O-suck-a

You know what's shit? That iridology crap that fucking Osaka Health Clinic is pushing. I've never heard a more ridiculous pile of crap than their claim that all diseases can be diagnosed just by looking at the iris. Aside from diabetes and hypertension, and some metabolic derangements such as Wilson's disease I'm currently unaware of any other illness that can be diagnosed by looking at the eye, and most of the time, we look at the retina, not the iris.

A few days ago, at the rat-hole clinic, I saw a patient who was worried about an abdominal mass. Her history was unremarkable except for a suspicion of a myoma on ultrasound long ago. No myoma was seen on a later consult at a hospital. Physical exam was normal and I did not detect any abdominal mass. I asked her why she was worried about a mass and she said that she had been to that iridology place and had been told may tumutubong bukol (a mass is growing inside me.)

At first, I was impressed since the idiot iridologist (iridiotlogist?) had seemed to have made a correct guess. I asked the patient if the iridiotlogist had told her where the "bukol" (mass) was. Basta, meron daw sabi nila.

What the hell?!

What use is iridiotlogy if it can't even tell you what you may have? Oh, mahina baga mo, mahina atay mo, mahina puso mo, etc. They will tell you that bullshit but any nurse, doctor, or even medical student can tell you what you're really at risk for just by talking to you and getting your history and doing a correct physical exam. No need for more bullshit about looking at your iris and shit.

I reassured the patient and sent her home but I scheduled her for an ultrasound and an appointment with the gynecologist just to be sure. Man, I hate those fuckers at the iridiotlogy clinic for giving my patient undeserved anxiety.

Fuck them.

An appeal to America.

I stumbled upon these pictures today and it evoked a strong sense of sadness and rage in me.

Here's the link:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/2522544597_6a5ff3e122_o.jpg

America, please impeach Bush. He is a criminal.

(Med) Certifiably bullshit.

A medical certificate is a piece of paper that states that you were seen by a doctor and that either: A.) you're fit to work or go to school or B.) stay home, you sick little shit. I usually have no problems with patients asking me for one because I see it as part of the service I give to them. However, the rat-hole place (THE CLINIC) has other ideas. I was told during my first few days at the place that I should have the patient go to the front desk whenever I issue a medical certificate. Apparently, they charge the patient an extra fee for the medical certificate. None of the extra fee goes to me, the guy whose name and license number are stamped on the fucking thing.

Angrydoc, the rat hole pays for the printing of the forms, you might say. Yes, but how much does a piece of paper cost if they have it printed by the ream? Less than a peso per piece I'm sure! The rat hole charges much, much more than that. Di na yata tama yan ano. Yes, part of my pagka-asar is the fact that we get nothing for it, even though it's our name and our license on the paper. The thing I object to mainly is that the clinic will attempt to squeeze more money out of the patient.

Fuck.

As a rebellion against this shit situation, whenever I can get away with it, I give the damn things away for free. I ask the patient to step into the examination room and then give them the certificate. I tell them to hide it. Sometimes, I just write the certificate on the prescription pad, so that the patient can have an easier time hiding it.

What if the clinic decides to share some of the fee with us, you ask? Hahaha! Don't be funny. They'd never do that.

The owner would have a heart attack.

Somebody please tell Brian Gorrell to shut the fuck up!

I have to admit that I was initially hooked on his blog. The sad story of a foreigner getting duped by a countryman had me sympathizing with the poor guy. The entertainment I got from reading the comments section was priceless and was actually the main reason I kept coming back to that shit blog. I despise those useless socialites and I had no idea that so many people felt the same way about those GG idiots.

The novelty began to wane however when all the guy could write about was "pay up, pay up!" and "these guys are cokeheads." He also insisted that he had proven that he had given $70,000 to his ex but so far, what he had shown was way below the 70,000 he claimed.

It began to get boring. He added a PayPal button and ads which made me suspicious. The comments section also became unbearable and brainless as Team Brian began to become more and more rabid in their support for their foreigner hero. Dissenters were immediately put down, sometimes with profanity* and illogic and there just seemed to be more and more "We love you B, we support you" crap.

After weeks of reading through his rants against the Philippines, calling us 3rd world every chance he got and dragging in people who weren't even involved in his gay fag drama, I was fed up.

