funding. Until the day I could earn sufficient cash to put food into my familys mouth without actively working, I am unsure when to see the day when I could go to somewhere like a third world doing real medicine.

Its all about providing care. I have once heard my consultant said to me, and it still echoed now and then in my mind, "The patients don't care how skillful or knowledgeble you are, until they know how much you care for them."

I hope one day I don't have to wear a business man coat while wearing the white coat.

Sang-Yee

The 10th Valentine's...

... With the same lovely Fui Yin.

I wish you healthy and happy days and nights.

I will keep on loving you.