It was a really educational day. Felt more like an excursion. I started by persuading my body to get out of bed in the morning, and it did so reluctantly, walking with a reeling gait towards the toilet, knocking into a couple of things along the way, stimulating the pain fibres that fired up the spinothalamic tract, kicking the reticular activating system into overdrive, waking me up somewhat rudely.
Walked the 15 mins to the MRT that i hated, cos i remember that later on during the day i would have to walk another 15 min back the other way. Met a couple of my groupmates at #$! MRT and we were transported back in time as we navigated towards the clinic. It's basically a clinic to diagnose and treat sexually transmitted diseases, and provide screening for commercial sex workers.
We made our way thru old foggies doing morning taichi and flea market vendors who were starting to set up their shops selling all sorts of articles... from dozens of remote controls to bicycle parts (hope none of them came from the 2 bikes i've lost over the years) to old tapes, cds, laser discs. Interesting... saw more of it all when we made our way back after lunch.
Sneaked into the place, made our way up to the women only section . Got a few stares from a few women who'd arrived early for their monthly checkup. Got a dao nurse who didn't really want us around, and dao women who didn't want medical students looking at how they were examined. This was something i found v strange since some of them service like 10+ clients a night.
Some of them were actually quite pretty, disspelling the myth that those who enter the trade cannot make it in terms of looks and have to ply their trade at night when it's dark, and hit on men too drunk to notice the difference. But from experience, it's hard to see who is really female and who is a transexual. So can't look too long or they will come and speak to you in a male voice so shocking that will activate a cremasteric reflex so strong that ur family jewels pop all the way back to beside ur kidneys where they plopped down from...
Went into the lab to see how tests were done, and then entered Dr T's clinic. An tall perky doc full of zest and funny stories to tell. Seemed familiar, turns out that we'd met in when i was in year 1.
===Decided it was not edifying and have modified this part of the blog, sorry if i stumbled any of you====
Washing hands
We learnt the importance of washing hands. The patients who come into the clinic usually have some discharge or ulcer or rash of some sort, and after handling their equipment, not one of them washed their hands. They all jus zipped their big brother up and proceeded to sit down on the chair, and they would have jus gone out of the room in the same way had the doc not asked them to wash their hands. Which means that the door handles and other materials in the clinic were probably crawling with gonococci and other bugs. Imagine you opening the door, and then scratching that itch in your eye... nice way to kena gonorrhea.
medicine
