I did a house call yesterday afternoon, visiting a 95 years old retired doctor who stays alone with 2 hired help in a rambling old house. She came from abroad after the war, serving in Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Spore as a TB specialist and retired to Msia. She was active within our medical circles until poor health forced her to live quietly within the confines of her old bungalow. Her late husband was an engineer in JB and they have no children. 2 hip fractures in as many years made her now bedbound and it is only through the miracle of good friends, physiotherapy and her aides that she is still with us. I suspect she had a lacunar stroke lately despite the scans not picking it up, my clinical judgement I hold more dearly than what the silly machine won't show.
Her good friend of many years, a 83 years old retired GP takes care of her finances and visits her as often as her own health allows. Yesterday I brought her along together with 2 of my medical students to check on our friend and patient. The medical community in JB has mostly forgotten about this grand dame of medicine among us, her decades of service to humanity all but relegated to the files of history. I have to certify on her pension slips that she is indeed still alive and in front of me as the Spore government finds it hard to believe that someone is still claiming a pension after 40 years!
I wonder to myself as I so often do, the remarkable life she must have led. Entering medical school as a GIRL 75 years ago must be something REMARKABLE, correction... UNHEARD OF! How did her male colleagues treat her when she graduated? What did her patients then think of her? Was she even accepted by the community? I asked my students to reflect on this. The 83 years old retired GP told us that when she came to serve in JB after the war, the lady doctors were then posted to outpatients only... Was this reflective of the bastion of male egos then?
My medical students looked at her collection of books... a 3rd Edition Harrison's stands browned and worn. Printed 1958. They were surprised to see "ECG made Easy" a book the students are still reading... and even more tickled when they saw a book of Q & A on Physical signs.... she was studying way into her twilight years. The study of medicine is a LIFELONG course and she has LIVED the mantra.
Her body is now thin and wasted, but her mind still twinkled with delight when I introduced the 2 young girls to her. Perhaps she recalled her youth as a student, perhaps their fresh faces stand in great contrast to her occasional visitors who are mostly gray haired and worn with the years.
We discussed about the weather and tried to cheer her up. I told her that her knowledge of anatomy is probably better than the 2 girls, the study of Anatomy now being relegated to a supporting role in the modern medical curiculum. Physically she is as good as her 95 years old body can be. I encouraged her to sit up, sit OUT and try to breath deeply. Told her I will smuggle her her favourite chocolates in defiance of her 83 years old GP friend's dictates! haha....
Life is a constant stream of change. That is its ONLY constant. We age, decay and degenerate but there is still beauty amidst it all. Perhaps NOT in the body anymore but in the deeds, her lifetime of dedication and service to fellow humans with a compassionate heart. My students asked if they can borrow the Q & A book... the retired GP immediately said "OF COURSE.. the knowledge of medicine must be passed to the next generation". I listened with humility.. a lesson reinforced by a senior of the Hypocratic tradition of teaching the next generation.
We left after tea but not before the 83 years old retired GP grilled my 2 young charges on the stack of CXRs, hip Xrs... I think that the afternoon taught them if not anything, then at the very least the PASSION of an earlier generation to medicine.
dr wong yin onn,
clinical associate professor,
monash university, JB clinical schoool
Her good friend of many years, a 83 years old retired GP takes care of her finances and visits her as often as her own health allows. Yesterday I brought her along together with 2 of my medical students to check on our friend and patient. The medical community in JB has mostly forgotten about this grand dame of medicine among us, her decades of service to humanity all but relegated to the files of history. I have to certify on her pension slips that she is indeed still alive and in front of me as the Spore government finds it hard to believe that someone is still claiming a pension after 40 years!
I wonder to myself as I so often do, the remarkable life she must have led. Entering medical school as a GIRL 75 years ago must be something REMARKABLE, correction... UNHEARD OF! How did her male colleagues treat her when she graduated? What did her patients then think of her? Was she even accepted by the community? I asked my students to reflect on this. The 83 years old retired GP told us that when she came to serve in JB after the war, the lady doctors were then posted to outpatients only... Was this reflective of the bastion of male egos then?
My medical students looked at her collection of books... a 3rd Edition Harrison's stands browned and worn. Printed 1958. They were surprised to see "ECG made Easy" a book the students are still reading... and even more tickled when they saw a book of Q & A on Physical signs.... she was studying way into her twilight years. The study of medicine is a LIFELONG course and she has LIVED the mantra.
Her body is now thin and wasted, but her mind still twinkled with delight when I introduced the 2 young girls to her. Perhaps she recalled her youth as a student, perhaps their fresh faces stand in great contrast to her occasional visitors who are mostly gray haired and worn with the years.
We discussed about the weather and tried to cheer her up. I told her that her knowledge of anatomy is probably better than the 2 girls, the study of Anatomy now being relegated to a supporting role in the modern medical curiculum. Physically she is as good as her 95 years old body can be. I encouraged her to sit up, sit OUT and try to breath deeply. Told her I will smuggle her her favourite chocolates in defiance of her 83 years old GP friend's dictates! haha....
Life is a constant stream of change. That is its ONLY constant. We age, decay and degenerate but there is still beauty amidst it all. Perhaps NOT in the body anymore but in the deeds, her lifetime of dedication and service to fellow humans with a compassionate heart. My students asked if they can borrow the Q & A book... the retired GP immediately said "OF COURSE.. the knowledge of medicine must be passed to the next generation". I listened with humility.. a lesson reinforced by a senior of the Hypocratic tradition of teaching the next generation.
We left after tea but not before the 83 years old retired GP grilled my 2 young charges on the stack of CXRs, hip Xrs... I think that the afternoon taught them if not anything, then at the very least the PASSION of an earlier generation to medicine.
dr wong yin onn,
clinical associate professor,
monash university, JB clinical schoool
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