Teaching Doctors are no good??? Really?

Recently it came to my attention on certain opinions regarding teaching doctors. That means doctors who are teaching at higher institutions which produces doctors and other graduates which are sorely needed in the medical world such as nurses and pharmacist.

A friend of mine injured himself with a deep cut at the forehead and there blood gushing out non stop for a couple of minutes. Thankfully we have a doctor at hand and she was asked to take a look at it. In my opinion it was not that serious as it was not life threatening therefore it is not even a real emergency. (Sorry, if it seems that I sound a cold blooded person) The dear doctor disinfect the wound with the medical kit that is available to her and bandage the wound. She told my friend that it would need a couple of stitches but since it was almost three at the time she did not think he would get the treatment he needed at Emergency Room immediately. So we went ahead on our journey and decided to get treatment at our destination. This would take us around 4 to 5 hours of travelling.

This is where it gets interesting. As the dear doctor depart from the scene to allow my good friend to rest and wallow in misery : ), another friend came over and asked whether we should stop at a hospital or not. As we explain to him that it is not necessary and explained what the doctor told us, he was looking at us in disbelief. He is in the opinion that ER will always treat patients regardless what the time is and the doctor is not good at all since she is teaching rather than practicing. It seems to him that the doctor must have been unable to cope with emergency situations hence the career in teaching.

This is what baffles me. First of all, the injury is not that serious especially when it has been disinfected properly. It must have hurt like hell but if you stitch it at that moment it will still hurt. Second, the opinion that if you are teaching then you are not good especially dealing with emergency situations. Never mind the fact that you might prefer it over practice because of the work schedules and better time with your families.I find it is kind of weird with this kind of thinking because if we have incompetent doctors teaching, would not that mean we would be churning out sub stardard doctors?? If so, then it would be truly alarming since then the lowest level of the sub standards doctors would be the one to train the future doctors and the circle continues.

I admit there are possibilities that there are certain doctors who do not deal very well with emergencies. It really takes a talent on certain level to be able to handle the situations where patients who are injured badly coming in droves or where time is essentially critical. However, to label someone because he or she choose to be in academic line as incompetent is a bit too much and unreasonable. Call me old fashioned, but teachers or those who impart knowledge to us needed to be accorded with at least a certain degree of respect unless they have prove to you that they are assholes and do not know anything about their subjects.

At the end of the day, I am sad that this shallow observation comes from a friend that I thought should have known better.

The Bigger Deal!!??? Really??

When the price of petrol goes up everything goes up....It is bad when a trader tried to take advantage of the situation by hiking up the prices more than 20 cents for each products even if the are no connections to the increases in the petroleum price. However the efforts by the authorities, (in this case the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry) to curb errant traders not only did not address the problem but could be detrimental to the economy and also the livelihood of most small time traders.

The authorities recently launched Smart Consumers Campaign and would help to identify outlets offering goods at bargain prices. Among it would be Tesco, the venue where the campaign was launched. How dumb could it be??? Why??

Basically most consumers have already identifies with the outlet identities which has already been to offer lower prices than most. These kind of outlets such as Tesco, Giant and Carrefour do no need the government endorsement. In fact it acts as a free advertisement for their outlets. Despite the Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal saying that the ministry would identify the supermarkets that offer low prices and gave publicity in the media, after several days none of the small or medium size supermarkets have been feature in the media. How hard could it be to identify these supermarkets??? Let's see how hard it is especially the Ministry did not specify in what terms they are going to choose the outlets or supermarkets.

What the Minister did not take into considerations, these big stores; hypermarkets can afford to offer the low prices. They can absorb more of the increasing cost and their profit have always been bigger than some small traders. It is simple theory of ecomomics of scale. The more you buy, the less the cost would be. As a hypermarkets, they amount that they are buying from the suppliers would be massive. Therefore they would entitle to discounts or the cost of transportations etc would be able to be spread out to more things. Therefore it is unfair to expect the other traders to compete at the same level with these giants especially they were already outclass in terms of selections and prices prior to the price increase in petroleum.

It is fine if Malaysians choose to shop at these places themselves. However to give an endorsement and encouragement for people to abandon small time traders and small supermarkets are plain wrong especially considering the adverse effect it will brought to the economy. In fact these small supermartkets or grocery shops might end up closing due to shift of trends by consumers. The numbers of these hypermarkets has already been mushrooming like mad recently. Add in these additional pressure from the government, one can only imagine the effects.

Some people might said so what if these shops closed?? However bear in mind that a lot of these traders are dependent on their shops as their source of income. We would be creating more unemployment cases and it is quite illogical for the government to encourage the unemployed graduates to become entrepreneurs while at the same time working to destroy these small shops. Furthermore, since most of the hypermarkets are not locally own, the profit gain in Malaysia would be going out of the country. Therefore it is bad for our current exchange. Simple stuff. Perhaps it is too simple that our 'geniuses' at the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry failed to comprehend. So... What is your opinion regarding these?

Starting Over

In case anyone wondering of the time lapse between my first and second posting, it is due to my own forgetfulness. I totally forgot about the existence of my blog : ), until when I decided to sign in recently. Suprise! Suprise! I already have a blog : ). Being absent minded surely makes life interesting.

Anyway, the interest in blogging was sparked again due to a couple of reasons:

a) a number of my friends is into blogging and I really like to put my two cents in at their side. Unfortunately the way to do that is to sign as a user since most of them didn't allow anonymous comments.

b) Lots of available time due to my transition as a student to employment : ). If u did not catch the subtle hint yet, it means at the moment I am unemployed. Nothing to worry since I already got a job. I have not started it yet since I want to take a break from the hectic pace of studying (that's a riot) and the perpetually busy life as an auditor . (that's what my future job is)

I haven't decided yet what kind of direction my blog would take. Most likely it would be a reflection of my image and personal thoughts on various thing. Expect more things or should I say postings in the near future as MelorK get comfortable with this blogging thing.