It has been over a year I have not written anything in this blog. I guess writing my thoughts and experiences on a regular basis is not really my forte.
Oh well, just to update everyone who are following this blog, if there is any, about the new life that I decided to embark over a year ago. For those of you who knows me, I'm sure you guys are aware that I have graduated and currently working as an FY1 in Hull Royal Infirmary. I am actually approaching the end of my FY1 training, only one month left to go and then I'll be moving to Scunthorpe for my second year of foundation training.
Many of my friends have asked me to write and share my experiences of being a junior doctor here in the UK. To be honest, a junior doctor scope of jobs in the UK is not so much different than junior doctors in Malaysia. Given the knowledge and experience a of typical junior doctors has, we are not usually involve in long-term management or crucial decision making of a patient. We are, and always will be, the main people to have urgent bloods done, making specialty referrals, requesting imaging for patients and most importantly the person to type in those lengthy discharge summaries. In terms of salary, we get paid on average £2000 per month, which is equivalent to RM10000+ in Malaysia. It does sounds a lot but hey, bear in mind that I am not living in Malaysia and I have to save a lot to finance any further membership exams and courses in the future, and a return flight ticket UK-Malaysia does not come cheap either.
However there are some major differences that make the work-life as a junior doctor in the UK far more comfortable and enjoyable compared to Malaysia. One of the big issues in Malaysian medical community is the inefficiency of the system. Why on earth Malaysia doctors have to do three ward rounds in a day? Houseman does his rounds at 7AM, then the MO(equivalent to SHO in the UK) come at 9AM to do his ward round at 9AM with the houseman and finally the consultant will come between 10AM-12PM to do his ward round with the other two. This is utterly ridiculous! In the UK, all members of the team will come at 8 or 9AM, do the ward round together and formulate a plan for the team to follow for the day . Isn't this just makes everything much easier? All F1 and SHO know what the plans are for the day, clear instructions and more time to do other important stuff.
Another big problem in Malaysia hospitals are the pathology and requesting systems. Now I know that not all, but a few major hospitals in Malaysia are computerised nowadays. But still, most hospitals are still using paper-based system for blood tests and imaging requests. This just consumes too much precious time. One of my friends shared his experience working in a busy medical ward with me few months ago. In Malaysia, there are porters, also known as PPK (is this correct?), who are supposed to help the doctors run the ward such as sending of bloods to the lab, collect the printed results and sending patients to the radiology department. My friend have asked one of the porters to collect an urgent blood result at the lab whilst he was busy attending other patients. Instead of getting an "OK" reply, the porter replied back to him to do it himself as he was busy. A few minutes later, knowing that the blood result is important, my friend rushed off to the lab to get it. On the way to the lab, unsurprisingly, he could see that the porter was 'busy' puffing a cigarette with his mates, chatting happily under a tree near the hospital gate. Hopeless, totally hopeless.
In the UK, if you have taken a patient blood, you can just send it off using the air-tube system and the results will be displayed in the computer within an hour or two. And if I wanted to request a chest X-ray for my patient, I just need to click on my request in the computer and the porter will come and take the patient for X-ray about an hour later. Same goes for CT and MRI scans. Then the images will be in the computer immediately after the scan for the team to scrutinise it later on. Simple, efficient and most importantly hassle-free!
If I were to write down and elaborate all the things that I am unsatisfied with Malaysian healthcare system such as bullying, assertion of seniority, out-dated medical equipments, post-call shifts, cronyism, racism and many more, I would surely got stuck here in front of my laptops for a full whole day to splash it out. But I chose not to.
I love Malaysia and please don't get me wrong about my criticisms above. I vowed to be back home one day. It's just not the right time yet. Personally, I think going back home straight after medical school does not really make my voice and opinion heard and I would eventually sink and assimilate in this inefficient system.
Hopefully one day, when I am a fully fledged medical physician with a lot of experience at the back of my hand, I hope I will come back and make a positive change to Malaysia's healthcare.
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