Greetings to all.

This is the first part of my report for Young Doctor Programme that I mention in previous entry. I just do minor correction in the report. Happy reading!

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On 25^th of June 2006, a group consist of two out of 100 students as the participant of Young Doctor Programme held in Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM) Kubang Kerian were placed at 3 Selatan Ward for the first posting in this programme. My group member was Khairul Afif. We were quite nervous at first as it was our first time.

We arrived at 3 Selatan Ward on 9.20 a.m. First of all, our group were introduced to Sister Arizah. When we arrived at her room, she was having a talk with Dr. Vilma, one of Specialist Oncologist in HUSM. We need to wait for a while before he leaved the room.

Then, Sister Arizah sent us to a nurse, named Fazdillah to give us some information and explanation about 3 Selatan Ward. We were invited to sit at a sofa. She started to give us an overview after we were sat in a good condition.

3 Selatan Ward is a ward for adult cancer patients as it was named Oncology and Hematology. This ward placed patients who were getting treatment at HUSM and the patients who need to be observed by the doctors. This ward only can place 26 patients at a time. The nurse told us that oncology meant treatment for cancer that attacked body system such as lungs, colon and so on. In the other hand, the hematology is about blood cancer such as leukaemia.

The treatment given to the patients in this hospital is chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Chemotherapy is treatment by giving the patients some medicine to be taken by the patients in tablet or liquid. But this method gives some negative effects such as vomiting, nausea, bald and many others. Other than that, radiotherapy was given at department of Nuclear, Oncology and Radiotherapy (NOR). The process is giving by exposing the patients to the radioactive ray.

The nurse said, as HUSM is a teaching hospital, the patients here were mostly came from other hospital like Hospital Besar Kota Bharu (HBKB). The patients were limited as this ward and it was the only ward for cancer patients is HUSM. She added, cancer phases were divided into four phases. The percentages of survival in first phase are higher than the last phase. In addition, third phase were separate into other two phases. The cancer that can be healed by surgery was only cancer in situ. Example of cancer in situ was breast cancer. The surgery can avoid the cancer from spreading to other body part.

She also advised us to see the doctor quickly if we found or detect abnormal changing in our body. This happened because of uncontrollable development of cells in our body. Until today, it was not known what causing the cancer to happen other than some minor factors that had been discovered. The minor factors are smoking, high exposure to radioactive ray or so on. Most of the male patients were patients of lung cancer and cancer of colon, besides the female mostly risky in faced cancer of cervix and breast cancer. After that we had a break for 30 minutes before we continued our first posting.

As we came back to 3 Selatan Ward at 11 o’clock, a patient there was been taken her bone-marrow cell. The patient was given drug before the doctor started the procedures. The doctor used a tool that shapes like ‘t’. A hole was made before the doctor took patient’s bone marrow. It was hurt if she was not given drug. The bone-marrow cell was taken to send to Chemistry Lab to diagnose her cancer, which she was diagnosed with leukaemia. The patient was half conscious but she still can hear what the doctor said to her.

After that, we got a chance to meet a houseman, named Dr. Zulhilmi who was on duty in this ward. The night before, he was on-call. But he still looked energetic. So, we took this opportunity to ask him all about doctor’s job and it duty. He said, after finishing the study on medical, someone who wants to become a doctor need to do a practical for a few years. Then, the person will assume as houseman for a year or two years depend on their performance. The houseman will be a Medical Officer once he or she finishes the housemanship. If the Medical Officer furthers their study, they can be a Registrar and then Specialist in the field he or she like. It is not easy to become a Specialist, as the doctors need to have good reputation in their job. He added, Medical Board is a society that monitor doctors’ ethic in their duty as same as Nursing Board. The doctors need to be fair to their patients and ready to give all of their energy, concentration and time on the patients. Dr. Zul also encouraged us to study hard if we wanted to be a doctor. He gave us a motivation to concentrate on our academic.

We end our session when it was 12.30 p.m. We moved to Nuklear Auditorium for our lunch. Then, we were asked by the Sister to go to Dewan Rufaidah because our lunch was served there. We took our delicious lunch and then went to Surau to perform Zohor prayer.

beliamuda: pictures here are only for decoration purpose…