bubbling soapbox

the news anchor announced that "thousands gather as they commemorate victory in the pacific" or something like that. for some reason, that one line really bothered me. victory. they were showing war veterans. where is the victory in a war... where there is victory, there was also defeat. you can't really have one without the other. here you are, celebrating your victorious win on the battlefield. i can understand the joy in winning, i can understand the jubilation of seeing a close friend emerge from battle, alive. but don't you see.. you thousands of people gathered there in full military glory. don't you see that the other side lost so you can have your victory, no matter how wrong you think they may have been? don't you see that other people's friends never came back?

it bugs me when people say they've won a war. you can't win a war. sometimes, you can't even break even. at most, you get a pyrrhic victory, sillies.

and while i'm still on my soapbox, i might as well rant on.
had a horrible day that didn't start out well at all. i was supposed to be at the gp's clinic by 8.30am. i woke up at 8.30am. you can guess how the rest of the story goes..

so i finish up at the gp's by 1pm. ran into an old friend who's turned drug rep and said hi, which was nice =) i even managed to fill up my car and grab lunch from raj's corner on the way to my next placement, which started at 2pm. that was the highlight of my day.

i spent the next 2.5 hours listening to one lady take an hour to explain how to use the database program they've installed (now why the heck would i need to attend their "training session" ...those things come with a manual and a help option on the menu. the rest is self explantory. i mean really.. what else could the "cancel" button mean?) and asking random questions that i had no interest in (soo.. what kind of patients do you usually get? no duh, it's a gp surgery. you get the usual coughs, colds and wrinklies with a problem list down to the floor.) anything to fill up the silence. it was either that, or watching dr. k type away at her computer and stare at forms for 5 mins before she checked a box and filed that piece of paper away.

after all that agony and not a single patient, she finds out from her colleague that he's cancelled all her appts for the day because she usually didn't work in the afternoon.

after all that agony and not a single patient, i was told to come back. same time next week. and she didn't sign my friggin logbook because i didn't see any patients today!!! it was a 3hr session, validated by her scribble. i was half an hour away and now i need to be tortured for another 3 hours.. friggin hell.

i hate how we're treated like scum. how we're "just the med students" who are expected to be the model doctor that patients expect our supervisors to be, but seldom are. it's as if they forget we're human sometimes, that we have emotions and that our time is just as valuable as theirs.

that was one refreshing change upon starting pediatrics ~ most of the lecturers and consultants treated us like people... sometimes, it even bordered on friendship! wow.. now if the rest of the medical world can start treating us better than your average stray dog...

*gently steps off the soapbox and dusts off the footprints*