Sunday, March 14, 2004
Due to my very bad cough yesterday, my father bade me to see a doctor to cure my throat problem.
This time we go to a doctor at Old Airport Road, instead of the usual Kai Clinic at Katong. My father told me that we used to go to this Old Airport clinic in the past, when we still lived in that district. Then, it was run by the father. Today, his sons run the clinic.
His clinic is unassuming; there’s a small waiting room with three rows of benches – it takes up half the space of a HDB shop house. The doctor’s office is modest: a simple, aging desk, an ordinary wooden chair. The computer monitor takes a quarter of his rather cluttered desk. He uses those free-gift biros to write his prescriptions. He says that my throat irritation is caused by the presence of phlegm. I still have lots of vile yellow substance stuck in my throat, which I make an effort to clear as much as possible in the mornings when I wake up. The lack of water causes the wall of the organ to itch and coughing is like scratching and relieving the irritation. He gives me medicine, and that’s the end of the visit.
Readers, you must be wondering why I am telling you about this doctor. It’s because I respect him, not only as a profession but as an individual. He doesn’t show that his cause for being in medicine is to earn money and to live a good life. He sees that it is his job to take care of the sick. The layout of his clinic informs us that he is one who is simple, and does not care for a sophisticated, impressive medical office. He is one of two children of the old doctor, and I believe both have bee inspired by their father’s spirit of giving to the sick that they take up medicine. He is none of the kind of people in the Faculty of Medicine that I mentioned about in one of my earlier entries: people who take medicine because they have good grades and think that because of that they want and can treat people with illness, or because their parents think that by becoming a doctor, they would give their parents more pride in that the latter will be able to go around to tea with their friends and show-off: “My son/daughter is a doctor!”.
Next time, I shall not want to be treated by a doctor whose purpose in medicine stems not from a pure passion of helping the sick, but from other issues that are academic, financial and materialistic in nature.
* * *
In the afternoon, I went to Sim Lim Square with a friend; he wanted to look for a new pair of headphones. I carried my brown Espirit sling bag along; it was bulky and swung about constantly because the straps were adjusted long, and the bag had lots of stuff which I was going to return to the Esplanade Library later. So obviously the bag swung around my ankles like a wrecking ball. It made it quite clumsy to walk.
In my right hand I carried my usual blue umbrella, since there were reports of a thunderstorm in the afternoon. Better be safe than sorry.
We were walking on the fourth floor, just past the lift lobby. We turned left down the corridor…
Suddenly there was this tremendous yell of pain.
Both of us jumped. And I mean both of us really JUMPED.
Before any of us had time to recover, we heard this angry Caucasian voice cursing: “Jesus!” It was pure, spitting rage.
I turned, and saw this tall, middle-aged American man, clutching his left arm, which was wrapped in a cast. He was giving me a very angry look. My right arm, protruding a little from my body in order to support my umbrella, had knocked into it. I apologised to him profusely, making short and quick bows of regret, but he only spat “Jesus!” again and again. The red-hot look never left his face for once.
We quickly walked away, fearing trouble. I was badly shaken by the experience. My friend consoled me; that he had been giving that look all along even before we bumped into each other. The look of as if someone had owed him three million dollars.
We almost ran into the man a few times thereafter. Frightened, I would quickly turn and enter a store on the pretext of looking at some product while he passed by. I didn’t want him to catch me with his good arm, give me a good shake and yell “Jesus” in front of my face again. ¶ 3/14/2004 01:11:00 am
This time we go to a doctor at Old Airport Road, instead of the usual Kai Clinic at Katong. My father told me that we used to go to this Old Airport clinic in the past, when we still lived in that district. Then, it was run by the father. Today, his sons run the clinic.
His clinic is unassuming; there’s a small waiting room with three rows of benches – it takes up half the space of a HDB shop house. The doctor’s office is modest: a simple, aging desk, an ordinary wooden chair. The computer monitor takes a quarter of his rather cluttered desk. He uses those free-gift biros to write his prescriptions. He says that my throat irritation is caused by the presence of phlegm. I still have lots of vile yellow substance stuck in my throat, which I make an effort to clear as much as possible in the mornings when I wake up. The lack of water causes the wall of the organ to itch and coughing is like scratching and relieving the irritation. He gives me medicine, and that’s the end of the visit.
Readers, you must be wondering why I am telling you about this doctor. It’s because I respect him, not only as a profession but as an individual. He doesn’t show that his cause for being in medicine is to earn money and to live a good life. He sees that it is his job to take care of the sick. The layout of his clinic informs us that he is one who is simple, and does not care for a sophisticated, impressive medical office. He is one of two children of the old doctor, and I believe both have bee inspired by their father’s spirit of giving to the sick that they take up medicine. He is none of the kind of people in the Faculty of Medicine that I mentioned about in one of my earlier entries: people who take medicine because they have good grades and think that because of that they want and can treat people with illness, or because their parents think that by becoming a doctor, they would give their parents more pride in that the latter will be able to go around to tea with their friends and show-off: “My son/daughter is a doctor!”.
Next time, I shall not want to be treated by a doctor whose purpose in medicine stems not from a pure passion of helping the sick, but from other issues that are academic, financial and materialistic in nature.
* * *
In the afternoon, I went to Sim Lim Square with a friend; he wanted to look for a new pair of headphones. I carried my brown Espirit sling bag along; it was bulky and swung about constantly because the straps were adjusted long, and the bag had lots of stuff which I was going to return to the Esplanade Library later. So obviously the bag swung around my ankles like a wrecking ball. It made it quite clumsy to walk.
In my right hand I carried my usual blue umbrella, since there were reports of a thunderstorm in the afternoon. Better be safe than sorry.
We were walking on the fourth floor, just past the lift lobby. We turned left down the corridor…
Suddenly there was this tremendous yell of pain.
Both of us jumped. And I mean both of us really JUMPED.
Before any of us had time to recover, we heard this angry Caucasian voice cursing: “Jesus!” It was pure, spitting rage.
I turned, and saw this tall, middle-aged American man, clutching his left arm, which was wrapped in a cast. He was giving me a very angry look. My right arm, protruding a little from my body in order to support my umbrella, had knocked into it. I apologised to him profusely, making short and quick bows of regret, but he only spat “Jesus!” again and again. The red-hot look never left his face for once.
We quickly walked away, fearing trouble. I was badly shaken by the experience. My friend consoled me; that he had been giving that look all along even before we bumped into each other. The look of as if someone had owed him three million dollars.
We almost ran into the man a few times thereafter. Frightened, I would quickly turn and enter a store on the pretext of looking at some product while he passed by. I didn’t want him to catch me with his good arm, give me a good shake and yell “Jesus” in front of my face again. ¶ 3/14/2004 01:11:00 am
