Odysseys of George

As I sat in my clinic, another doctor walked in and carefully unfolded a neatly wrapped paper. He then showed me the contents and asked me to guess what it was.

I know it isn’t clear, but care to guess?

“They look like gravel”, I answered. He smiled and said he thought as much. The story…..

This lady was told to have gallstones and decided to seek the aid of a traditional healer. This traditional healer took a lemon and started to rub it on her abdomen. He then cut the lemon and lo and behold, he showed her these stones and told her that it was gallstones!

I guess she was a little bit smarter as she second guessed him and decided to show these stones to us.

What shocked me is how many more people are out there believing such scam! Well, this is how gallstones look like!

or

So, please, traditional medicine is meant to be complementary but not primary treatment. And like what some would say - there are no simple way - no pain, no gain!

This is the 3rd APHS Congress and it was well done. The pre-congress was a workshop with lectures in the morning and hands-on TAPP procedure performed on pigs.

The congress went on the following day with the opening ceremony starting about 12pm. The congress was held at Suntec City, Singapore.

The dances for the opening ceremony was not great but just fine showing the harmony between various races.

Overall, the congress was good and very informative for me. Next year, it would be held in Beijing, China.

Well again and again, we are met with patients who were either wrongly diagnosed as having haemorrhoids or patients who by their own intelligence decided to diagnose themselves as having haemorrhoids.

Not all swellings that arise around the anus equals to haemorrhoids and not all bleeding from the anus is due to haemorrhoids. The pictures below is another example of a case being treated as for haemorrhoids because initially the patient thought that it was haemorrhoids from the stories her friends and neighbours told her. Later as it got bigger and more irritating, she decided to see two doctors, one that took her word for it and just gave medications without much advice and examination. I think the patient was also a little shy to be examined then. The other, examined her but then decided that it would be easier to call it haemorrhoids and treat it first only later referring her to us!

These are actually 3 large pedunculated frond-like growths from the inside of the anus.
Rectal papillomas?.

Jaws, the return

STAR 16th September

By Dr ALBERT LIM KOK HOOI

The poor maligned shark in food and medicine
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Hey check out this new recipe!

Well, sorry to cause some loss of appetite but this is actually a gallbladder filled with numerous stones and was filled with pus! In other words, Empyema of the Gallbladder!

Well, how did this happen? On of the larger stones impacted the cystic duct that connects the gallbladder to the main bile duct. This then forms a stagnant pool of bile within the gallbladder which can get infected and swollen. This is potentially dangerous as one can end up with life threatening complications.

Well, I guess after a long break - I should wake the audience up and probably cause an epidemic of mass vomiting!

Having worked in a paediatric surgical unit and frequently get referrals from paediatric oncologist, I still cannot understand why should God allow children to suffer from such misery? Yes, it was a genetic mutation but it just feels wrong. As perfect a creation we seem to be, that is also how imperfect we could be. That is what I call the contradictions of life! That is the rule of life!
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