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Sorry there are no cool pics to accompany this post, next time around perhaps. All you'll get is an earful of my patented rants...
Ahhhh, back in my hood where I am the most thuggish ruggish med student in town. After waking up at 5am in Lhasa and walking along the darkened streets, running from sketchy looking dogs and giving the headnod 'wassup' to the streetsweepers who were the only other people out at that hour, I arrived at the bus departure point for the airport only to discover it doesn't leave for another hour. I'm Alaskan and no wus to morning temperatures, but my butt was freakin cold sitting there just praying for the darn bus to hurry up and go. Damn, why didn't I buy one of those prayer wheels. I also wasn't even sure that I had the right bus, the people there didn't speak english and they gave a really dismissive headnod in the middle of my "Does this go to the airport?" None of the other people that slowly trickled onto the bus had any luggage, which struck me as odd. All I kept thinking was that I had mistakenly boarded some sort of sweat-shop work bus and I was going to have to sew a rescue message into the shirt tag of some Walmart fashions. All went according to plan and I got to the airport only to be held up at security check because, and get this, the glasses I was wearing did not match the glasses that I had in my passport photo (which was taken when I was 16). I'm sorry that my perscription has changed in the last 11 years, and that I have opted for a new look.
So I started in the hospital bright and early monday morning. I have to say right away when I got onto the ward I was freakin speechless. I'm sure you heard me say earlier that this hospital is huge, 3400 beds now with more coming very soon. They neglected to mention that maybe a quarter of these beds are in the hall. I'm not kidding, it's like a M*A*S*H triage episode. There are beds lining the whole length of one side of every hallway with people and their families lying all over the place. It's like a well stocked refugee health facility. The hospital really has no choice though, it's the main hospital for this entire region of China, but it makes for a super tough job controlling hospital acquired infections.
This brings me to my main observation about medicine in China. I may have expected this after nearing being peed on several times walking down the street. There is no such thing as 'privacy'. I'm not saying lack of privacy, we are talking a complete and utter absence. If there's anything they drill into you in the first year of med school in the US, it's patient privacy. In my experience thus far, nada. Here, if you aren't stuck on a bed in the hallway you are in a room with 6, count 'em, SIX other people with no curtains , no isolation from the other people in the room and consultations occur within earshot of everyone. The Chinese aren't shy about sticking their nose into other people's business either.
Picture this on my first day: A family is having the most personal and emotional experiences a family can have, quickly the room is cleared except for the team of physicians and the other patients in their beds. The team, surrounding the bed, is working frantically. I look over and through the door people, random people from other rooms, are starting to trickle into the room and peer in on the action. I'm not kidding when I say there were older women who were shuffling their way INTO the care team group so that they could get a better look at the action. I lost it. I'm not going excuse it as a cultural difference. There is a thing called common sense. I immediately appointed myself the official bouncer of the room, gaining some notice from the doctors who were busy working on the patient. I politely walked over and rounded up the audience and escorted them out the door and firmly shut it to punctuate my feelings. I return to the bed and 5 minutes later some of the same freaking people, this time with other people they've brought are again waltzing in and rubbernecking over the shoulders of the physicians. Dude, I abandoned politeness at this point and started acting like an umpire throwing a coach out of a baseball game. I was pointing at people and tossing them out the door left and right. "YOU! OUTTA HERE!" "WHO ARE YOU? OUT!" The room would be clear for maybe 10 minutes at a time before the same thing would happen. It's ridiculous.
"Cultural Differences", the scapegoat phrase. You remember when you were a little kid and your mom caught you staring? You'd get a tug on the arm to keep walking and the lecture that it's not polite to stare? Apparently the lesson you get here is to get in line for the best seat and its best to pry like hell. Frankly, I don't go out much anymore because I'm tired of people looking at me like I've got some huge, waffle-sized booger on my shirt. And I can't even imagine what it would be like if I wasn't Asian. Plus I'm hate to be "mister manners", but I was on the elevator, sitting far in the back so as not to gather much attention, and actually watched while a lady repeatedly hit the "close door" button so as not to allow a guy in a wheelchair on. No joke, it wasn't like when you see someone sketchy you don't want to be on the elevator alone with and you act like you are trying to hit the "door open" button while it closes in their face. She (and the others in the elevator it appeared) didn't want the inconvenience of waiting for the elevator to stop at another floor so a person in a wheelchair could get out.
