radio nkti

with interns' monitors and friendly staff of the nkti radiology department.

radiology etc.

"x-tray;" "cd-scan;" "todo-echo." some of the funniest interpretations of filipinos to hospital jargon. niña, april and me are currently rotating in radio and idle time coupled with uncontrollable "kadaldalan" lead to some seriously funny and annoying (to others i bet) conversations. we have talked about everything from dead people on tables surrounded with flowers to yayas poking poop and mimicking sandy's now classic "looking busy" (an inside joke).

Edit: more funny stuff...
ct-skull, phenobarbiedoll (phenobarbital), and metromanilazole (metronidazole). these are actual utterances from patients!

Plog No. 11

"Jollibee"
Neonate born via normal spontaneous delivery with this tumor attached on his sacrum.
TA Aneurysm
This is the ascending aorta. From anesthesia point of view (upside-down).
Marge @ Gumbo
Heart Center
View from the OR lounge
"From"
OR Lounge Phil Heart Center
"From-froman"
Sandy taking a nap at the PHC OR lounge
Delifrance
View from PHC OR lounge
Heart-Lung Machine
Operated by perfusionists who are specially trained medical technologists
Me at the OR lounge
PHC Super CATS seminar
Lung Center Dietary
"Success!!!"
The first ever test tube I inserted
Department of Surgery & Anesthesia Office
Lung Center of the Philippines
Friendly Reminder
LCP
Scrub Room
LCP
The O.R. Complex
Lung Center
Fluoroscopy Machine
LCP
3rd Floor Corridor Roof
LCP
3rd Floor Corridor Floor
LCP
Walter Mart @ Muñoz
Previously PLDT Complex
Infinite Corridor
Where the RR room opens. Scary @ Night
Polka-dot
Elevator Ceiling at LCP
LCP Dietary
The... Recovery Room (Boo!)
Spirit Questors Disneyland
LCP Christmas Tree
Kidney Center LCD Monitor for Laparoscopic Procedures
La Naval Procession 2008
Locker Room PCMC
OR Schedule Board on my Birthday
Heart Center CT Scan
Radio Interns
PHC

The Donkey and the Elephant

I always wondered how they became the symbols of the two parties. From Wikipedia...

In 1874, it was rumored that U. S. Grant would run for an unprecedented third term. As the rumors were surfacing, there was also a contemporary urban legend that several animals had escaped from the New York Zoo. Thomas Nast, the most popular and influential cartoonist of the time, took the opportunity to combine the two in a cartoon for The New Yorker magazine, representing the Republicans as elephants, docile but unmoveable when calm, unstoppable and destructive when excited. The cartoon, entitled "The Third Term Panic," depicted the Republican vote as an elephant running inexorably into a tar pit of inflation and chaos. Interestingly, the elephant was running away from the already established Democratic donkey, dressed in a lion's skin. This was Nast's take on the Democrats' view of Grant as Caesar, and their feeling that they had an obligation to play Brutus before he let the power of his office corrupt him.

The donkey predated Nast by three decades, when it was used during Andrew Jackson's campaign, initially by his opponents, calling him a 'jackass' for his populist policies. Well known as stubborn, however, Jackson decided to co-opt the mascot, and used it to his own advantage. After Jackson retired, he was still looked at as a party leader, even though the party refused to be led, and the 1837 cartoon "A Modern Baalim and his Ass" showed him leading a donkey which refused to follow. However, the donkey image was not popularized until the ubiquitous Nast adopted it, first depicting the party as a kicking donkey, attacking Lincoln's secretary of war Edwin Stanton even after his death in an 1870 cartoon for Harper's Weekly.

In other words, both animals were chosen for their negative qualities, such as stubbornness and willy-nilly destruction, and then adopted by the parties for their positive attributes, and neither party has been stubborn or destructive ever since.

My Christmas Wishlist...

it's free to dream right!? i know i won't get any of these but i sure damn have the right to drool...

1. Fuji Finepix S5 Pro
2. Sony Ericsson w980
3. 2008 Toyota Corolla Altis
4. My own townhouse
5. Dell XPS M1330

...oh when will i win the lottery?????? oh and yeah... world peace ^_^

Surgery Rotation

surgery was the first specialization i really wanted to get into. during clerkship, i realized that i may not be made for it. given my back's condition coupled with the demands of the specialization for doctors to stand for a long span of time. a resident said to me... "then just operate sitting down..." yeah... then be called a wuss. will your co-residents and consultants take an excuse and not hack you off until you quit?

after going through surgery this internship, i have mixed feelings. i've seen the the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly. surgery is a fulfilling field. i liked what my friend sandy said why she wanted to go into surgery. you see results immediately. a guy has abdominal pain. he has acute appendicitis. you remove his appendix. his symptoms go away. poof! like that. in medicine, you wait for your medications to take effect. for the body to heal itself. and more often than not, things are not very simple. i guess that's why they joke that medicine takes brain and surgery just skills which is all very wrong.

