Urban legends: the medical chapter

This article may require the use of View > Encoding > Unicode (UTF-8), cos i'm showing off my Mandarin.

Medicine is built on a sound scientific foundation. Yet the medical community is abound with much superstitious beliefs which few will dare to challenge. The night call exemplifies this notion. Those who's been through one may have been told sternly what not to do, what not to say and what not to eat. The following is a list of my (limited) experiences:

1. Don't ask for it
I was in M1, attached to Hospital X's A&E department for my SSM. The night was pretty interesting early on, with a drunk man urging me to touch his (ahem, red light!), and a psy patient lashing out at the paramedics for saving her from her suicide. Then the night became more peaceful; there were only a handful of walk-ins left and zero resuscitation cases. As with most medical students, eager for action ala ER, I asked my MO, at 0400hrs, "Wa, tonight very quiet ah." He stared at me with a disturbed look. Then he decided to broadcast what I just said to the sister, who is across the room. "This medical student just asked why today so quiet." As soon as he completed his sentence, all the nurses and MOs turned to look at the medical student monkey. I knew I was in deep trouble. Fortunately they were understanding. "We don't say things like that.", replied the sister, and she looked at me with an almost pitiful look. I bet she was thinking, "Poor medical student monkey… He's still a kid… and he's got so much more to learn." Most fortunately, there remain zero resuscitation cases through to the next morning when I left.

2. Some are just unlucky
If you are the HO and you were involved in a busy call, you may have unwittingly earned yourself an unfortunate reputation. Your name will start to fit into statements like "Oh no! I'm doing call with (insert name here) again!" Of course this is often just fodder for mindless chit-chatting and no one takes it too seriously. A call is a call is a call. 兵来将挡，水来土淹!

3. Foods to avoid
The medical community loves food. They love it so much they describe conditions with them. Like cheesy necrosis, pizza in the sky, and banana milk shake with aloe vera. Ok maybe not the last one. Nonetheless, I've been warned to avoid the following foods:

a) steamed bun (包，bao): because "bao", used in isolation, means "to cover". So indulging in a steamy char siew bao means you may be covering lots of patients for the night.

b) glutinous rice dumpling (粽，zong): because "zong" sounds like "中，zhong", which means "to kena". So digging into a mouth-watering dumpling means you may "kena" things you wished you hadn't.

c) steamed bun PLUS glutinous rice dumpling: doing this means you are a masochist, because "bao" + "zong" means "包中，bao zhong", or "confirm kena". It doesn't take much to understand what this will entail.

4. Foods to eat
With every poison there is an antidote. Unfortunately I only know of one food which is safe, and that is the good ol' bread, "面包，mian bao", which sounds like "免包，avoid having to cover". So eating a few pieces of wholesome Gardenia will hopefully grant you a peaceful night.

There are probably more theories around. Those who have them should share. I guess we all would rather be safe than sorry.