monitoring visits

hey peeps

i'm back!!! there hasnt been any update from me for i was too busy with work. 1 week monitoring in bangkok (at siriraj hospital) and the other week, also monitoring, but in singapore (at NUH). more of a closeout visit for the latter though.

bangkok monitoring was tiring for we needed translation most of the time. the doc was pretty fluent in english but not the study coordinators/ nurses. worse case scenario is that the patient case records are all in thai!!! and the dates are according to the buddha calender (for example, 2006 is 2549). the doc or what we call "investigator", is not always there when we do monitoring (will touch more on what monitoring is, in another entry. in the meanwhile, jus treat it like an audit), other than running clinical trials with us, he's still gotto run his daily activities (seeing his patients, doing the rounds, more research and what not). so we rely alot on the study coordinators who do the work (the paperwork) for the investigator most of the time anyway. however, the investigator is still overall responsible for the entire trial. i'll post some pics of my trip when i have more time. on the whole, the site (or hospital) personnels are very friendly and helpful and obliging and warm. well, that's signature of thais, isnt it? those evenings after work were gastronomically the best. my HK colleague and i went for thai food to jap to french to italian. i love the french the best. the food was good (prepared by real frenchmen) and cheap (comparing spore) and the ambience was good and cosy. for the weekend, OH flew over and we had sweaty fun. the weather was humid and hot (as if spore is not)! i didnt feel the heat until then for i was in the aircon place all the time and also becos we went to chatuchak market. the conditions at chatuchak definitely magnified the heat. we spent half a day there suppose to be shopping (heard so much raves abt it) but were sweating away instead. when we stumbled upon tis aircon shop, we practically stayed in there for abt 30mins (taking our time choosing OH's tees :P). we saw heard a few singaporean couples too. :P chatuchak is HUGE. loads to see but the place is really dirty. u wont really know until u leave the place. we both found our shins and feet totally black, all covered with dirt when we were going back. pollution is really bad in bangkok. when we were on our way to the airport on my last day there, we saw the sky above the city gloomy and dull. at first we thought it was the grey clouds and the rain is coming. then we saw the sky above the gloomy patch to be clear and blue. so it was really the polluted air like our housemate in syd told us before.

NUH closeout visit was more tiring than the bangkok one since it is a closeout. to give u an idea of the amount of workload for tis site.... on the last day which was yesterday, we packed all the docs (documents not doctors) and xrays and anything relevant to the study/trial into 30 boxes (think fedex boxes).... all for archiving. all for 100 over patients of a 7-8 year old trial. oohh... there is alot of stuff. make a guess how long the 30 boxes gonna be archived for? 2yrs? 4yrs? 5yrs? 8yrs? no no no no. ITS 15 YEARS!!!! yes, its so freaking long. a regulation stipulated by the FDA.

what meant to be a short update before i go do my last minute cny shopping, turned into a full entry. okay, need to go shit, bathe, eat and shop (clothes not enough. i only managed to buy 1 top, 1 skirt, 1 capri pants, 3 pair of shoes and 2 bags for myself in bangkok. all for S$75. cheap deal! thats not alot of stuff comparing to alot of girls. i expected more clothes, more shoes, more bags. so bimbotic. haha).

GONG XI FA CAI, Happy Lunar New Year! my most hated holiday is here.