BOMOH - In All Strata Of The Society

Look at these 2 CT-scan films

The first was taken on 17/02/2009, and the second was taken on 20/04/2009 They are 2 months apart. Name deleted.

This CT-scan film belongs to is a 50 year old lady (not a commoner) who presented two month ago with lower abdominal pain. She was diagnosed to have ovarian cancer and was adviced (by the gynaecologist) for surgery and chemotherapy.

She went off AOR (at own risk), refused the treatment and opted for the bomoh 'therapy'.

Bomohs are usually more friendly than doctors, but their 'treatments' are cheaper. Wrong ! some charge much more than what I charge for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy for a single consultation.

Back to this lady, she came back to me 2 months later with intestinal obstruction. The intestine was blocked completely by the cancer. She could not eat or drink, vomitted her stomach out. She now agreed for anything, belahlah, colostomy pun tak apa !

But everything was too late. The tumour was not resectable; anyway I did I could do to help her. And she now is counting her days.

Kadang-kadang terfikir juga, apa salahku? Mungkinkah aku tak tahu nak explain apa dia kanser. Mungkinkah aku kena cakap ...Makcik, kalau tak rawat ini, makcik mati dua bulan lagi.

In Kelantan, this bomoh things are killing more people than what the Mat Rempits do on the road. Nak salahkan siapa ?

Ada orang kata ............ ini budaya kita.

Ada juga yang kata ..... ini mentaliti dunia ketiga

Janganlah kata.............. Melayu mudah lupa

I saw TV9's Tanyalah Ustaz 3 days ago. Ustaz Amran Kasimin answering questions, very interesting.

Radiologist blues

COMMON SENSE !!!!
COMMON SENSE !!!!
COMMON SENSE !!!!

When I was a lecturer in the university, I got very irritated when my students demonstrated 'lack of common sense'.

Medical students are unique creatures; there are usually intelligent, capable of memmorising many things, giving 1001 rare differential diagnoses, but (now I begin to realise that) they are actually lack of common sense.

I used to think of that long time ago, but I kept pushing that idea to a deep corner of my head. Maklumlah, they are top scorers in their schools and colleges. But more often than not, when you asked them simple straight forward things, they could not give you the answer. They think that you simple questions are tricky, and give you around-the-corner answers. If I do post-grad teaching, it is usually highly 'technical' (or rather surgical), but if I take year IV medical students, it becomes philosophical. This is because I want to inculcate 'common sense' into their brains.

With teaching and training, they 'come back to their sense'. Many of them become good doctors after graduating, but some of them maintain this bad attitute in their professional life.

This is demostrated in this particular case.

This CT-scan film belongs to a 52 year old lady who came to me two days ago. She complained of a severe upper abdominal pain and a progressively enlarging mass in the area. Associated with that she had occasional fever, poor appetite and a weight loss of 16 kg in the past 6 weeks. The pain was so severe that it was only temporarily relieved by pethidine.

She was seen in three hospitals in the last 6 weeks, the last was on 26/03/09 on which a CT-scan was done. She was asked come back for the CT scan report on 26/05/2009 (The radiologist wrote TCA - 2 months, the nurse gave appointment on 26/05/09).

The scan above (taken in my hospital) shows a huge multicentric liver cancer, which is about to rupture (the severe pain is due to liver capsular stretching). I bet on 26/05/2009, she is already 6 feet underground. In the hospital her pain was only controlled with i/v Fentanyl PCA (patient control analgesia), Oxycontin and amytriptyline. Yet the 'good-thinking chap' requested 2 months to report a CT-scan of a terminally ill, dying mother of 5 children presented with an impending rupture of liver cancer.

Inilah yang dikatakan "ada akai tapi tak pakai" atau NO COMMON SENSE !

Outright Bluffer

Yesterday I was visited by a 49 year old lady who later turned out to be my ex-MU college mate (78-79) asking my opinion regarding her newly diagnosed breast cancer. She is a very educated lady; knows her disease pretty well, but 'caught in between her scientific knowledge and traditional belief'. She is scheduled for a mastectomy and axillary clearance (surgery for the breast cancer) sometimes next week in KL. She came back to Kelantan before her surgery to visit her parents.

Offering to help, her mother invited a bomoh to 'treat her' and later 'certified cured' by the man. Not to offend her mother she came to me to be re-investigated to see whether the cancer is still there or not. Of course, it is there !

You see, even a very educated person can be swayed by this so-called faith healer, what more ordinary kampung folks. What I don't understand is the bomoh themselves.... They don't even know what cancer is all about, yet claim 'can treat and certified cured' a cancer patient. To me, these are not faith-healers or traditional medicine men, they are outright bluffers !

Ada bomoh-bomoh yang jujur dan mampu merawat penyakit-penyakit tertentu (yang boleh dibomohkan), tapi bagi penyakit yang bukan bidang mereka, tak payahlah menyusahkan orang. Ini ada sampai ada yang tertipu dan akhirnya mati dengan keadaan yang menyedihkan.

P/s The picture above has nothing to do with the lady in this article. It is a picture of the breast cancer of a lady (deceased) who came to me last year with lung metastases after months of intensive treatment by various bomoh.

Dancing With Dr Death

New Straits Times: Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009

Bungling US doctor charged in Australia.

When I read this news in NST and later read the event from major Australian online newpapers - I found some similarities with what happened here about 20 years back.

