On the weekend evening, I sat with my old classmates at an outdoor food stall when a waitress said to us (not my classmate's son!), "Hey, young boys, anything to order?"

What are we supposed to feel about her remark? Must we see it as lip service? Or do we quietly congratulate ourselves for appearing young? Would it be terribly stupid to grow old and yet acknowledge we remain young?

Absurd as it might seem to you, that depends upon how you define

New technology and science make numerous dreams feasible. But it takes us long to realize that the spectacle of high-tech science does not necessarily make life easier.

"We won’t have long to wait to find out this," I told myself after my preparation of the teaching material for an intensive review course for doctors sitting for examination.

At a glance of recent medical literature, the rule of moderation strikes me. As a matter of fact, the title of this blog can be read either in the straightforward

The moment I prepared packing my gears for the Sapporo winter trip tomorrow, I started to worry about the performance of my digital camera in the wake of plummeting mercury and snowy freezing weather.

I must admit I just don't know if I need to go back to my manual Nikon FM2 camera, an old-styled but robust camera that works without batteries. Ever since the user-friendly digital camera gaining popularity, most of the manual cameras (including mine) have been locked up in oblivion. But wait

Both the movies "Atonement" and "The Kite Runners" are pretty exclusively about redemption and remorse, dragging me through the stories of bitter memory. As we grow older, like the English Briony Tallis or the Afghan Amir, we leave behind each one of us a tail – a tail that we feel ashamed and would like to redeem badly.

The memory a dog killed by our cars reminds us our reckless driving. The dirty words we used when we were angry with our classmate haunt us for months, if not

A friend of mine recently told me that we doctors are keen on using abbreviations. Very true. Two types of languages exist in this planet: language used by mankind and the language medical doctors speak.

Doctors speak different language, a fact we must admit before any meaningful dialogue can be carried on. I was reminded of the occasions when my patient developed a stroke without obvious cause. "Mr. X, I’m sorry to tell you that your dad suffers from a cryptogenic stroke." Or, as most

Not long ago, a survey in Massachusetts General Hospital told us that nearly half of doctors admitted to witnessing a serious medical error but not reporting it. According to another survey published this week, most doctors in three United States teaching hospitals agreed that reporting errors improves quality of care, although only a little over half said they understood how to do so; only 18% said they had actually reported a minor error and 4% a major error.

How can this be, I muse, that reporting medical errors lead

To decipher the behaviour codes of medical doctors at work is a Herculean task – so daunting that I was impressed when I read the blog of my mentor, who recently talked about wearing tie by medical doctors (https://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2008/01/tie.html).

"Isn't it time to write about wearing white coats by doctors?" I talked to myself. Around two years ago, I read from the medical journal that patients and visitors to

Some myths really ought to be true. We doctors might react with surprise and pesky feeling when we encounter patients who told us something new and "mysterious". Erosion of patients’ trust follows, if we are ill-equipped to face these "myths".

Insofar as the myths themselves reflect the patients’ interpretation of the illness, their words give us a glimpse of the medicine that we never understand well. The emphasis on learning from doctors and senior, although salutary in numerous ways, has a very dark side

Like it or not, Facebook has expanded from a website exclusively for college students to embrace each of us – professors and students alike. Whilst the social networking by Facebook has become addiction in our society, there is recent uproar about the intrusive nature of its News Feed. It’s as if our activity and personal affairs are suddenly broadcast everywhere, grabbing away our privacy and leaving us naked in front of nosey parkers.

I made a casual comment on this question last week during the lunch with my interns. When I

I have often wondered what makes dark chocolate lovely. Now I know and I wish I didn't.

Over the last six months, dark chocolate hit the headlines of at least two top medical journals (including the Journal of the American Medical Association and Circulation ); researchers have shown that eating dark chocolate can improve our blood vessels and lower our blood pressure, by virtue of its flavanol content. Surely this good news is fantastic if you - like my wife - happen to be a lover of dark chocolate. That