Burning rays rained on the Petaling Jaya roads without mercy. Squeezing the steering wheel, I swerved into the empty parking spot and jumped out, slamming the door.
Isabelle waved me toward the main glass doors, squinting in the glaring sunlight.
The patient was positioned, shoulder exposed and ready. Ready to receive the gleaming arthroscope.
Only… this wasn’t a living, breathing, patient.
This was a patient made of plastic and rubber. It had never been alive at all.
This was the Smith & Nephew skills lab, where Vis Chai, Winnie Wee, David Yee and a small battalion of Smith+Nephew experts waited to walk me through the nuances of their newest surgical instruments and outcome-enhancing implants.
And also where I luxuriously got to make mistakes that DIDN’T result in disastrous consequences.
It isn’t that surgeons never make mistakes. We just cannot afford to.
Not when our patients put their limbs, and sometimes even their lives in our trembling hands. Thank God the hands that guide ours are, well… God’s hands.
Yet mistakes can and still DO happen. And that’s exactly why I was here today: to catch up on the new technology, to practice new techniques, and to (hopefully) avoid making mistakes when it really matters.
Some say that a career in medicine means a life of never-ending learning. That much IS true…. but really LIFE itself is a journey of continuous discovery. We just need to look for the next new adventure.
Though, ideally not under the scorching PJ sun.
Note: Names and some details have been changed to protect patient privacy. Hey, being made of plastic doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve a little privacy 
