Few years back, I learned from Time magazine that a KitKat bar isn't the same all over the planet; a Russian KitKat is smaller than a Bulgarian one, and the chocolate isn't as sweet as in a German one. The Nescafé instant coffee won't taste the same everywhere, too. There are around 200 different types of Nescafé , including the "three-in-one" sachets that we buy locally.

If the ice cream, tomato soup, chocolate – and

In my mentor's blog, he discussed why we should not lay down written rule "Do Not Do Thing X," such as "do not kill your patient," "do not chop off your patient's head," "do not use four-letter words in front of your patient - and being heard!"

And so on. Imagine a manual for doctors or adults with an endless, often ghoulish, list of "don'ts."

With a creature as complex as grown-

It's almost instinctive – you count the number of candles on the birthday cake, and you start to gauge the age of its owner.

Which makes perfect sense. I should have forty on mine yesterday. With time, I learn to tell my friends that chronological age has nothing to do with one's real age. During the lunch conversation yesterday, my friend didn't believe that I remain young, and then looked me straight at a scar on my face.

Before she asked, I knew she

If outsiders had to describe mistakes in medicine, they might use words like reckless, thinking of the seemingly endless stories of poor patients who suffered. Or, if they read the local newspaper, they could call it unacceptable, with a nod to the call for disciplinary action. Who could possibly object?

Actually, lots of people. After a recent headline story highlighting our loss of a patient's life in the hospital, there are some, of course, who seriously blame a doctor who prescribed too low a dose

One day, while discussing the mystery of our patient at the hospital corridor, my colleague who has a passion for automobile mechanic cautioned, "Oh man. If we want to be honest, let me ask you how many times are we doctors certain with what's wrong with our patients?"

Slushy nonsense? Not a bit of it! For some reason I'm amazed at his cruel and frustrating (though certainly true) statement. Consider an eightysomething man who came to the hospital with a bit of cough

"An auto mechanic's job is no different from a doctor's." That's a fair comment from a colleague of mine during dinner.

To pursue the mechanic analogy, he enthused, "Think about it. We were told the symptoms such as acute diarrhea or cramps, which are presumably external signals of a diseased or malfunctioning organ. A doctor examined the faulty organ whereas a mechanic rummaged around under the hood, figuring out a list of hypotheses to be tested one by one. Sooner or later

As unseemly as it might appear, a patient's thank you card can be very encouraging to a doctor. Not all doctors derive comfort from such a small token of appreciation - but many do.

On a lovely August day, I received a card from my patient's family. This reminded me of that patient's recent bleeding complication after colonoscopy at another hospital. His wife requested me to speak to his surgeon. I did. His surgeon told me what happened, cautiously remarking that bleeding was under control

I have been learning to make use of the skill to acknowledge what I don't know that I don't know. Knowledge is different from all other kinds of resources, as we have been told, because it constantly makes itself obsolete.

Last week, one of our talented fellows asked me what's the reason of stopping salbutamol , a short-acting "reliever" medication for chest tightness, in case our patients are coughing up blood from the lungs. I took a deep breath and then told her

Medical students don't want to miss out on examining patients with abnormal heart sounds or heart murmurs, because these patients often appear in the final examination. The students are expected to feel the pulse, listen with the stethoscope, and then come up with an answer to the question of which heart valves are leaking or narrowing.

The examination is not for the faint-hearted. I saw beads of perspiration over my student's forehead when I led her to examine a lady with narrowing of the aortic valve. I

Computer technology is incredibly wonderful but never meant to replace humanity, just as knowing about the human genome doesn't give the whole picture of who a person is.

Well, well, well, I seem like an old chap who moans and groans after getting lost in the world of computer. Of course. I am. Maybe I should explain a bit. I was talking about the good old days when I graduated from medical school and did what doctors do – dutifully reviewed the patient's history from scratch and