My Journey of becoming a TCM Physician Chap 7: As the rotation starts ..
I think it was at the end of Year 4 that my rotation in the hospital started. Or maybe at the second semester. But I vaguely remembered all the interesting lessons like Acupuncture, Tuina, Bone adjustments or 调骨, Qigong, Anatomy with cadavers, Laboratory works with live specimens etc were overlapped with the rotations in hospitals.
So how was China hospital like?
My attachment hospital =) Full of memories =)
Well, basically you can imagine being thrown back to the 80s, the settings were very basic and not modernized and stylish, even the polyclinics in Singapore outwin the designs, air condition was only on in the summer while central heating was on in the winter, it was crowded everyday (usual queue time is 2 hrs at least to see the doctors), the lifts sometimes would need to wait for 10 min so we usually took the stairs. But one thing about hospitals in China and even other organisations was that lunch was always at least 2 hrs. And during this time, basically nothing is functional. The pharmacy, the radiography department, the clinics, the consults, the treatments, our classes. Yes, lunch was the king between 12 to 2 pm usually. The reason was that the time was catered for people to take a nap after lunch. Actually this kind of routine was considered very essential for gut health and digestion because it gave time for the stomach to rest and digest the food. Initially the bunch of us Singaporeans were a little culture shock but after about 2 months living in China, most of us started to adopt the habit of resting after lunch, even it was just napping over the tables on our arms.
We were to put on the white coats when we moved around the hospitals so people could identify us as students. And white coats were kind of like a sanitary shield for us. Because rotation in the hospitals would mean sometimes we became the personal assistants to the teachers in that department we were rotated to. Because it was a battlefield in the hospitals and in some departments that were absolutely filled with patients day in day out. So we were allowed to execute some procedures like writing prescriptions (mind you, it was western medicine prescription in Chinese), gynae checks, men’s checks (yep, we have seen it all), paediatric massage, burning of warts (Yes! And I’ll write about my experience in the skin department in future posts (aka aesthetic department!) etc etc.
One thing also, once we put on our white coats and hanging around in the department, the teachers and patients would address us as Doctors in Chinese. For example, my surname is Lim and I would be addressed as 林大夫 （Lin Dai Fu = Doctor Lim in ancient Chinese!!!!!!）or some would call me as 小林 or 小林大夫. This was my another culture shock, but a pleasant one because it brushed the ego, hahaha. But it really put you into the mode of being responsible to patients because we were addressed as doctors now, even though still in training.
Follow me as I bring you to my interesting rotations at different departments which I have deep impression of in my upcoming posts =)
Further reading:
Everything you need to know about Acupuncture
Men’s Health Series: Which is the Better Way to Treat Prostatitis - TCM or Western Medicine?
How do Acupuncture and Acupressure work and which is the Better One
Everything you need to know about Dampness
It is not normal to have cysts and fibroids
Why Everything Cold is Discouraged during Menstruation
