Well taught

can't stop laughing to myself at my patient's msg

this afternoon one of my fav patients sent me a text, freaking out that half of his tooth fell out

my response was typically dentist-like

which tooth?when?any pain/sensitivity?how severe?

he replied, almost instantaneously

upper right 6, fell out when eating lunch, no pain yet..oh gosh!

very dentist-like answer

that's why he is my favourite patient

LMAO

L for Luck

"You're the lucky customer of the day!Your coffee is on the house!!" the barista flashed a big wide grin, as if i just won the lottery

i hope today, two weeks later
i'll be as lucky too =_=

right, time to pay off my 'series' debt (~_^)

Ta!

An Intelligent Diet

some tips off the internet...

Boost your brainpower by feeding your brain 'brain foods'. Here are 4 tips for an intelligent diet:

1. Balance your glucose - it provides fuel for your brain. Try to eat carbohydrate foods in the evening as it promotes relaxation and sleep.

2. Eat essential fats - ensure your diet is rich in omega-3 fats found in oily fish.

3. Include plenty of protein rich foods in your diet. Proteins are essential to make neurotransmitters which are vital for the thinking process. Try to eat a protein based lunch to optimise your mental performance and alertness throughout the day.

4. Eat foods rich in vitamins and minerals to 'fine tune' your mind.

5. Drink 1.5 to 2 litres of water a day to keep your brain well hydrated.

6. Oxygenate your brain by exercising and eating little and often. Eat your main meal before 7pm.

A reason to keep going

What do you do when you are tired of studying??
exam in 8 days , finals in 8 months
but the little voice in the back of your head mutters LET"S CALL IT A DAY.GO TO SLEEP!

I look at this picture and visualize myself being one of them...tempting? definito!

then i look at this gorgeous and imagine grabbing it at the boutique....gassssspppp!!

Fine..
now, go hit the book
not the pillow~!

I tried

couldn't focus on revision this afternoon so decided to do my 'homework' in 4th floor lab

after one hour of drilling and measuring with my back bending forward like a prawn

i showed my work to Prof Sam

"Good!You managed to preserve the occlusal morphology and get the right amount of reduction...nice prep!"

"but..it's not perfect" i responded automatically

Prof Sam looked at me, as if i was cracked

"There is no perfect crown prep. Humans are not perfect!" he handed the model back to me

*tongue sticking out*

It's not perrrrfectttt...sighhhhhhhhh

No more baby steps!

Mr Perfectionist : You're gonna do a crown prep next week, aren't you?

Me : Yes

Mr Perfectionist : I want to see a really nice crown prep with the exact axial and occlusal reduction on a plastic tooth. Make sure you follow the anatomy of the occlusal surface. A flat top is not tolerable and i want you to go into the lab, practise the crown prep in a phantom head. Do it as you would do in your patient. I want to see it before you get your patient in!

Me : All rightttt...

Does that mean i can't see the patient if i fail Mr Perfectionist's crown test?

Shit!

Did i tell you the last time i was assigned a task was in secondary school??

Anyway

I have changed my resolution (FORCED TO)

from

aim to pass

to

perfection is what you make of it
5 P's -- proper preparation for prevention of poor performance
6 P's -- proper preparation for prevention of pissed poor performance
(by Mr Perfectionist)

little miss no name

What's wrong with chinese having no english name?

no big deals

just a few things you should know...

• your surname becomes your first name

• your two-character given name is shortened to one-character

• people mispronounce/mispell/forget your name

• anonymity is maintained with zero effort

• If there is another chinese with a western name, say Mary who attends the same school as you, your name is conveniently interchangeable. So, you can be known as Mary or Non-Mary, depending on how well people manage to distinguish you from Mary. Either way, people still dun remember your name.

and one more thing...you can even change your sex!

This morning at ortho clinic the register went like this

Name	Attendance
Rose	√
Steven	√
Ronald	√
Hilary	√
Tommy	√
Eric Kong aka Mr. ABSENTEE	√
Lee Yin Hui	absent

*speechless*

nervous breakdown

so much for a clinical test
i am having a fit!

*sob*

A little praise goes a long way

i was reluctant to go in this morning for one simple reason - i don't want to see that middle age cranky b***h!

"i thought you'd forgotten me!'' was how she greeted me when we first met, one year ago today
i was reproached for being 2 minutes late, thanks to our boss who turned up late and the first-line rule 'no tutor, no patient'
fine, i can take that blame
the following 10 minutes was a proper history of COMPLAINT, starting from her own dentist till her teeth.90% of it was how useless her dentist had been
then came my turn to be her next hateful dentist for what she called
''hurting my gums with that sharp thingie"
my first meeting with her started off rocky, ended up not any less rocky

in the second meeting, she was moody again
'Do whatever you want but mind you, i only have half an hour!'

