"One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups to a child," Randall Jarrell wrote a century ago, "is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child."

Yes, that's right. Before I completely forget what it's like to be a child, I went to see Pixar's Toy Story 3 last week. I witnessed how Andy (like every one of us) grows up and forgets how to see the world from the child's perspective.

Most of us (I'm guessing here) have read the stories written by Scottish physician Sir Arthur Conan Dolye . Most of us (still guessing) think that medical doctors must have learned from Sherlock Holmes.

And that is where we go wrong (I'm not guessing any more). Great stories like A Study in Scarlet or The Sign of the Four have never appeared in our curriculum of medical students. Of course they should. A doctor's job is more or less a detective work, piecing

There is an unwritten rule that if you want to learn medicine you have to learn by words of mouth. I have come to believe more with every passing year that despite new gadgets like UpToDate, it is still apprenticeship that works for new doctors.

So what can I teach the new interns? They looked helpless indeed. I rose from my chair, and straightened my white coat. "Honestly, I once made a bad mistake during my internship." I tried to correct myself. "Well, I've

"Should I give my baby a few supplemental drops of vitamin D?" my sister asked me about the vitamins missing from breast milk. "The American Academy of Pediatrics said so."

"Though it may seem right for you to follow their recommendation," I murmured, not that enthusiastic, "it's optional in my personal opinion." There's really no scientific basis why I came to such conclusion. I have to admit it.

The simplest explanation would be that we're often bombarded

As my energetic little baby starts showing her kinetic energy, we know it's high time we do some childproofing around the house. Without the slightest idea of what to do, I ended up reading my favorite manual What to Expect the First Year .

I was taught that the best way is to take a baby's-eye view of our home. How so? Simply get down on my hands and knees, and crawl around the house. From there, alas, I will see the world in a

"Well, Jasmine didn't sleep well last night," my maid observed.

My wife touched the forehead and the nape of our daughter's neck, wondering. "Jasmine looks fine," I took a deep breath and asked my wife. "Do you think so?" Jasmine was sitting on the rug in our living room, her soft arms waving with enthusiasm, absolutely concentrating on her dad's making a tower of blocks.

At six months, she has been wearing an attractive smile on

We all commiserate as our colleague told us how we doctors preach with daily exercise while we are culpable of the unhealthy lifestyle. But wait: do we exercise and walk the talk at all?

Inevitably, the priority of daily exercise tends to get eclipsed by the stressful job, examination, family and many other obligations. Be that as it may, our well-being depends on how we process our lives on the inside – on our thinking or mindset. I remember reading once an interesting psychology experiment by the researchers at

The memory of failing examination didn't come to me out of the blue. Have I mentioned I failed the driving test two months ago? And I will never forget the frustration of failing the clinical examination for the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP).

Students, of course, are unhappy about failing to pass an examination, though it is nothing new. Over the years, we have been going through the ordeal of worrying "Did I pass?" or "Will I pass?" Obviously

The first thing I ever failed was high school music written paper twenty-odd years ago.

Until then I'd scored well in my school examination. Summoning my knowledge (which I barely had) about musical notation and scales, I managed to score two marks – out of 50 full marks.

Hell, yeah! Two marks out of 50. A world record; everyone in my class said so. Absolutely. It's amazing for those of you who know the subject – and many do –

I was recently drafting a letter to our medical interns. This is a letter about the common professional, medical, and ethical challenges they will face in daily practice – and more so at the end of their internship. It took a long time to write.

"If you don't mind," my friends told me, "you sound like Sir Humphrey Appleby, always beating around the bush. They will understand not an iota of what you mean. These days you should put away the toolkit of etiquette.