About Bionics & Histrionics II: CMIA, Riverside Majestic <b>Hotel</b>, <b>Kuching</b> - Hotel in Sarawak Blog |
| About Bionics & Histrionics II: CMIA, Riverside Majestic <b>Hotel</b>, <b>Kuching</b> Posted: 02 Oct 2014 10:58 PM PDT  I'm waiting to catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur in the Kuching International Airport as I pen this. The ink had barely dried on the exam paper which I managed to complete successfully about an hour ago. On the question of whether would I pass and then go on to be certified as a medical impairment assessor remains to be answered in about a month's time. Yup! That's about how long it would take before the final result comes out. And then there would come the incessant wait for the results to be posted manually through from the PERKESO headquarters in KL to KK and then by land transportation to Keningau. All in all, this is going to take more than a month before I would be able to know how bad I do. Talking about looking at things negatively. Well.. I appear to be a realist and a pessimist at the same time. So with all possibilities looked into, I doubt I would do fabulously well in the exams. The course lasted four long days which saw lecturers after lecturers cramping in all the new information into our fragile heads, pounding it in ounce by ounce with little concern on how rusted those cerebral cortexes are after passing our postgraduate qualifications some years back. And that even in itself took some hefty effort to pass - the post-grad I mean. Our medical brains, after all… starts to degenerate over and out after going through the MBBS / MD / MBBchBao programme. Nevertheless, with four days of two to four-hour long lectures both in the morning and the afternoon, I could still find some time to explore the city of Kuching. As the course is held in the Riverside Majestic Hotel from the 29th September to the 3rd October, this span of five days allows me the opportunity to go about the surrounding areas of the city to enjoy the local food and the local scenery.  Sarawak Kon Lo Mee/Noodles  Sarawak Laksa  Sarawak Hokkien Mee/Noodles  One of the many Sarawak local coffee corner - this appears to be one of those novelty shadows of the more famous Starbucks/Coffee Bean franchise - the only difference being that these people take their coffee extremely seriously. Skills that can only be reproduced within a couple of individuals. The bean roasting, filtering and mixing is exclusively done in front of you before you sniff it and gulp it down in a whisky-shot like glass. I did manage to go to all their shopping complexes and hypermarts (one or two) and enjoy the Sarawak Kon Lo Mee, Laksa and Hokkien Noodles which was indeed a blessing. The Kon Lo Mee was a reminiscent of Batu Pahat's Wan Than Noodles while the Hokkien Noodles tasted much the same like those in Penang with the plain exception for the Sarawak's Laksa. This latter cuisine was distinct in its own class. With a consistency approaching viscosity, the accompanying soup could be well familiarised to a pasty sauce plopped into mixture with a spicy curry that you can aggravate further with more sambal that comes on a platter. What surprises me was not only the eccentric way it tasted, but the fact that Sarawakians would enjoy this delicacy in the daytime rather than the night time. This latter fact makes it tough to enjoy such decadent, sinful local cuisine in the evening. The best / famous one that is. You could however go for the more typical ones that locals would give the average A-OK compared to the morning sells.Though I didn't get the opportunity to take the river cruise to the opposite side of the river, I did manage to take a stroll alongside the sides of it - and this is all thanks to my girlfriend's brother-in-law. Things would have been quite a bore had it not been for his eagerness in taking me out to venture into the hidden wonders of Kuching. A pity that I could only go out with him on the night of my arrivals and the first two nights of my course as he had to travel over to the Peninsular thereafter. Then again, much of Kuching had already been explored by then. Such a break from the drones of dull lectures in the morning and the afternoon was a welcoming sight. Then again, despite the long allocated time of the course and the grave amount of lectures scheduled for the whole duration, it was indeed an eye-opener. Serving in the medical board as an unofficial/uncertified medical professional before this, I was just doing my best through the guidelines (which expired on the introduction of this new course as the new edition has just gone live) to assess the impairment suffered by the insured person alongside two other fellow colleagues (which makes up the board). And based on such subjectivity which even as an uncertified member could tell, I was at many a times in dilemma on how to award the patient accordingly. And right before I ended up going to this course, there was another medical board held just three days prior where the PERKESO officer introduced us to the new guidelines. Rightfully saying, we ended up being more confused than we already are. Thankfully I was allowed to attend this course as part of my medical training to certify patients who would be seeking for grants and awards based on their industrial injuries, occupational diseases and invalidity impairment. Now that I have, I'm much more enlightened and hopefully this newfound knowledge would aid me in a betterment of my assessment in the very near future. The only problem remains in the medical reports which I had a large share of reporting back when I was in Alor Setar. With up to 20 cases in month of medical reports to pen upon request by the PERKESO board, we didn't have any idea how to approach it. And I could only remember writing in detailed reports (as I've been known not only to talk at length, but to write excessively - thus explaining my great amount of penmanship through blogs after blogs, TripAdvisor reviews, Malaysian Medical Gazette, and other social media) which comes up to about 4-5 pages that encumbers all the aspects that the board wanted and then some. Such elaboration was not wasted when I finally realised by the end of this week that a simple medical report would just not do... as it will inevitably go to waste by not helping the assessor in the medical board to properly come to a diagnosis-based impairment and then modify the grade according to the functional history, physical examination and clinical studies to allow for a more definite approach in granting awards for the injury. I hope that fellow medical officers (you are the ones who would after all be the main group of fellows writing the reports, I know because I've penned more than a hundred during my duration as a cardiology medical officer) would be able to register for this course, attend it, take the exam and be enlightened as to how you should help and educate your fellow colleagues by guiding them on writing a proper medical report. I believe that such details and elaboration would grant more weight towards the final medical indemnity claims. Well… allow me to end this blog entry by wishing you all a very Selamat Hari Raya Haji and a happy long weekend to everyone!  |
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