Impressions from China - Tremors

I felt my first earth tremor this afternoon. I was in the ladies' room of my kids' school chatting with another mom, as ladies are wont to do, & suddenly felt vertiginous. I had to take a step back to prevent myself from toppling over, & thought I had either developed an inner ear problem or was having a stroke of some kind!

It was quite disconcerting, that feeling of imbalance & instability.

I later found out that the tremors were due to aftershocks from an earthquake (7.7 on the Richter scale) in Sichuan. I hope there aren't too many casualties :(

Geeks r Us

Conversation that ensues over lunch immediately after watching "Iron Man".

(Spoilers ahead...)

W:
"So, what was that thing that Tony Stark had on his chest for?"


Me:
"Well, remember initially he had a car battery that was attached to his chest? Well, the thing on his chest was an arc reactor which basically generates energy, like the car battery, to create an electromagnetic field that prevents the shrapnel in his chest from piercing his atrial septum hence killing him. Although in reality, in this day & age, he could probably have open heart surgery to get the shrapnel removed."


W:
"Oh. How does it work?"


Z:
"Well, theoretically, it would require some kind of fusion reaction to happen in order to create the energy. There would be these two electrodes that sit within plasma, & the arcs of light that shoot between the electrodes would be the energy that is created."


Silence.


Me:
"Are we movie geeks or what?"


A, W & Z (in unison):
"Yes!"

'Nuff said.

Iron Man!

One word.

AWESOME.

This was a rare occasion that we had the opportunity to enjoy a movie in an actual movie theatre in Beijing even BEFORE it is released in the USA.

Movies have always been an outlet of escape from the real world for me, together with TV & books. And I needed something today...and "Iron Man" didn't fail to deliver. Robert Downey Jr. shone in his quirky portrayal of Tony Stark aka Iron Man. He brought humor & sexiness to the role - something which I have never associated with the comic book version of Iron Man. (Admittedly, I have never been an Iron Man fan, & don't "know" him very well, having preferred Spiderman & the Fantastic Four; nonetheless, I had always thought him to be a very serious, straight-laced, "by-the-book" kind of character.)

Action-packed, & jam-packed with special effects, I was riveted to the storyline, as were my boys, who were also thrilled by the heavy rock music that was used for much of the accompanying background scores, including classics by Black Sabbath & ACDC.

One gripe I had , though, was the name of Tony Stark's assistant. Why Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow)??? I would think that the writers could have come up with something less comical! Pepper Potts????!!!!

Comic fans will not be disappointed by this film. I know I wasn't.

Hint: Don't leave before the credits finish rolling, or you'll miss a scene that lays the foundation for a future Marvel movie....

Impressions from China - James Blunt

James Blunt's concert was wonderful. I have read about how many people dislike his "whiny, annoying" voice but I disagree. And by the looks of the sold out crowd at the concert last week, many are with me.

It was a bit strange, this concert, not because of James Blunt & his band, but because of the behavior of the security people. There were three of them standing in front of the stage. This venue is set up more like a nightclub than the typical concert-on-a -stage style. The people standing in the front row (standing room only downstairs) could literally reach out & touch James. And he did try to reach out to them too. But the security guards, whom I could tell, were very zealous about keeping Mr Blunt safe from the hands of his audience, raised their arms whenever the audience tried to reach for James (& vice versa). At one point, I thought they were going to slap James' hands away from the audiences'!!!

And so many people were taking pictures during the concert, flashing away rather annoyingly. I even saw the red point of a laser light shining on one of the musician's faces!!! Chinese concert etiquette certainly leaves a lot to be desired. The security people should have made an announcement before the start of the concert letting everyone know that the use of recording devices was not allowed & so on & so forth. Instead, the above mentioned security guards basically just used their hands to block anyone using cameras in the front area of the audience pit. Which meant the ones in the back could do as they please.

So this is the kind of thing that makes me wonder what will happen during the Olympics....hardware ready, but what about the software?

Hmmm.

Impressions from China - Oh-dear-lympics

We all know about the "disturbances" that the poor Olympic torch has been through the last few weeks. And about Mr Gere's diatribe & Mr Spielberg's "withdrawal" from being part of the production team of the opening ceremony.

