Taiwan Association of Family Medicine annual conference: A short stop-over in Taiwan

Just finished my trip to Israel on Saturday (but my mobile phone touchscreen malfunctioned severely and had to use my mom’s phone to take photos, so I will sort out those photos later), stopped over in Taiwan, and joined the Taiwan Association of Family Medicine annual conference on Sunday to earn some CPD points. On arrival, there were mountains of people, and the food in the hall got wiped out immediately. Most of the doctors that actually listened in to the lecturers were more elderly. The younger doctors just walked around the exhibition area. Although the conference is supposed to last a whole day, some doctors simply signed in, filled out the questionnaire and left. Because the attendance check wasn’t very strict, so I went out between 11am-1pm to a nearby congregation for Sunday service and even bumped into a family physician I previously met from Mackay Family Medicine serving in worship! There are many health care professionals in this church and they thought I was very young and seemed very surprised that it is already my 8th year practicing as a fellowed GP (I was entered into the register of fellows on 8July, 2011).

Some thoughts from the sermon:

The suffering of the flesh: you do not have to testify Christ using “success” stories.

The world is full of suffering and persecution.

Suffering with Christ and sharing in Christ’s glory.

Focusing on Christ to overcome difficulties and pressing on towards the goal.

Our time on earth is short. Sometimes we have to remember our eternal home is not on earth.

A psychiatrist gave an interesting talk:

About obsessive compulsive people: Someone obsessed about cleanliness aren’t necessarily clean themselves. His/her idea of “uncleanliness” may be very different from you. A obsessive compulsive Hobo can believe that the smelly clothes he’s wearing is “clean”, while clothes that’s been through a washing machine is “contaminated”!

Romantic delusional disorders: He noticed that when a handsome guy was mayor of Taipei, he had to treat many “mayor’s mistresses.” The current mayor isn’t all that attractive and so far he hasn’t encountered any client who thinks she’s his mistress. So there is still a sense of reality here.

Some psychology counselling available in the community are actually quite cheap: equivalent of approximately $10 Australian dollars per session.

He finds that some of the high risk suicide patients forcibly admitted into the hospital were initially verbally aggressive to the psychiatrists, but their anger dissipated after a few days and the golden time for discharge is after one week.

Health literacy and the “Choosing wisely” campaign:

The doctor is not the god of Adam.

When we grow old and sick, we need a good helper: the doctor.

Females are generally more interested in discussing about health and better at taking care of themselves, so females are generally more health literate than males.

The elderly: best to see the doctors in the presence of other family members.

Health literacy education should begin from an early age.

And in the final talk, I learned there is a new specialty in Taiwan called the “hospitalist”! However, I find this specialty redundant, because the family physician can do all of the things they do (just employ some GPs in the hospital)!

After the conference finished I met up with two Christians who interceded for my sick aunt and kindly gave me a gift. There was a strong presence of God during the prayer. They too agreed that they sense the presence of a very strong spiritual warfare over the last weeks.

Had a very enjoyable catch up with my paternal relatives for dinner: My grandpa suffers from dementia but is still very humorous. He has a deranged sense of time but still very clear logic. I learned from him that my grandma used to sing on radio because her voice was great, and he used to call my dad "bull" because of his bad temper. Received some yummy fruits from a cousin who’s married to a farmer. The break will finish Monday when I leave for Sydney. 43oC in Israel vs 0oC in Sydney: hope I will survive this weather change when I land on Tuesday morning and start work in the clinic on Tuesday afternoon!

On Monday evening, when I was about to leave Taiwan, I visited my aunt and saw that her situation became better. Felt a bit surprised when I saw her room number was 1119 since our room number in Israel was 119! Her consultant said, “she was kicked off from the River Styx” (another words meant she had a near death experience and is lucky to be alive). The flight to Australia was delayed and I landed at 11:11am. Although I declared having “animal products” on my customs form, the officers simply asked me to put my luggage through the scanning machine and didn’t even look at my luggage, so I got out at 12 noon and had enough time to take the train home, put my stuff down, and wash myself before going to work at 2pm. I was initially fearful of becoming very sick from the extreme temperature changes going from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere, and it was a blessing that Sydney weather suddenly warmed up to 18oC when I arrived.