Ookay...10 min for border moulding the trays, 15 minutes for impressions and repetitions, 5 min for the beeline to show Dr. N my work, not surprisingly, he turned his nose up at it
Ding! Time's up!
'Not good?' She looked at my disappointed face
'Blimey!I gotta go to work!" she stomped off without even saying goodbye

That was why i loathed Pros so much back in 3rd/4th year

One year later which was the day she came back, the day i dreaded
turned out she was late for 15 minutes and she APOLOGISED
Of course, i din expect her to say hi but i suppose a SORRY from HER is worth 10 times a friendly greeting
Thinking that she might need to rush for work as usual, i sped up the reassessment and got down to primary impression. Very lucky for me, both impressions worked out well in one go.
Most importantly, she didn't grumble at all this time.
Just before she went off, she surprised me with her words
''i see you work more efficiently now. You must have got enough practice over the past year."

Wowww!! For a split moment, i thought i was dreaming
''Thank you!'' was merely what i managed to squeeze out from my mouth

Why overreact to a compliment??
Well, a compliment from someone who moans about every single thing is a big deal

Suddenly i feel appreciated :)

hate is the new love

a big sigh of relief, finally

the second i sent the denture off for final processing, i felt like yelling at the top of my lungs,''Woohoooo, i've done my first denture!!!"

Looking back on all my prosthodontic misfortunes, it wasn't easy for me to come to this stage
While people happily delivered their 4th denture, i was still cracking on my 1st and worse, i had people who had completed 2 or 3 dentures come up to me, complaining of having trouble meeting the requirements.
Most of the time, i just agreed or joined in the whinge coz i din know how to console them when i was already in deep mud. I know it's human nature to fret and enjoy talking about oneself so i dun really blame them for being insensitive. Rather, i throw the blame at my own bad luck which my clincial partner once described as incredible and partly, myself for being a quitter..no, i shud say for being MADE a quitter. Why? Take a look at what i have done in 2 years of Pros - 2 discharged patients with zero denture made and one partial denture in stagnant progress. What an achievement! I'm totally stressed out everytime i think of Pros, not only the fact that i'm way behind in my work, also the fear that i dun understand what i am doing in Pros.

When my friend told me the 5 stages of grief, i somehow see myself fitting in all stages

1. Denial
   I din wan to admit how lost i was in pros lectures and even in lab dems. They were mostly taught b4 we started pros clinics so i thought i would pick up along the way once we got a patient.
   
2. Anger.
   My first patient kept missing his appointment and the second patient decided to put her treatment on hold for medical reason. Both left me in fury over wasting one year for nothing
   
3. Bargaining.
   The frustrating me made bargains with the power from above, asking, "If i do my work religiously, will you let me sail through Prosthodontics?"
4. Depression.
   hopelessly miserable when i was stuck at my first partial denture..Why am i still trapped in this ill fate after what i have been through..why????
   
5. Acceptance.
   Before today, I was at this stage where i simply accepted that i had no choice but to knuckle down on Pros in the remaining time.

Now that i have passed all 5 stages so what's next?
whatever it is, i hope it is a good one
at least I dun hate prosthodontics like how i used to
Gosh, how one denture changed everything!!

Chronicles of Mr. Nice

i have never encountered any agreeable tutor like him all my life
let's just call him Mr. Nice

heard about him even b4 i came to Southend
ALL positive comments , not even a single word of disapproval
that's how nice Mr. Nice is

see, i have been tipped off
but his utmost niceness still caught me off guard, twice!

Anecdote 1
Last week i had an 8-year-old come in for an extraction
it all went well until i was about to give an injection
the boy turned pale and started crying
we tried every conceivable way to get his coorperation, coaxing,persuading,
bribing, negotiating, assuring and even blackmailing
all our efforts were in vain
the boy was too afraid to open his mouth

looking at his teary face i felt like an evil stepmother
one minute the boy was so full of energy and mischief, chatting about his new lunchbox
the next minute he was curling up in the chair with shivers and tears

i thought
that's it..i give up..this is like child abuse

so i went up to Mr Nice, preparing to admit my lousy child management

'sorry, Dr, i don't think i can do the extraction. He just won't let me touch his teeth."

"yea..he is really frightened, isnt he? It must be difficult for you to calm him down.''Mr. Nice looked at me with sympathy

''..so...hrmm.....should i just ..ermm..book him in next time to do the filling?'' i didn't know how to react when i saw the pity in his eyes

"yea..that's fine"

Oooookay, i didnt see that coming.
That is not what a typical tutor would say when a student messes up
Honestly,a few quick shots actually passed through my mind b4 i reached Mr. Nice and i was geared up for them
A normal tutor would go "Do u mind if i have a go at it?"
A strict tutor would probably say ''Oh come on,fifth year student.Don't tell me you cant handle a kid!'

Anecdote 2
This morning i was told that i only had 80min instead of a full 2 hours for an rct
It was already partially treated by somebody else so all i had to do was obturation
the problem was that one of the canals kept bleeding
After spending almost an hour trying to stop bleeding and it still didnt work
Mr. Nice said '' let's just put in the Master GP and take an x ray"
So i did exactly as he said,put a temporary filling in patient's mouth
the nurses began chasing people away as it was nearly time for health and safety training
so i didnt have the time to write up the notes and view the xray until i sat myself down in the seminar room with the rest of the group

Holy shit!
i couldn't believe my eyes when i saw something jutting out from the tooth on the xray
i was supposed to see 3 Master GPs fit nicely in all 3 root canals
instead, only two GPs were placed rightly while the other one was totally out of the root, leaving one canal empty

my heart was pounding, hand was sweating

PERFORATION!!!