In the late 80th and early 90th, there used to be many expatriate (foreign) doctors in Malaysian hospitals employed by the goverment to overcome shortage of specialists in this country. Many of these people came here from countries which were generally 'poorer' than Malaysia. You can't expect doctors from UK or Australia to come here since their income in their home country is much higher than here. Since the salary we paid them was relatively low, we couldn't expect to get first class specialists. Bak kata pepatah: You give peanuts, you get monkeys ! Jadi ramailah yang datang ke sini buat-buat pandai, ada yang datang dengan 'blown-up CVs'. Ada seorang tu, dalam CV pernah buat lebih 1000 endoscopy, tapi bila pegang OGDScope, nampak sangat tak tahu!. Every thyroid operation, blood loss would be more than a litre. I still remember very well; few medical officers 'diverting' cases to other surgeons whom they believed were more competent. I have assisted a surgeon doing esophagectomy - after the surgery I thanked him for allowing me assisting him although I was not in his team; I said "thanks sir, this is my first esophagectomy", he said "thanks to you, this is also my first, I choose you because I saw you opened a chest before". Laa, patutlah dia sungguh-sungguh suruh aku belah dada kawan tu!

I believe those era has long gone; we are now having many capable doctors. Some of our hospitals are the best in the region; for example the IJN. But recently the cycle might have come back. With prosperity, more private hospitals were opened. More specialists moved from the public to the private sector, leaving the public hospitals short of senior doctors. Again the vacancies are filled with foreigners.

Janganlah pisang berbuah dua kali...... The goverment mungkin perlu ingat .... you give peanuts, you get monkeys. Sorry !

Hirschsprung Disease

Hirschsprung disease is a disease seen in neonates where congenital absence of special nerve cells in the rectum called ganglion cells resulting in the failure of the that segment of large intestine fails to function. Newborns fail to pass meconeum, and they are diagnosed and operated by paediatric surgeon as soon as possible to save them. A very small percentage of children born with this disease might survive with chronic constipation. This is usually when the affected intestine is very short; short segment Hirschsprung disease. Rarely they live beyond that and into adulthood untreated. This is what I am highlighting today.

In the last 20 years of my practise, I have seen many such patients, 16 to be exact. These people was never brought to seek treatment by their parents when they were small kids. Some was forced by their teachers and friends to seek help because they were smelly with overflow incontinence - cursed busuk, tak tau basuh punggung ke?

This is an intra-operative picture of a segment of a large intestine (rectum) in a 33 year old policeman with Hirschsprung disease. (I once joked to a colleague; I removed a cat that accidentally went into the man's rectum while he pleasured himself with the animal ! )

He had a laparotomy and colostomy done in a nearby hospital when his colon perforated. He was then referred to me for the definitive surgery called Duhamel operation, and later closure of the colostomy.

The point is - our peoples wait till the last minute to seek treatment. If they had done so earlier; they would have led a normal life. But they rather wait and suffer the consequences; in this disease - chronic constipation, abdominal distention, overflow incontinence (ke mana pergi busuk bau taik) and if unlucky enterocolitis and death.

Ini sebut je operation, tak payah lah. Tunggu besar lah; bila besar yang senang dah jadi susah. Apa nak jadi !!!

Sorry, I need to talk to BOMOH first

This CT scan image belongs to a middle-age man who came to the hospital for prolonged fever and multiple lymphnode enlargement. He was found to have generalised lymphadenopathy involving those in the neck, abdomen, inguinals and in the chest. CT-scan diagnosis was Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma stage IV, and the managing physician advised him to have a biopsy of one of the nodes. This was when I came to the picture.

I explained to him that the biopsy will involve making a small incision in the neck or in the inguinal, and taking out a lymphnode for the pathologist to study. All he said was ..."Sorry, I need to talk to my BOMOH first". With that, he discharged himself from the hospital despite many attempts to make him understand what a lymphoma or a cancer means.

I am speechless ! Whoi !

APA NAK JADI DENGAN DOKTOR-DOKTOR KITA ?

Last week I joined my gynaecologist operating on this patient; inserting bilateral ureteric stents and assisted him in his surgery. The patient was an elderly lady with advanced ovarian cancer. She had earlier seek treatment for a progressively enlarging abdominal mass and lower abdominal pain in a nearby public hospital. She went to the gynae clinic there; saw one MO (medical Officer - ? trainee gynecologist) who did an ultrasound scanning. Detecting the mass, he requested for a CT-scan examination. During the next visit, CT was done and she was seen by another MO and was asked to come at a later date to see the gynecologist in-charge. On the given date, she came but this time she was seen by another MO and no decision was made. She was then given another date. The time interval from the first to the last visit was four and half months. Upset with the long wait, her childrens later decided to bring her to our hospital; saw our gynaecologist on one day, admitted her and got the CT-scan and IVU done on the next day, TAHBSO surgery on the day after. Now, she is awaiting her chemotherapy.

Look, I am neither comparing (the efficiency or what) nor advertising; but to highlight the attitude of some of our doctors in dealing with cancer patients. When you suspected a cancer, you should put high priority in the case, deal with it 'urgently' . You are not dealing with a reducible inguinal hernia or a lipoma where you can take your sweet time and schedule the surgery electively at the end of your long elective surgery list.

No wonder we are seeing advanced diseases with poor prognosis !

Kalaulah orang lain buat benda macam ini pada kita atau orang kesayangan kita, tentu kita marah. Jadi rawatlah pesakit kita sebagaimana kita mahu dilayani atau dirawati.