One of our requirements for graduation is to do 360 hours of clinic. With 4 semesters to do so, I would have to deal with patients for 90 hours each semester, which is not possible due to (usually) public holidays and insufficient patients at the clinic. Therefore, we are sent all over the country's medical centres and hospitals to do our clinical attachment. This is to 'top-up' our clinical hours, in simpler terms.
So living in PJ, I automatically chose Sunway Medical Centre as my training centre. I applied since February this year and fortunately for me, the good people of SunMed accepted! However, I can only come for a week as they are preparing to move to a new area.
With only 12 days of break after my final paper, I started my attachment on the 12th of May 2008. It took me only about 10 minutes by car to get there, and I parked at the visitors' parking area. (Actually, 4 days before that I came to SunMed to check out the place, where to park, etc, and I thought of getting staff's sticker or something, but apparently, the accounts people think one week of attachment is not significant enough for a sticker and asked me to park at the visitors' parking. Cruelty to newbie I must say).
I was supposed to register at the HR Dept. at 9am, but I reached there at 8.15am. Yeah, I know, 'very the semangat wan'. I thought I'd be stuck in traffic but then it was smooth sailing all the way. So I just went to the HR straight away and waited there. When I got there, there were already several other students waiting to register. I noted that I was the only Malay there.
So all of us trainees/interns/whatever you may call it were briefed by the HR guy Mr Ken and he disposed us to our departments respectively. I was sent to the Department of Speech & Hearing up at the 6th floor, but somehow the Audiology Clinic is at the 1st floor. I was introduced to the speechies there before Ms Tye (Head of DSH & also KKA lecturer when I was in first year) took me to the Audiology Clinic.
I was greeted by Ms Mazwin (Head of Audio Clinic & KKK lecturer when I was in 3rd year) who somehow forgot that I was coming that day (pardon her, she’s a super busy, multi-tasker woman). Nevertheless she let me observe for the first hour before disposing me to Dr Liza at the nursery.
Dr Liza is the first Malaysian audiologist that I met who pursued audiology as her first degree in the US. And she continued on doing her masters and PhD there as well. A very pleasant woman, the best supervisor I have yet to have! Dr Liza took me under her reign for the rest of the week almost 24/7. (I think she was super glad when I finished on Saturday, haha).
We started at the nursery, where I also met Rosemary, who's actually not working there anymore as she's moving to England. I saw how they do UNHS using the Automated ABR. Very good stuff for assessment; it's fast and simple but very costly and can be very tiring, especially when waiting for the babies to lay still and be quiet.
After the nursery, we went back to the clinic and I observed Dr Liza doing hearing assessments. Initially, I thought there would not be many patients, but then on that day, it was really busy, and I was quite overwhelmed. There were patients every hour and I only had a break for one hour before another patient came in. I have to say, the 9-5pm work time was utilized to the most. That night, I slept early as I was exhausted!
The 2nd day wasn’t so bad as the patients were not as many. I get to meet another audiologist, Mr. Saravanan, a UKM-graduate. He shared his experiences with me and showed some assistive listening devices that I have yet to see in the clinics I have been to so far. I intended to attend a talk by a nurse of the nursery on G6PD, but they postponed the talk. I did get an article about it though. Very informative.
Third day onwards I began to get the hang around things. In the mornings I would go straight to the nursery and do hearing screenings. Depending on how many babies are there, I would normally finish at around 11 am. Then I would go down to the clinic and observe/assist Dr Liza.
I noticed the approach in the private setting is far more different than the government setting. The private setting really prioritizes the patients first. They give their best service and they don’t push the patients. Yes, they’re profit-based, but somehow what truly concerns them is what the patients want, regardless if it does not benefit them much in return. The most important thing is patients’ satisfaction. No wonder the clinic is packed with patients, they’re all satisfied customers; and when they’re happy, they promote SunMed.
However, there are patients who think that since they’re paying so much money, they should get first class treatment. Come on, we are all humans, and we have our imperfections. Some of the mothers there can be real bitches to the nurses at the nursery (I heard them gossiping, of course). But other than the dirt on bad mothers, it can be quite fun to hear the nurses tell on first-time mothers’ experiences. Fun and scary, making me think twice about having my own, haha. Looking at the face of the babies though, always made me change my mind. They’re so adorable, how could I not want them?
The attachment ended on Saturday (yes, they work on Saturdays! half day, that is), 17th of May 2008. I must say I learned a lot throughout my attachment there. And it was only for a week! I wonder how much more I could learn if I have completed 5 weeks (as suggested by my dept.) of attachment. I may have developed excellent skills and be super-competent! I wish. Looking forward to doing more attachments there before graduation :).
I have a good news to share! Reason why I was so busy and still am is because I was offered a sponsorship to further my education! I will be doing my Master in Clinical Audiology, in University of Melbourne. Woot, woot! :D I'm flying on the 1st of Feb: 010212 and will be arriving on 020212. Nice number, isn't it? :)
