My Journey of becoming a TCM Physician Chap 9: When Doctors are Carpenters/Mechanics and The Abortion Toilet
One of the exciting things about going through hospital rounds as a medical intern was to visit the places that had restricted access.
Surgery room was one.
There was not any syllabus for hospital clinical rounds so it really depend on your personal drive to use your wits and charisma to learn as much as possible and dig as much information from the maestros. For THE SKILL or THE FORMULA that could possibly be the one factor to make you as THE DOCTOR above the rest. And also for access to areas that were not opened to public and not ‘on the books’.
So to get into surgery room, it required 天时，地利，人和 (aka the alignment of the stars lol). The right senior needed to be there to ask for access to watch the surgery, the timing of the surgery did not clash with the lesson times, the surgery was to take place. For me, I got to catch the chance to watch the orthopedic surgery for hip. Just the changing into the robes and washing of hands got me all excited. But to be honest, once in the surgery room, I had to make myself as tiny or invisible as possible so as not to block any one’s paths. So all I remembered was me standing at a distance seeing the green cloth and the human tissues specks flying off into the surgery light. And I swore after this surgery, I would never try to let myself go for surgery. Maybe because it was an orthopedic (bone) surgery. The equipment themselves already looked like its for building a house. Then the surgery proceeded with the surgeons transforming into those murderers in horror movie where they started using the professional hacking tools to knock on the hard tissues aka bone. I think I still could eat after the surgery and writing this now I felt quite numbed actually. But it was an eye opener of what happened to your body after you zonked out with the anaesthesia. I’m enlightened by the fact that surgeons especially orthopedic ones could actually be mechanics and carpenters if they were out of job one day.
Another place that was not within my plan to access was The Abortion Toilet.
That was when I was doing my rounds in gynaecological department. In China, the procedure to decide to go for abortion was very simple. Especially when the foetus was still at the initial stages of development. Medicinal abortion was usually the thing to go for and all the doctors had to do was to prescribe the medications for the termination. I wanted to go take a look at the operational level of abortion but somehow or rather I always missed the chance. Still, I was ‘blessed’ to visit another restricted location. I remembered I had to pee very urgently while I was on my duty and I asked I think one of the nurses if there was any toilet nearby. I think one of them said I could use ‘that’ toilet, directing me to a rather normal looking toilet. But surprisingly this toilet was rather clean as compared to other public toilets which were miles away. Then I saw the wordings pasted on the wall of the toilet inside which if I did not remember wrongly said (in Chinese) “please dispose the foetus/placenta in the yellow bin”.
Did I pee in that toilet in the end? I’ll leave that open ended. =)
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
Men’s Health: Low libido equals low testosterone?
