Congratulations Lee Kok Sun!

Kok Sun has graduated and is waiting for his induction course. I should actually call him Dr Lee !
I think the first time I met him was as a little boy. His mum or dad would bring him to see me when he was sick.

Today he came to see me because he was sick ! This time , instead of just examining and writing a prescription, respecting him for his knowledge as a doctor , I asked him what his concern was and told him what I was prescribing and asked his opinion what he wanted.

No doubt I was a doctor long before he was born , then again he probably knows much more than me about anatomy and the latest drugs even though I try my best to keep abreast of the latest in medical advances.

In medicine , what one learns 5 years ago is out of date and management changes .
Even drugs that were first choice are now looked upon in disdain.
Take for example atenolol , a beta blocker drug indicated for hypertension. I never liked it very much because it gave most people a slow heart and can cause spasm in the lungs and worse still, for me it could cause impotence. So I reserved it for old women who had a lot of anxiety because of the calming effect of this drug and no history of asthma.Through meta studies over very long periods of time , it is now known to precipitate diabetes mellitus in susceptible people!

Another drug that does the same ( precipitate diabetes)are diuretics that were once used a lot especially when there was a slight degree of heart failure.

As for diabtes, Dibenclamide used to be first line and glucophage was abandoned . Then now we have a reversal and use glucophage rather than dibenclamide. Why? Because dibenclamide does not protect the remaning islet of Langerhans, insulin producing cells and can make a non insulin dependent diabetic into an insulin dependent diabetic over the years. So what else can be prescribed if the patient needs more than one drug? Januvia is the latest and I think safest ..but it hurts the pocket !

You could always opt for homeopathy though!

So now with the babies I used to treat becoming doctors , I guess I need to be on my toes so as not to show how out of date my medical knowledge is...

Gone are the days when an older person can say " I have eaten more salt than you therefore I know better than you what to do !"

So my prayers for Dr Lee.....

May you be the best Dr that you can be and may you always have the enthusiasm and good attitude towards your patients.

Really they are not called patients for nothing ....you need to have a lot of patience!

Kok Soon

This is Kok Soon. He was my daughter Hana's classmate. He is now a fourth year medical student at Malayan U.

I have known him since he was a small child. He used to come to the clinic when he was ill to get treatment from me.

It was on one of these visits that I asked him what he would like to do after his SPM . I cannot remember his answer but I think he said he wanted to take a degree in science. It was then that I asked him , why don 't you take up medicine. The idea seemed too far fetched for him at that time .

I then said that all he needed was to go to the Matriculation College and work really hard to score the maximum of four flat and he would definitely get a place to do medicene.
Sometimes when we plant the seed of possibility , we never know the tree that will grow from it, the flowers thatwill bloom from it and the ripe succulent fruits that will be offered to others from the sturdy tree out of the seed of possibility.

He did go to Matrics and he did score four flat and he did get a place to do medicine
For the past few days he has been doing an attachment at my clinic.

It has been my pleasure to have him tag along seeing cases with me.

When I had visitors from overseas and brought them sightseeing around town , I realise I will start seeing my town through their eyes and begin to appreciate things that I had taken for granted.

When I had Kok Soon seeing cases with me , I began to appreciate the skills I had collected over the years of seeing cases. All the things I did that I had taken for granted took on a new perspective as I saw them through his fresh enthusiastic young eyes.

The shy awkward youth I knew when he was in secondary school had grown even taller , no longer awkward but gracefully charming .His shyness had transformed into a quiet confidence.

I will always remember how he used to come after Chinese New Year bringing me Mandarin oranges in his duffel bag which he took out one by one to place on my table saying to me
'"This is for you Dr."

May God bless and guide you to be the best doctor possible Kok Soon , you do me proud.

My children, it does not mean I love you or appreciate you any less . I know each of you is special and unique and all of you are sturdy trees that others can take the lovely fruits from.