David Blaine's Magic Compilation

David Blaine, referred by some as modern day Houdini, is undeniably one of the most prominent magicians in the modern magic history. I've mentioned that how I was inspired to learn this art after watching his performance, and I'm sure there are many more magicians of my generation are inspired by him too. This is a clip with compilation of his work over decade, including his major stunts namely Buried Alive, Frozen in Time, Vertigo, Above the Below and Drown Alive etc.
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Enter his magic world and, be amazed!
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CNY Magic

Here comes the annual highlight - CCTV Spring Festival Gala (春节联欢晚会)'s magic performance is always the center attention among magicians. Lu Chen is the performing magician for 2012 - and he did an excellent illusion using just a mirror. Very creative!
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But I personally think that the last year performance is still better - in fact much more entertaining. Check it out & tell what you think! ;)

Happy CNY 2012!

(Image from Tech Quest)
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Happy Chinese New Year!
May the Year of Dragon brings you good fortune, health, success & prosperity!
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For this year, I think the link below is my fav CNY song - Enjoy! ;)

Bye to Some Medical Schools (Going to)

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The news is out. The move that was long suspected to be taken "one day", is likely to happen soon. News from The Straits Times:
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"The Malaysian government is looking to slash its list of approved overseas medical schools in an effort to address complaints that too many under-qualified doctors are joining its hospitals.
How many of the 375 recognised overseas medical schools will be dropped is not clear but Datuk Dr Hasan Abdul Rahman, the Health Ministry's director-general, has said the list will be "substantially shortened". Some Malaysian doctors say as many as half the number of schools may be dropped.
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The cuts will affect thousands of aspiring medical students who flock to cheap universities that made it to the approved list in the past decade such as some in South Asia and eastern Europe."
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"...About 4,000 to 5,000 Malaysians now become doctors every year.
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This has given rise to a whole new set of problems. Hospitals complain they cannot cope with the deluge of trainee doctors, or housemen, while standards have reportedly dropped.
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"There are so many people wanting to do medicine for the wrong reasons and attitudes," said Dr Mary Cardosa, head of the Malaysian Medical Association which groups the country's doctors. "Lots of young doctors may not know what they're getting into."
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The 39 training hospitals nationwide have struggled to cope with the numbers, leaving many of these new graduates without adequate supervision or opportunity to learn.
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The number of house officers soared 272 per cent from 2,297 in 2008 to more than 6,200 in 2010, according to the Health Ministry."
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From "KL to drop some medical schools" from The Straits Times.
Read full article HERE.

Housemen: Experiential Learning

What an excellent article. Words of wisdom from someone experienced and qualified enough to comment on current HO training. Good read!
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"..There is a common misconception, even among housemen, that because housemen are being paid, they are working. This is not true.
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Firstly, they are in training and have limited privileges and responsibilities.
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Only after satisfactorily completing their training are they allowed to work as a doctor.
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Secondly, the training of housemen, including duration of duty, should be decided by technocrats and professionals and not by the public or politicians.
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This is because, as with other professions, fellow professionals will know best the requirements to develop the skills, knowledge and attitude to enter the realm of unsupervised practice of medicine.
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Let me give a background information about housemanship training, which involves not just cognitive and psychomotor skills development, but also requires exposure to situations and extremes. The American Graduate Medical Education's statement reinforces this point: "Residency is an essential dimension of the transformation of the medical student to the independent practitioner along the continuum of medical education. It is physically, emotionally and intellectually demanding, and requires longitudinally-concentrated effort on the part of the resident."
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This form of training is best summed up as "experiential learning".
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It means that learning and development are achieved through experience and involvement, by observation, listening, study of theory, or some other transfer of skills or knowledge.
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In short, the training of doctors from students to housemen to doctors is a complicated process and should not be discussed publicly.
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An analogy would be the training of airline pilots: the training hours or training conditions are debated by the public because it is considered a complex subject.
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If I may boldly say, the training of doctors is far more complicated with more complex variables.
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Thirdly, the negative implication of such comments is that it encourages housemen to work according to a fixed schedule, which is against the spirit of experiential learning.
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..The guidelines from the Health Ministry on housemen training serve only as an assist, which is what guidelines are supposed to do, but this is poorly understood by many people. This reinforces the fact that training is best decided by professionals, especially those working at that particular place..."

You can read the full article HERE.