Life In Sibu

Finally done with 3^rd year..phew! The result for my end of posting exam came out today and I passed my surgery posting. Yay! You could say I’m grateful that I passed all 4 postings, although the results didn’t come with flying colours. But there are still colours on them alright!

Well, after living in Sibu for 8 months, give and take, I feel like I’m having a little pang of loss at the thought of leaving a place that has given such pleasant memories to me. Now, to tell you the snippets of my life in Sibu, I’ll just break it down into 4 parts since its fairly easier for me to recall them this way. J

Medicine Posting

Uh-huh, this was indeed a helluva posting! It was the time of adjustment. I stayed in the hostel for the first time and got this sweet Indian girl, Kamini, as my roommate. And yeah, me and my bestie, Felicity, and 2 other friends got lost when we tried to go to Sibu town in the 1^st week. It was hilarious though, thinking how we assumed this one random car might bring us directly to town but he ended up going home instead. And we followed him. To his house.

This was also the posting when I become close to the awesome people of the world, Yoganantham and Ee Theng. We sound so 1Malaysia, don’t we? Its funny to think back how we hardly spoken a word to each other in pre-clinical years but end up becoming best buddies when we came to Sibu.

So, my first day in the ward. A whole new territory for me. I don’t know if this was just my imagination, but everyone in the ward just looked so tensed! I don’t even dare to come near the patients. Or the staffs. But in that devastated moment, just when I thought I am so going to screw my clinical years, that was when this nice person with a stethoscope hanging around his neck smiled and asked, “First day? Don’t worry la, you’ll get used to it soon.” Hey, so there are nice people in the ward too huh? And I soon learn that those people with stets around their neck, the smiling ones are the house officers (HOs), the poker-faced ones are the medical officers (MOs) and the ones with forever-in-agony looking faces are the specialists. But of course, this naming system comes with some exceptions. Hehe.

As I said, these nice people are really nice. The HOs helped us a lot. They taught us some stuffs, gave some tips and advices, and other significant kind of ‘help’ which was highly appreciated. Not forgetting the friendly nurses too. They were all very amiable. So that’s how I survived medicine posting. But being the klutz that I am, I have to admit I did do something that caused quite a stir in the ward..oops.. Sorry to those who were involved!

At the end of this posting, I got the chance to explore the food in Sibu. The kampua mee, kompia and other types of food which I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the spelling right. Hehe. The food was indeed nice to my tongue and tummy.

Obstetrics & Gynaecology Posting

For the first time in my 21 years of life, I saw with my own two eyeballs how a baby came out into the world by natural birth. Whoah! I was out of breath, and extremely traumatized. And when they did episiotomy, I was like “Shoot, I am so adopting!” But currently I’m considering C-section. Hehe. After seeing all these I become more appreciative of my parents. They’ve gone through so much just to see me grow into such a nice young lady. Ehem.

The staffs here are rather.. erm.. appalling, I would say. Not going to elaborate on that. But not all of them are. Some are really kind and understanding too. At least I get to conduct one delivery..oh yeah! It was a boy, looked so much like his mother..aww~~

I even had the opportunity to lose my 2 fingers! Err… you just have to know what’s going on in O&G in order to understand that sentence. On this one fine day, I was quietly standing somewhere close to this HO while he was clerking. So there he was, looking around for some nurses but couldn’t find any, he just had to ask me to be his chaperone to do PE. Vaginal examination (VE) included. God bless those nurses for not being around! Since I am this type who just can’t resist myself from asking so many questions, so I guess he decided the best way to shut me up is by telling me to do VE myself. Haha! Looks like curiosity doesn’t kill the cat the whole time huh? By the way, I know some of you might think its gross for me to be all hyped up just because I did VE. Well understand this, might as well I get all hyped up now while I’m still interested to learn before I get bored with it when I finally get to do it for the sake of working.

Paediatrics Posting

It was all about kids, kids and kids. I’m the youngest child of 4 siblings, and believe it or not, I still have that Last Child Syndrome in me. I don’t have much experience in handling kids, and I don’t expect I’ll be able to tolerate naughty kids without becoming a tyrant. But surprise surprise, in some unexplainable way, the kids in the wards have managed to make their way into my heart. I’m a bit motherly now. I think.

We celebrated Ee Theng’s 21^st birthday in a dark eerie park in the middle of the night. Yes, the kind of midnight when the clock strikes 12. Needless to say, bad decisions do make good stories. If the decision didn’t end up with a tragedy I mean. And that park shall forever be in our mind. Hehe.

Surgery Posting

This is when I realise we (me, Ee Theng and Yoga) can communicate and tell jokes to each other just by making eye contact when we were in the OT. Just by rolling our eyeballs, moving our eyebrows up and down and tilting our head in some unfashionable way, we still get the joke. Awesooome! This is what you call ‘the power of bonding’.

Hmm.. what else? Ok, there’s this one doctor in this department who will never look at you nor stare at you. He only glares at you. At least that’s how I felt every time I see him around. I always wonder what exactly his problem was. What an intricate individual. Sometimes I even have this ridiculous urge to ask “Did I ran over your dog or something? Given my ‘exquisite’ driving skills. Because I don’t remember ever doing anything to you to make you this mad at me.” Heh.

Oh, last night we had a party at a friend’s house. It was wickedly awesome. The food was yummy, the company were lively and enjoyable, and the activities were random yet witty! I never knew my lecturers, my seniors and some of my batch mates could actually act in such an unexpected manner that my insupressible laughter rendered me unable to speak. I laughed so freaking hard that my tummy aches. I think we all did. What a crazy night to remember. Too bad I didn’t take any pictures because I was too caught up in the moment.

So there it is. Bits and pieces of my life in Sibu. There’s more to be told actually but I don’t think I’ll be able to write each and every one of them. I’m leaving Sibu tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I will miss Sibu, its simplicity and all the vivid memories it left me with. But oh well, life must go on, right?