i thoroughly enjoyed working at the east avenue e.r. especially that marco and i had a great resident (dr. varela) who was a friend and together with dr. montes (the rotator from another hospital) we all were food-addict buddies. ha!

working through orthopedics and urology subspecialties both gave me insights into their private worlds. orthopedics is an interesting field... and lucrative too. but it's a little down my list. i admit i did not get to do a lot during urology except make tarpaulins and and their video for their upcoming urology week but i did learn a few things most importantly how to do a proper urologic history. i will remember their names forever because of that video ha!

the outside rotations are really interesting too! at the philippine children's medical center, i realized that imperforate anuses are very prevalent more than hernia which i seriously thought would be more common (or it was just a hernia down week?). i got to see rare cases. i got to see a boy who had TWO PENISES. ehem. a newborn with a tumor larger than his head. at phil heart center, i realized these delicate surgeries are the longesssssssst types of surgeries. my my, i can't take them. but it was fun because i got to close a lot of graft sites! lung center was productive too for me, i got to insert four chest tubes on my own! at national kidney and transplant institute i got the best mentor in dr. ahalajal who taught me and let me(!) insert IJ catheters, who answered my questions, treated me as an equal and is a surgeon who (i hope for real) does not belong to the stereotype (more on this later hehe). thank you doctor.

i think i have said it here before but i'll say it again. not taking everybody but most of and not just a few of the nurses at national kidney institute are the most unprofessional, annoying, untalented of the nurses who work for the different centers. there i said it. i hate a lot of them. they are rubbish and are nothing compared to nurses at lung center who are their total opposite. they have a lot to learn. and age has nothing to do with it. there ARE good people there but they are truly outnumbered and i AM saying this as what is true to me. kudos to you lung center nurses i love you. and i am sure all the interns love you as well.

sigh... the year is coming to a close. and i'm excited and frightened about next year's board exam. i thank you marge for having so much confidence in me that i think i can do anything because of that. i hope i make you proud as i know you'll make me too.

watching something the other day in youtube, i loved the quote: "thought transcends matter" from george bernard shaw. barbra talking about it said the outer world mirrors what is within us, and we make happen those things we think about. i hope that all our dreams and wishes be realized and fulfilled with our thoughts, prayers and deeds.

edit : now with edits *wink

My Week's Top Five - XXII

I just thought I'd like to add more to my top five lists :-) Just as I've revived one of my favorites... In no particular order...

1. Peanut Butter - I forgot how delicious Lily's peanut butter is!
2. Heroes Season 3 - sandy and me are superfans!
3. DOH-PCSHC - everyday I repeatedly realize choosing DOH for internship was one of the best decisions I made in my life.
4. Tyler's Ultimate - Mr. Florence... you're an insipiration, I want to cook!
5. Delifrance Coffee Bun - just perfect...

Plog No. 10

"Towel Rack"
External Fixation, Orthopaedics - East Avenue Medical Center

Giant Bannana
bequeathed by Me-an to Me. Thanks!

Tarpaulin
One of the tarpaulins I made for the Urology Department
of EAMC for their 11th Urology Week

Lazarus
Kid with a lot of burns that I dressed at the E.R. (EAMC)

First Ever Laparoscopic Urology procedure at EAMC

East Avenue E.R. around after midnight

East Avenue Surgery Ward

Nursing Students
on the Balcony of the EAMC 4th floor

Pretty Intern examining patient's mouth

Marga sewing someone up

Cystoscopy Room
National Kidney & Transplant Institute
Recovery Room
National Kidney & Transplant Institute
Kidney with Midpole Exophytic Mass
National Kidney & Transplant Institute
Dietary
National Kidney & Transplant Institute

My Kennedy Center Honors Wish List

Barbra Streisand and Sting
PACIFIC PALISADES, CA - OCTOBER 18: Barbra Streisand, and James Brolin attend Oceana's 2008 Partners Award Gala held at a private residence on October 18, 2008 in Pacific Palisades, California.

For Barbra's tribute at the Kennedy Center Honors, my wishlist of those who will be chosen to pay tribute to her are as follows :

Miss Shirley McLaine - to speak about how Barbra overcame the barrier for women
Patrick Wilson, Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman - The Way We Were, Evergreen, People, Happy Days Are Here Again medley.
Celine Dion - Don't Rain on My Parade (Reprise Version)

I know the tribute is short, probably just one medley to allow the tributes for the other artists but if it were extended just for Barbra... that would be really wonderful!

EDIT : I just discovered this great gospe singer David Phelps... he can really be a great performer for the demanding streisand songs!

About the Artist

(Singer, actress, director, producer, writer; born April 24, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York)

Her name is Barbra, and there has never been anyone quite like her.

From the start, her genius was impossible to ignore. Among the first to take notice of Barbra Streisand was Harold Arlen, who had this to say after hearing the performer’s debut Barbra Streisand Album: “Did you ever hear Helen Morgan sing? Were you ever at the theater when Fanny Brice clowned in her classic comedic way, or when Beatrice Lillie deliciously poked fun at all sham and pomp? Have you heard our top vocalists belt, whisper or sing with that steady and urgent beat behind them? Have you ever seen a painting by Modigliani? If you have, do not think the above has been ballooned out of proportion. I advise you to watch over Barbra Streisand’s career. This young lady (a mere twenty) has a stunning future. Keep listening, keep watching. And please remember, I told you so.”

