My Final Posting Examination

I just discovered Pediatric is interesting after I left the ward after examination yesterday.

Pediatric was once down in the list of my interested topics =p

Whatever it is, I'm done with examination. Thanks to Allah for everything.

For my long case, I got a very typical and common case; a 5-month-old Malay girl in her 35th day of admission (with 1 month stay in PICU) who presented with mild grade fever, shortness of breath and cyanosis for 1 day prior to admission. No history of cough, foreign bodies ingestion and congenital heart disease. No history of intubation or assissted ventilation during admission to PICU. The mother had history of GDM during the pregnancy with controlled blood sugar level and she was born full term via emergency LSCS due to poor progress and fetal distress. On examination, the OFC was between 55th and 95th centile but the weight and length was below 3rd centile. She was active, not in respiratory distress with occasional rhonchi heard in all the lung fields. Other system examinations were unremarkable.

For my short case, I also got a typical case of spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy in which I was asked to perfom motor system examination. A 5-year-old malay boy with microcephaly and nasogastric tube in situ was lying comfortable with abnormal posture; extension of both wrist and fisting of both hands as well as slight extension of the hip and dorsiflexion of the feet. The patient had muscle atrophy (most probably disuse atrophy) with hypertonia and hyperreflexia. However, there was no clonus and there was downgoing toes upon plantar reflexes stimulation (huhu..it should be present to indicate that there was an UMNL, but when the examiner reconfirmed it, the finding was the same as mine). There was no scissoring, but there was loss of head control and presence of trunchal hypotonia.

Alhamdulillah, everything went well.

Now, I'm looking forward for my Final Professional Examination.

25200 Kuantan

My Great Teacher

I have a great teacher.

Initially I thought, it was only me who acknowledge him as a great teacher.

But, when chatting with other friends, everybody seemed to be in the same line with me.

Why he was so great, despite of his long lectures?

It was truly long. He could deliver his lecture in 4 hours without break!

The problems are always from us who could not stand it.

We will bring along food and drink during his lecture when hypoglycaemia set in.

Why were we so 'struggling' to stay awake during his lecture?

Just simply because of the precious knowledge from him.

He made us understand things easier.

Things that were so difficult before seemed so easy after his explanation.

Who is he?

I personally do not know him much.

I did know where he came from. I did know where is he working. I did not know his age.

I assumed he is from KL as his car plate number was WLS XXXX.

I assumed he has his own clinic (or maybe hospital) as he always told stories about his patients (which seemed different from government hospital setting).

For all I know, he is our visiting lecturer since our senior's time.

He is a great pediatrician who attained his first degree in UKM and had MRCP qualification.

He has taught many students including some of our lecturers.

He is the only lecturer who is still using OHP in the class and very kind in giving notes to us.

I've tried to Google his name, but nothing much information obtained (it was actually none!)
So, once again, I wondered, who is he?



By the way, I would like to thank this great teacher, Dr Mohd Zain bin Zainal Abidin for his patience and enthusiasm in giving us the knowledge.

You are not only teaching about medicine, but in most of the time you inspired us to become a good and safe doctor like you. (Great teacher inspires!)

We pray for you to be at the best health, so that you will be continuing spreading the knowledge and inspiring our juniors. We also pray for you to be always blessed by Allah in the world and hereafter.

25200 Kuantan

Note :

1. Credit for Tini for the photograph. (I was not in this group. Our group did not have pictures with him. So pre occupied with the SPA interview)

2. There were a lot of 'funny' quotations from him. I'll try to put it in my blog later. It was very meaningful to us.

Don't be Selfish

"If the patient was ill-looking, don't disturb him. Don't be selfish."

Thank you Dr Aye Aye for the reminder.

"It's good for us to learn but it was no good at all for the patient."

I was relieved to listen to her advice just now. We have to be empathy. Just use our common sense!

What's painful to the patient is always an amazing thing to medical students. By the way, that's how we learn.

Thousands of thanks for all patients. Only Allah can give you the rewards.

25200 Kuantan

Note :

This ill-looking patient had passed away 2 days after that. She was a cute 4-year-old little girl with Down's syndrome who were suffering from atrioventricular defect which was complicated by pulmonary hypertension for the past 1 year. The parents were so nice to us and she had involved in our university final professional exams for few times. May you rest in peace there my dear. Thank you for everything. ~

Developmental Assessment

I found it difficult to carry out development assessment in the infants and children. Definitely, it needs a lot of practices.

Prof Zabidi from USM came to IIUM last Wednesday as visiting lecturer. He taught us this pneumonic:

C - Cognitive
O - Optic
M - Motor; gross and fine
E - Emotional and Social
L - Hearing and Speech

He also demonstrated on how to carry it out.

And now I knew, developmental assessment is not that difficult! =)

I'm looking forward to do developmental assessment to all the stable infants in the ward =)

Note : We had a very good session with Prof Zabidi. I will always remember him as a good teacher. I want to be a teacher like him; teaching and inspiring =)

25200 Kuantan