In case you're wondering whether Kathyrn Stockett's novel The Help is as good as To Kill a Mockingbird, here is the answer: No. It's better.
Both stories talk about black African-American maid or housekeeper. Aibileen and Calpurnia were black, and I mention this for a reason. My domestic maid is coloured, as well. I love The Help more as the black maid in this novel, Aibileen, was helping to raise a little girl and that hits a strong chord with me. When I read the chapter in which Aibileen taught the preschooler to potty, I can't stop thinking about my daughter.
It's either unsettling or ironic - or a bit of both - that Aibileen was only allowed to visit her coloured bathroom made for the blacks. She ended up bringing the baby girl out to that weired makeshift "bathroom" with no proper walls but plyboards hammered together. This, of course, is how the girl learned to go in the potty. But anyone with even a cursory knowledge of American history - to be exact, in 1962 for Aibileen - will realize that the white baby's mother is going to throw a fit once she finds out her daughter go to the coloured bathroom. "This is dirty out here, Mae Mobley. You'll catch diseases! No no no!"
Yes, at first blush, it seems like a ridiculous act of racism, but when we think about it some more, it's happening somewhat similarly nowadays. I knew people who set up house rules banning the domestic maid from kissing the toddlers, even if the maid is supposed to love the children.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
On Call
It's a Friday in hospital full of activity for me. The first thing I did in the morning was to make sure my fountain pen brims with ink, and my cup with coffee.
On your mark, get set, go.
Within minutes, my beeper was on full blast, and my footprints were all over the hospital.
This is a hospital, and there's no reason why we don't talk about death. Soon after my morning clinic, I joined a pre-inquest meeting for a coroner's case. Before long I had to rush to another hospital building where a patient had a cardiac arrest. By the time I finished the meeting, there were plenty of patient consultations for me to take care of. I didn't take lunch and tried to finish seeing them, lest they grew in number. When the debt grows, believe me, it grows like compound interest.
Soon I found out one of the neurosurgery patients had been seen by my colleague few days ago. I quickly turned to that page, and told the intern knowingly: "This, you should find my colleague to continue seeing your patient."
Not that passing the buck is an honourable thing to do. But everyone of us will probably do this once in a while. When I settled most of my jobs, an inner voice nudged me to get back to the neurosurgery patient. He wasn't seen by my colleague yet. That didn't come as a surprise. What surprised me is that the nurse in the neurosurgery unit came and handed me a fountain pen that I left behind in the morning. I was surprised, embarrassed, and brightened all at once.
On your mark, get set, go.
Within minutes, my beeper was on full blast, and my footprints were all over the hospital.
This is a hospital, and there's no reason why we don't talk about death. Soon after my morning clinic, I joined a pre-inquest meeting for a coroner's case. Before long I had to rush to another hospital building where a patient had a cardiac arrest. By the time I finished the meeting, there were plenty of patient consultations for me to take care of. I didn't take lunch and tried to finish seeing them, lest they grew in number. When the debt grows, believe me, it grows like compound interest.
Soon I found out one of the neurosurgery patients had been seen by my colleague few days ago. I quickly turned to that page, and told the intern knowingly: "This, you should find my colleague to continue seeing your patient."
Not that passing the buck is an honourable thing to do. But everyone of us will probably do this once in a while. When I settled most of my jobs, an inner voice nudged me to get back to the neurosurgery patient. He wasn't seen by my colleague yet. That didn't come as a surprise. What surprised me is that the nurse in the neurosurgery unit came and handed me a fountain pen that I left behind in the morning. I was surprised, embarrassed, and brightened all at once.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
I Know
Similar to comrades in the army, doctors within a team call each other for dinner even though we're busy.
It's fairly obvious that there isn't convenient time common to the doctors. "Alright, you go first, and I'll finish admitting my cases and join you guys in a minute."
As we all know, virtually nobody will turn up one minute after that remark. Even so, the phrase "in a minute" can mean anything like fifteen minutes or forever. The difference in sense of time is unbelievably easy to grasp. Doctors know each other well and recognize what that particular colleague usually means by one minute. We just know.
Any of us who has worked in an office with someone else for few months can usually tell when that person will be back if he says, "I'll be gone for a while." The interesting thing is that we don't have to be that explicit soon after we get along with each other.
Once we start getting used to the I-know-you-know-what-I-know manner, there is embarrassing story waiting to happen. This I know, too. There is another story I like to tell. Many years ago I was asking a nurse to help me getting a needle into the knee joint of my patient. I had to wear sterile gloves and cleanse my patient's skin with povidone iodine solution before puncturing the joint; these are the rules for doctors to prevent infection. "Could you please fetch me the soya sauce?" Lest I begin to confuse those of you who aren't working in the hospital, let me say that soya sauce is a byword to describe the brown povidone iodine solution. The nurse disappeared. I waited. I mused. "What, for heaven's sake, keeps my nurse from getting back to me?"
And no prizes for guessing that I found my nurse busy scratching her head to find a bottle of soya sauce in the pantry.
It's fairly obvious that there isn't convenient time common to the doctors. "Alright, you go first, and I'll finish admitting my cases and join you guys in a minute."
As we all know, virtually nobody will turn up one minute after that remark. Even so, the phrase "in a minute" can mean anything like fifteen minutes or forever. The difference in sense of time is unbelievably easy to grasp. Doctors know each other well and recognize what that particular colleague usually means by one minute. We just know.
Any of us who has worked in an office with someone else for few months can usually tell when that person will be back if he says, "I'll be gone for a while." The interesting thing is that we don't have to be that explicit soon after we get along with each other.
Once we start getting used to the I-know-you-know-what-I-know manner, there is embarrassing story waiting to happen. This I know, too. There is another story I like to tell. Many years ago I was asking a nurse to help me getting a needle into the knee joint of my patient. I had to wear sterile gloves and cleanse my patient's skin with povidone iodine solution before puncturing the joint; these are the rules for doctors to prevent infection. "Could you please fetch me the soya sauce?" Lest I begin to confuse those of you who aren't working in the hospital, let me say that soya sauce is a byword to describe the brown povidone iodine solution. The nurse disappeared. I waited. I mused. "What, for heaven's sake, keeps my nurse from getting back to me?"
And no prizes for guessing that I found my nurse busy scratching her head to find a bottle of soya sauce in the pantry.
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