For more than 40 years, Barbra Streisand’s trailblazing career in music, theater, films, and television has been and remains one of the most thrilling spectacles of our culture. Her voice is recognizable as no one else’s within a note or two. Her way with Gershwin and Bernstein and Sondheim, with Rodgers and Hammerstein as well as with Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, even with the likes of Debussy, Schumann, and Wolf – her way with the greatest songs of all time – has been a gift to American culture.

A quick glance at a list of Streisand firsts is staggering. Her first Broadway appearance, in I Can Get It For You Wholesale, earned her a New York Drama Critics Circle Award as well as a Tony(r) nomination. Her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, got not one but two Grammy Awards in 1963 including Album of the Year, making her at that time the youngest artist ever to have received that award. In 1965, Streisand’s first television special, My Name Is Barbra, redefined and revitalized the genre, earning a total of five Emmys as well as the distinguished Peabody Award. It is one of many signs of this amazing career that three decades after that first batch of Emmys her Barbra Streisand: The Concert copped two Emmys for the singer as well three more for her production—and more Emmy honors still in 2001 for Barbra Streisand: Timeless, Live in Concert.

Her first motion picture, Funny Girl, earned her the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actress. Jule Styne, Funny Girl’s composer, commented early on that “besides possessing a God-given singing voice, Barbra is the first girl I have ever heard who is a great actress in each song. Barbra makes every song sound like a well-written three-act play performed stunningly in three minutes.”

This actress who sings is the highest-selling female artist of all time. With fifty gold albums, and thirteen multi-platinum, sales of Streisand albums are ahead of those of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and second only to Elvis—making this Broadway baby the only artists among the top four of all time who is not part of the rock and roll revolution. Her Number One solo albums so far span more than three decades, a longevity simply unmatched by any other solo recording artist.

Barbra Streisand is the first female composer to win and Academy Award, for her aptly named song “Evergreen” from the hit 1976 film A Star Is Born. In 1983, Yentl made Streisand the first woman ever to produce, direct, write, and star in a major motion picture. Smashing right through Hollywood’s glass ceiling, The Prince of Tides was the first film directed by its female star to receive a Best Director nomination from the Directors Guild of America as well as seven Academy Award nominations. The first dramatic television feature from Streisand’s own Barwood Films, the pioneering Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, earned three Emmy Awards and signaled Streisand’s commitment to social justice. The activist work of the founder of the Streisand Foundation—which continues to benefit everything from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and the Center for Public Integrity to the National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund and the Cedars-Sinai Women’s Heart Center-- is of a piece with this indomitable woman’s art. In 2004, Barbra Streisand received the Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights campaign.

She was born in Brooklyn in 1942, the daughter of Diana and Emanuel Streisand. Her father, a dedicated and respected teacher who had emigrated from Vienna, passed away when Barbra was only 15 months. While still in her teens, and an honor student at Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, she burst into show business with a singing contest at a small Greenwich Village club, leading to gigs at the Bon Soir and the Blue Angel and, in 1962, to a contract with Columbia Records. That same year, Streisand landed a small but, as it turned out, unforgettable role: Miss Marmelstein in I Can get It For You Wholesale. What followed is the stuff of living legend: The Ed Sullivan Show in 1962, opening for Liberace in Las Vegas in 1963, Funny Girl at the Winter Garden in 1964, reprised in 1966 in London’s West End at the Prince of Wales. A moving passing-of-the-mantle was televised, as Streisand appeared as a guest in The Judy Garland Show, where “Happy Days Are Here Again” became—later with “People” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade”—a signature Streisand song. Her own television specials followed and redefined the musical possibilities of television itself, from My Name is Barbra in 1965 right through Color Me Barbra, Belle of 14th Street, Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments, plus a historic concert in Central Park in 1967 and the more recent live shows such as One Voice.

Her movie career flourished, a triumphant debut in Funny Girl, Hello Dolly!, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, the saucy The Owl and the Pussycat, the protofeminist Up The Sandbox, the heartbreaking The Way We Were, A Star Is Born, Yentl, the screwball classic What’s Up, Doc?, and the Prince of Tides.

Richard Rodgers, one of the first Kennedy Center Honorees and an early Streisand champion, summed up her talent best when he enthused that “Nobody is talented enough to get laughs, to bring tears, to sing with the depth of a fine cello or the lift of a climbing bird. Nobody, that is, except Barbra. She makes our musical world a much happier place.” Bowled over by this American’s way with French chansons, as well as with her own American Songbook, none other than Maurice Chevalier proclaimed “Barbra Streisand is one of those miracles which comes along once in a lifetime. She is mad with talent and more gifted than any human being should be permitted to be. We embrace you, Barbra Streisand.” So does the whole world.

from: The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts Website (link)