The typical day in the life of the GP I am currently doing my posting consist of
1. doing up to 7 ABORTIONS a day (yes, it’s illegal. More on that later)
seeing STD cases
2.having gigolos/toyboys/small white face(literal translation from Mandarin) coming in to check for STDs. ok, I am exaggerating coz I only saw one case so far. But I am just too fascinated to see a real life gigolo. More on that later too.
3.drunkards coming in for consultation. Most of the time, they don’t register what the doctor is telling them
4.drug addicts coming in to treat their addiction, but at the same time, keep asking the doctor if he can give them any other medication (a.k.a. any other drug that can make them high).
5.pimps (or what I presume they most probably are) bringing in girls to check for pregnancy
6.a superbly wide range of other diseases covering all the systems we’ve learnt so far, which actually makes this GP a very good one to be posted to, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT HE DOES ILLEGAL ABORTIONS.

Right. I was utterly shocked on the first day when this girl came in and said, ‘doctor, nak cuci’ and smiled as if it is the most natural thing in the world to do. And this GP gladly does it (he earns RM350 for every case he aborts) without even giving counseling to the patients. Ethics, you say? What ethics?!
I seriously felt so helpless. As a Christian, I really wanted to do something coz it is just against my principles. But what can I do? It’s not as if I can go up and challenge this doc’s practice or ask the girls not to do the abortion. Being a 2nd yr medic student aka tiny small insignificant fry, I’ve got no authority what-so-ever.
And besides, a lot of clinics do it, it is just that we choose to remain oblivious. We live in our own comfort zones, thinking that the world is a nice and perfect one. But when you see all these girls, drunkards, addicts, it just hits you how the world really is. Or maybe I’m just too complacent, too naïve, too protected, always giving people the benefit of the doubt and thinking that everyone has a good heart. And I think that’s the problem with a lot of Christians. And I think I’ll score 0 if there is a meter to test whether I’m streetwise.
Oh well…I felt that I couldn’t just stand there and not do anything while these girls come in happily asking for abortion. So I chickened out and left the consultation room into the pharmacy, pretending to wanna look at drugs. But after awhile, I felt quite silly shuttling back and forth (since there were so many cases).
For every case, it’s the same routine. The doc will ask: when was your last period? And then do an ultrasound to confirm whether the girl is pregnant. And therefore, I’m now on my way to being an expert at seeing whether a fetus exist in the uterus by seeing an ultrasound, after so many cases. Upon confirming that the girl’s pregnant, she will then proceed to the registration counter to make an appointment. The procedure (dilate & curettage) only takes 10 minutes, but the girl will remain in sedation for 2 hours. And the following are a few of the more interesting cases



Case 1:
A Malay girl comes in and proudly announces to everyone in the consultation room that there was one period of time when she had MONTHLY abortions (under this GP). I’m not being racist, just stating the facts: a lot of girls who come in for abortions are Malays. and many have done multiple abortions. Obviously, they do it without any guilty conscience what-so-ever.

Case 2:
Indian girl is 15 weeks pregnant. Fetus is too large to abort. (you could see the fetus’s beating heart through ultrasound already). What does this GP do? Recommend her to another doctor of course.
Doc: I recommend u pergi doctor lain, boleh inject satu ubat, paksa itu bayi keluar. Dia kat Jln ***, clinic tu Klinik Wanita ****. Tapi awak jangan beritahu orang lain bahawa saya suruh awak pergi situ. Sebab ni jika kena tangkap, doctor tu akan masuk penjara.

Oh well, at least this GP is super patient and is really willing to teach. He’ll explain nearly every other case to me even when he has patients waiting outside for 2 hours. Even takes out his old text books to show me diagrams and pictures.

If any of our CSU nurses or doctors were to have attachment in this clinic, they’ll be driven to their graves early. The careless way that he handles needles, gloves, supposedly sterile equipment etc is just plain scary. The first thing I do when I reach home these days is to bathe using lots of Dettol.

I shall end this super long blog with 2 theories that Jack came up with:
1. I am gonna be murdered soon, by either this GP who knows that I know he does illegal stuff, or by the patients with STD/HIV/abortion who feels that I know too much about them.
2. I am gonna be poisoned by this unethical GP and have my kidneys stolen and sold to India or China. Oh man…I felt pukish today. Shouldn’t have eaten that pizza the GP gave me yesterday.

2 more days and I’m done with GP posting. Can’t wait.