Hospital can be an intimidating and stressful place, one in which doctors can sometimes feel blue - and not just for the patients.

After returning from my Singapore trip, I started my first working day with an overnight call. The long work hours, as usual, were interrupted by the beeper calls from everywhere. Anyone who works in the hospital quickly learns that it's a race to see whether your beeper battery goes dead before you do so.

Did the work drive me nuts? Not really. I keep telling

When it comes to visiting Singapore, it turns out that the zoo is the most unforgettable destination.

It was the middle of summer, and the overcast day made it an ideal one to walk around. To my little girl, that was her first time to come face to face with giraffes and zebras. It's hard to describe the feeling of ecstasy that swept across her that moment. The children's song came closest: "Oh, we're riding on a train called the Allee-Allee O

I was riding a roller coaster. I wasn't flying like a piece of paper in a tornado, but the speed was fast enough for me to lose my mind.

True, it's a must-do experience for most Universal Studios theme park visitors to get flung around on cutting-edge roller coasters. Nobody wants to miss the game. Not even the faint-hearted. Nor do the harried people, although there are exceptions. Those ups and downs, stunning as they are, didn ’t

Mention the words "skipping class" and you're likely to conjure images of Holden Caulfield, whining rants about "phony" lectures. As a matter of fact, all students have skipped class - some teachers, too.

One of the best-kept secrets about skipping class is that we don't always tell people we skip class. You know, teachers don't take attendance most of the time. When a medical student was recently caught skipping class for one whole week, little did he realize his

Not a day passes in medical school without someone teaching us the highest level evidence from the randomized controlled trials, which lie at the heart of modern clinical medicine. Everyone touts it as an elixir to make you a top-notch doctor.

Years ago, when I showed up as a young intern prepared to learn about patients with plaque-clogged heart arteries in the coronary care unit, my senior smiled and asked me the details of big names like ISIS-2 trial. I tried to think of answers to his question

Now that my nineteen-month-old knows more words and goes through her growth spurt in the sense of humor, Jasmine often gives us a riotous chorus of impromptu laughter.

My wife pretended to prepare meal for Jasmine. "My baby, do you want eggplant? Let me cut it into pieces." Jasmine shook her head and said no.

"I bet you want to wash you hands and try this yummy fish, right?"

She said no again.

"Fine, let's then pick tomato

Uncertainty is a key word in science and medicine. Classical description of a disease as we learn from the textbooks, and as we admire it in straightforward presentation, is never happening in real life.

"How true," I whispered as I taught my students yesterday on a chest radiograph from a lady with cough and fluid in her lung. As soon as I showed them the picture, most students pointed to the fluid without hesitation.

"So is there anything abnormal you can spot out?" I smiled. They

Think that buying Porsche would actually make you happier than driving Subaru? Or, as my mentor recently asked in his blog post, can dining at Gaddis create a higher overall happiness level than at the fast food restaurant Café de Coral? Think again.

It looks like it's satisfying to buy another new car - and it is. But not for long. Believe me, we thought it was great at first. But it has made a heck of a difference when we step back and think about the overall

For a species wired for survival, it should learn to make use of instinct to quickly identify the feeding source and spot out the hostile enemy. And no wonder: a recent study from Paris has provided the first experimental evidence in urban pigeons for their ability to distinguish between friendly feeders and hostile foes.

The research team carried out the test with two feeders - one neutral and one hostile. To put it simply, the hostile feeder would chase the birds away. And what was so special about the urban pigeons? The

Following a hospital forum on doctor-patient relationship, I spent another whole day teaching the medical school graduates to practice empathy in communication. I taught them a good deal to recognize (and verbalize) the patient's emotion.

For those of you who believes that emotion is as obvious as an instant Twitter broadcast (or Facebook status update), you would have laughed out loud. If so, think twice after hearing behaviorist John Gottman's forecast of divorce probabilities. In piecing together years of research on marriage,