I stared at the blank notes, didnt know what to write and where to start
all i could think of was

Blimey, what have i done??
Perforated a tooth??
That's a nightmare of endodontic!!!
I'm so dead now!
Oh no..wait a minute...dat's not my fault! i didn't do the instrumentation..somebody else did
still..wat am i gonna say to the tutor???
what if he is mad??what if he reports to Mr. S??arghhh!!!

90 minute lunch break felt like 9 second
the next thing i knew, i was back in the clinic, waiting for the best time to face up to Mr. Nice

"It seems like the tooth is perforated.One of the GPs has gone out through the side of the canal....'' my voice died down slowly while waiting for Mr. Nice's response

"Yea.. it does seem like a lateral perforation" Mr. Nice held the x-ray film against the light and looked
"Shame,we won't be able to obturate it then.Well, it is a very tricky tooth to treat, taking into consideration of the limited access" he smiled kindest smile i had ever seen

"i'm just wondering how to break the bad news to the patient"

"Don't worry about it..she is a nice lady. She knows that it's a diffcult treatment and you've done well in getting rid of her pain. The first time she came in she had a lot of pain from that tooth but now you can see it's improved so much..." he continued

"but...she's been coming back and forth so many times for the treatment, only to find out this complication.She must be very upset.''

"She should be fine.We will certainly repair the perforation with GI and let it settle down before obturating it."

I tried to dissect his facial expression and pick up his tone
not even a hint of fury!
Incredible!!


I know i must sound crazy if i say i was really awaiting for a telling off or at least a lecture from him
I guess i have got so used to expecting the worst from tutors,be it harsh remarks or sarcasms, that i literally lose the ability to react when tutor is very nice to me

Getting away scot-free? No way! It is like sun rising from the west
Trust me, if there is only one thing i learn from dental school, that is it!

After all, perforation in endodontics is not as trivial as dropping a probe on the floor

I'm pretty sure things will turn out differently if the same thing is presented to other tutors, probably another long story of how a 0.3mm hole in a root ruined my day off

Having said that,the last thing i would want is to see Mr. Nice throwing a fit
Turning a Mr Nice into a Mr Cranky is...not fun at all

On being blunt

if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything

i cant agree more with it especially after tonight

being brutally honest can lead to more harm than good
for the simple reason that nobody likes honesty
some truths are ...painful to hear, even ugly to watch

Personally, i hate it when people say 'no offence' b4 they say something rather insulting
just because you say no offence, it doesn't make what you say any less hurtful
in fact,it makes me feel as if i'm not allowed to be offended anyway

some things are really better left unspoken
unless you are 100% sure that the person you are going to confront can handle bluntness

if you know you are going to hurt someone's feelings by saying something
either just keep quiet or keep it real

the expression of 'no offence but..' is pointless
coz i'm already offended

Post-holiday blues

suddenly i feel like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle
with scattered spaces of missing pieces

one piece is left to linger in the subtle aroma of Japanese green tea
one piece is left to melt in the picturesque nature of Switzerland
one piece is left sitting at an outdoor cafe in Nyhavn and watching the world walk by

i am back
well, not in one piece

when friend becomes foe

sun allergy caused by sunscreen

a product meant to protect our skins from the harmful effect of sunlight causes allergic reaction to the sun

isn't it ironic?

sigh

another thing to add to my medical history

welcome to my territory

it's not easy being a parent!
perhaps i get to feel like a parent only in London!

''it's your territory.you know better"

for that, i have a role swap between child and parent
like a second pilot, suddenly promoted to captain
there is an obvious shift of control

brought two exciting 'kids' to the highly anticipated Madame Tussaud's, a place they have been talking about since day 1.

The queue was oh-my-freaking-gosh long and the bloody summer weather..plz dun make me swear again!
A clown-looking guy appeared out of nowhere and offered to draw a self portrait for me..turned out that was what i looked like to him....Hmmmm

The only way to get good photos in an insanely packed place like Madame Tussaud's is that you need to be less British and more Malaysian - jostle your way through the crowd and don't bother to line up for photograph.
I was practically pulling them to the nearest available wax, instructing them how to pose and when to smile all time.























it's only in london that i get the chance to decide for 3 people on where to dine and what to order
but back at home mom holds the spatula so i just have to eat whatever springs up on the table.

Lunch at Thai Square
mom's verdict : even dad can cook better
dad's verdict : never eat Thai food in london


clearly fussiness runs in the family!!


















Dad's 59th birthday was spent at the theater..probably the most expensive gift i have ever given him :P

Glad i picked Mamma Mia. It was really a feel-good family musical, brightened up by Abba hits
we sang and danced along during the grand finale

and finally...tired but happy