Saying Goodbye Posted on 1st Nov 2010, 11:04am by Alvin

Saying goodbye has never been easy.

The Chinese have a very good saying, “天下无不散之筵席 “. With the start of this new month, I bid goodbye to many good friends whom I’ve met during this posting.

I still remember 6 months ago, when I received news of my posting to CGH Emed. It wasn’t without some trepidation that I stepped into the posting on that fateful day - I had heard many stories, both good and bad, but obviously with the latter predominating.

The first few months weren’t easy - new to being left alone now as a MO, it took a while to get used to making the decisions on my own - do I order blood tests? Should I observe the patient a while more? Should I consider a CT brain for the patient? Is it safe to let him go home? Where once it was so easy to just pick up the phone and call my MO for help just a few days ago, now the roles were reversed, and it certainly wouldn’t be good to have to call my Reg for every single patient that passes through my consultation door.

There were difficult days too - when the queue just never seems to stop. You get new patients knocking on your door, asking when was their turn to be seen; you get your waiting patients who are either waiting for blood tests / waiting for symptoms to improve after an IM Maxolon / Stemetil / Toradol, who knock on your door asking if their results are out or if they could go home to rest; you get the nightmare scenarios - very pleasant elderly patients who unfortunately are slightly circumferential in their history resulting in the hordes of patients who are waiting anxiously outside your door; and there’s also the impatient patient who gets upset when its not their turn yet… The list can go on probably for say, another few pages?

And amidst all this craziness, the onus is on you to find your “little heaven” in all this chaos.

You start to be grateful for the people around you - your colleagues who help see a case or two for you when your queue gets flooded; your nurses who automatically fill up forms for you to just sign to help you save time; even your senior doctors who willingly do that T&S case who has been waiting for you to stitch him up for a while cos your queue is so long and there are sick patients to see..

You are grateful for your fellow colleagues who you spend time with outside those crazy shift hours - at breakfast post-night; at suppers; at dim-sum lunches; at ktv sessions belting out crazy songs; at xin wang cafe sitting and just simply chatting the night away..

And added on to all this, you find a quiet peace within you when you sit down at church on a Sunday morning - for even though the world and your work rages around and about you, you know that the Lord has been at your side giving you strength through your difficult times; that the Lord has been at your side giving you the wonderful friends who have walked these difficult 6 months with you.

And knowing that the Lord will continue to walk with you in the present and future, even when you have said “good bye” to your friends who are not physically at your side.

I remember a story which I read many years ago - towards the story’s conclusion, where instead of “good bye”, the protagonist bid his good friend “see you again”, for that holds the promise that we will meet again, and that they will always hold a special place your heart. =)