night call on thursday was good. followed two house officers and a medical officer, and saw a young patient with ulcerative colitis who had twice vomited blood in the evening and had to monitored carefully because her Hb had once fallen below 10. another patient had sinus bradycardia discovered when she was about to do her ogd, and a breakthrough seizure patient who kept going on about his medication even as the mo and ho were clerking him. was asked to help take the blood pressure of a patient and was surprised to discover that the cuff at the bedside was much larger than normal. interesting.

there's a letter in the papers today about an indian man with chest pains who went to a large, central hopsital but was turned away. he later went to another major hospital which did an angio on him and found a 90% block in one artery. several articles and letters of similar complaint have appeared in the straits times recently, and i can only say that i doubt any doctor ever wishes or wills for his patient to die, but the failings of the system here and abroad, as well as all of us as humans, will mean that we will never be 100% sure about anything. like our professors tell us, there is no "always" or "never" in medicine.

on to another topic, did you know that the authorities on our little island had once contemplated registering the identities of all bloggers? most fortunately for all of us, they have decided not to. and in a way, that's one reason why i've kept stuff on this blog to a minimal, like shopping and soccer and school. i'm not really bursting to tell stories about the intricacies of working in a hospital right now, but i'm sure in a few years' time i will, and it will be harder and harder to keep such things out of this blog. i do foresee that the existence of this blog will be threatened when, and if, i graduate.

oh well, for now it shall be back to soccer, with germany playing portugal tomorrow morning. klose will be looking for more goals to score, and ollie will be between the sticks for probably the final time in a world cup.