Brian Gorrell is crass, arrogant, ignorant, and most of all a racist. His blog is irresponsible and if not stopped will keep on spewing hate and unproven rumors against people.

Somebody please shut his shit mouth up.







*I was part of these assholes before I got my brain functioning again.

Life is beating the living crap out of me

A lot of people have it worse than I do, I know, but my life seems so shitty right now. While I'm grateful I still have a job at the rat-hole clinic, I'm beginning to get tired of being just a GP. The monotony of the daily routine there and the sheer oppressiveness of the atmosphere is really getting me down. Plus, in financial terms I'm back to square zero. Not even square one, mind you, but zero. I had to spend it on something very important to me and right now I can't tell it to anyone who's reading this crap blog. For me, it was money well spent but the loss of it is going to hurt a little bit. I had plans for that money.

I'm trying to fix myself, get back on track and finally get that training I want so much. I get depressed just thinking about it, all the time I'm wasting doing pre-emp and letting my brain go soft. I know it's going to take a long time and a lot of hard work but it's just SO DAMN HARD FOR ME.

One day, I'm going to look back on all this and laugh. Right now though, it's a really dark time for me.

Comedians in the clinic. (I hate comedians.)

I understand that most of the people who come to the rat-hole clinic I work in would rather be somewhere else. I can't really blame them because the atmosphere in that place really sucks. Almost non-functioning air conditioning, brusque staff members and perhaps worst of all, a cold as fish, almost asshole-ish male examining physician. Me.

I don't do friendly. We see around 40-60 pre-employment patient-clients daily, not counting the10-20 actual medical consults we get, and add to that the medical certificates we have to sign for the employees of a crappy motel chain here in Manila. With that amount of toxic, I am in no mood to exchange pleasantries with pre-emps. ( I am nice to consults though. They have real problems.) My philosophy regarding pre-emp clients is this: I'm not going to waste your time, Sir/ Ma'am, let's do this fast so you can get back to what you need to do. With the oppressive atmosphere of the place, I think I'm actually doing them a service. Hehehe.

While not friendly, I am at least civil and polite to them and for some, I can be quite nice (read: some pre-emps are pretty girls). Pleasantries will delay or prolong the physical exam and make the other people 's stay in that rat-hole place longer. So I have to dispense with the nicey-nicey and the chit-chat.

There are some people though who seem to be immune to the soul-destroying, life-sucking ambiance of the clinic. One of them is my co-worker GP Dra. J, who seems to hold it together better than I do. God bless her, I think it's because she's married. (Maybe I should get married na din.) Another is this guy who was there for a pre-employment physical exam. I was asking him his medical history. The conversation happened in Tagalog.

Me: Have you ever been hospitalized in your whole life?

Dude: Yes, doctor.

Me: When was that, sir?

Dude: When I was born. Hehehehe, joke lang po.




Hrrr.

I gave him a lame laugh and mentally gave him the finger.

I hate comedians.

I might be next!!

In a previous post, I made kuwento about "S", one of the GPs hired by the kuripot "M" for his Laguna office. S found out later than she was paid less for her work just because she was from Laguna unlike the other GP who was from somewhere nearer Manila. S was later given a salary adjustment so that she wouldn't quit and we all thought that was that.

It wasn't.

What happened next can be best described as an honest-to-goodness BUTT-FUCK. She got butt-fucked.

S was told a few weeks later by the staff, after her clinic was done, that she was no longer needed at the Laguna clinic. She was surprised and called P who was the one who hired her in the first place. He told her that he was doing performance reviews and he had received complaints about her attitude and that she was sungit to her patients.

What a load of horse manure! Performance reviews my ass! Ano kami, residents?! If anyone ever deserved to be let go from that clinic based on kasungitan, it should be me, but I'm still working there. Hell no. This, I am 100% sure, was because of the fucking salary issue. The kuripot "M" was probably miffed and humiliated that he was found out to be a miser and forced to give in to a lousy GP like S.

What happened to S opened my eyes to the fact that P is not our friend. He is a creature of M and whatever this guy wants, P will do. I never thought that he was capable of humiliating a fellow doctor by asking her to stay then firing her later with a totally bogus reason, but he did it anyway.

I'm beginning to wonder though that if just to save face, P will actually do performance reviews. Will I be next to get the axe?

Hope not, but if that happens, shit, that'll make a really good blog entry.