Here's another difference. 3 hour lunches. Yes, 3 HOURS. Man, I haven't had lunches like that since I was a consultant. Ahhh, those were the days. At 11:30, we broke for lunch and I ask "when should I be back?"
"maybe 2 or 3pm"
you gotta be kidding me. Are we baking casseroles at lunch or what? Is Oprah on back to back to back here in China? What in the world do we do with a 3 hour lunch, particularly if there are patients lying on beds in the freakin hallway. Maybe there's a whole different 'lunch shift' that I'm not aware of. I'm pretty sure residents in the US get maybe 3 hours per week total for lunch. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the nappy-nap, but there's a time and place for everything. Moral of the story, be thankful that the next time you go to the hospital, the entire neighborhood won't come look at your butt in the air while you are getting a bone marrow tap.
I also had a run in with a Chinese physician who seemed inappropriately interested in my personal life. Here we are doing rounds and I'm getting questions like "so do you have a wife? You like Chinese or Japanese girls?" Dude, are you joking? In my head I'm thinking of just telling here "yeah, i'm married with a kid. No, make that two kids. Yeah, happily married to a very violently possesive wife and we've got 2 kids. They're actually here with me on the trip."
Then comes the much dreaded (at least I hate it) game of "Today is my birthday, guess how old I am!"
I don't have time to guess what your age is lady, we are supposed to be listening to the attending. Forget that I can't even understand what he's saying since it's in Chinese, I'm just busy. Time for me to go to the bullpen and bring in The Closer...
"Guess my age!"
Man, you're not even going to get the courtesy low-ball estimate.
Me: "Ummm, I guess thirty-five"
"THIRTY-FIVE! I'm thirty today!"
Me: "oh, well happy birthday"
end of conversation. game over
Later she tried to get me to speak Japanese, and after I had exhausted the phrases that I knew I just went to speaking english with a heavy Carribean accent and quoting songs by Sean Paul...nobody the wiser.
All in all the first week in the hospital was pretty awesome. The team had several members who spoke excellent english and were kind enough to spend a lot of time answering questions and explaining what was going on. Afternoons were a little slow, but that's expected. I got all of my questions answered and met some pretty cool people.
We interrupt this blog for a commercial announcement:
For those of you in the AK this summer and will be in the Anc on Saturday-July 23, I highly recommend that you get off you wallets and ante up the money to check out the Summer Meltdown for an all day experience of music, food and beer. Support bands with some pretty damn cool Alaskans like 36 Crazy Fists and Delmag while getting to bob your head to 12 Tribes who I got to see a few months back in Europe and can cold rock the party too. I'm pretty sure Neil Diamond isn't coming back to the Sully anytime soon, so now's the chance to use that ticket money you were saving. It's a bargain actually, given the number of bands you'll see and considering the outrageous "business hippie" prices being charged by Moose's Tooth for some of their first tap parties at Bears Tooth that last a mere couple of hours and leave you smelling like patchouli oil and beatnik musk. Special Chinese souvenir goes to the party who secures me one of the cool gorilla t-shirts from 12 Tribes, cost reimbursed of course. You could probably check out the Daily News for ticket info, but I think it can be found at aksoul.com too.
In other news it looks like I'll be heading back to the AK a bit sooner than planned. Looks like I'll get back around july 25 to enjoy the last bit of the Alaskan summer before trekking down to Sea-town and securing a place to hang my hat for the next 9 months. China is great, but if I don't get back soon I'm going to lose my ability to speak coherent english. I've got this weird habit when I travel of modifying my english so it's more easily understood by non-native speakers. I listen to myself speak now and sometimes it's like I just jumped off the boat. I sound like a Chinese person who just finished english 101...okay, maybe engrish 103. It even affects my writing too. I've had to read over and correct myself several times in this post alone. Dude, and I need a haircut in the worst way. I'm fearful of going to any stylist here though cause I'll probably walk out with the classic "long duck dong" do. That or I'll have some Chinese pop star, feathered punk look which I'm not sure I want to rock at this point in my life.
Aight folks, have a Happy 4th of July. Happy Birthday goes out to my sister and her husband and big-ups to them on their first anniversary.
much love,
ak
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Jamie James
non-member comment
You are crazy!
Aaron, I have really enjoyed your comments over the last month! Chad and I leave tomorrow for Jamaica so I will keep you updated with the crazy happenings. Be safe and have fun. Love you! Jamie