But it looks like these outsiders are not the only ones feeling a bit peeved at the coming Games. I am not sure how the local citizens will feel about the inconveniences that they will have to bear with, some more severe than others...

• the residents living around the Olympics venues will need to have special passes to get into the area to go home
• that whole odd-number-even-number car plate tag team arrangement to try to improve traffic conditions & (maybe) air pollution
• apparently, merchants with stores in a large market near the Olympic venues have been asked, oops, I mean told, to close shop for two months.
  

Oh dear.

Hands On

Man, I wish this recommendation had come out years ago.

The one & only time I've ever done mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a real-life human being was several years ago in my first month of work in a downtown GP clinic. Security had called up to inform us that someone had fainted & they were bringing up the lady. This was at lunchtime when I was one of two doctors on duty, the other one having gone out to lunch, & we were operating on a skeleton crew of clinic assistants.

As soon as I saw the patient's condition, I knew this was not a simple case of syncope, but that she was in cardiopulmonary arrest. She was blue, no pulse, no respiration, & probably had been in this state for at least 15 minutes judging from what the security guard told us.

Adrenaline kicked in immediately as I called for one of the nurses to help me give CPR & look for the crash cart which no one could find as the assistants in charge of "taking care" of the cart had gone out to lunch...so much for being prepared.

Anyhoo, given the urgency of the situation, I had no choice but to give direct mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while the nurse did chest compressions. Fortunately, the patient had a relatively dry mouth (could have been bad - use your imagination). Unfortunately, given that she had probably been down for at least 15 minutes, despite our continued attempts at CPR, there was no response. The ambulance medics continued CPR as they brought her to the nearest hospital.

Alas, this was not a happy ending.

Hooked!

O.M.G.

I am now officially hooked to the soapy family drama hit TV series "Brothers & Sisters". I just went through the entire Season 1 in 5 days.

Before you say how pathetic I am, let me just first counter that this series about a large rather dysfunctional family of 5 siblings in upper middle class America draws you in because we see bits of our own family in the Walkers. Their in-your-face & no-holds-barred interaction with each other strike a chord because they say things to each other (sibling to sibling, parent to child, child to parent, spouse to spouse, partner to partner) that we sometimes wish we can say out loud in our real & oftentimes, repressed lives.

I know this series has been screened in Singapore. I wonder how Mediacorp dealt with the gay issues encountered by one of the siblings (who happens to be homosexual). I would imagine that the scenes of two guys in a passionate embrace probably ended up on the floor of the censors.

And now, on to Season 2......

Happy Birthday (I think)

You know you are getting older when:

a) you wake up on your birthday & forget that it's your birthday;

b) you have to think hard to remember how old you are by taking away the year of your birth from the current year to arrive at the answer (your age).

Beautiful again

Well, it looks like the recent publicity over the regulation of aesthetic medicine (or rather, the lack thereof) has stirred up quite a hornets' nest. After the initial article which seemed to imply that MOH was going to clamp down on doctors performing scientifically unproven aesthetic procedures & prescribing what was referred to as 'snake oil', MOH has just put out a press release that seeks to clarify its position on this issue (implying that there was incorrect reporting before! I, for one, would have liked to know exactly what a certain reporter's interview notes contained when she obtained the information from MOH).

Dr Huang & angry doc have both commented on this.

It's a good thing, I think, that so much publicity has been generated by this. It serves as a cautionary alert to both patients and doctors:

Patients because, obviously (& hopefully), they would be more discerning & careful about seeking such treatment & (hopefully) do more research into the various options offered to them by their aesthetic physicians....a buyer beware kind of situation, if you like. Which is kind of sad really, when you think about it, because we are talking about that (supposedly) sacred doctor-patient relationship which previously was held at a higher level of esteem than it is now.

Doctors because now, those few black sheep who may previously have been lackadaisical & perhaps, even less than ethical about the kinds of aesthetic treatments & procedures they perform on their patients, have more eyes watching them & what they do. Which will (hopefully) discourage them from continuing with any inethical practices.


To me, (and this may be opening a Pandora's box) this whole debacle seems to highlight the woeful lack of patient advocates in Singapore. And I say this as a doctor: patient advocacy may very well be exactly what the medical profession needs to stay true to its ethical standards & conduct, and what is needed in order for it to "self-regulate" effectively.