Mission completed

Time flies. I have completed my 3 weeks attachment in IJN (National Heart Institute) in a blink of eye. Two weeks was spent in cardiology while another week in cardiothoracic surgery. It was a good experience indeed as this attachment has changed my perception towards Malaysia’s health care system a little.

Attitude
Hospital staffs like doctors, nurses, guards or even cleaners are there with servants' hearts. They smile to greet the passer by daily. I hardly see any sour face or screaming at patients which is a common scene seen in general hospitals. Things are explained clearly to the patients to ensure compliance and patient's needs are met as much as possible. Supportive hospital staffs play a role in aiding patient's disease progress. The effective patient-staff relationships can be shown by loads of thank you cards on the notice boards and tokens of appreciation on the wall along the corridors.

Efficiency
Patients who are for further investigations are scheduled as early as possible. Tests like stress ECG and echocardiography are performed immediately if necessary and the results are interpreted on the day of consultation itself. Invasive investigations such as angiogram or biopsy are done within few days without delay. Besides that, doctors are divided into teams of 3 or 4 and each team has their own allocated patients. Team work makes things easier as they lighten one another’s burden by working together to see patients for ward round or clinic.

Social welfare
To my amazement, the funding of IJN is good. All patients who can’t afford the cost of admission or treatments get subsidized either completely or partially. For prescription wise, the best drugs with the least side effects are prescribed to the patients without having considered the cost of the drugs.

I am grateful to Dr. Kevin who supervised me through out my attachment. He is a dedicated and cheerful doctor who had inspired me by the way he treats people. I enjoyed following his clinic, ward round or emergency cases. Cardiology is now my considered specializing field after gynaecology. I don't mind working in IJN in the future though the food there seriously needs some improvements. By the way, he walks extremely fast! I am pretty much trained up for brisk walking now :p

Thanks for treating me as a part of the team. It’s truly a blessing to the people having you as doctor. All the best for your future undertaking!