I was on the Pain Ward Round this morning. Pain Ward Round? Ya, pretty much unfamiliar to the ears as normally we called a team according to the consultant's name [eg: Mr McAnena's team's ward round] but it wasn't the way it was this time around. There were just 2 members in the team apart from me and my friend, making up 4 of us altogether. Coincidentally the SHO Anaesthetist and the nurse both shared the same name- I'm putting it anonymous here though. Anyway they were very nice and friendly, and having someone who teaches makes a round more lively and worth-going indeed so I'm very happy. :)
We went to see patients who's been getting acute pain post-operatively [mostly], which thus differs the pain team from the palliative care team. The latter is not confined to post-op patients but rather all patients with chronic pain which has been ongoing and debilitating such as cancer patients.
This entry is about this one very old chap with acute limb ischaemia whom we saw on the rounds. He was a purely Irish bloke who surprisingly wasn't able to speak any English! My first encounter with an Irish who doesn't speak English at all. And so the team had to communicate with him using the Irish language which has been evidently forgotten by the young Irish generations nowadays. Note that they learn Irish language in school though.
If you know me well you'll notice how fond I am in learning Irish language, or apparently any languages at all. But since I am currently in Ireland so no wonder I'm into the language at the moment lol. To be honest I don't see a glimpse of possibility that I'd be proficient in the language but I think learning the basics at least would be fair enough. "Dia duit!" is a good start isn't it. ;)
And so the SHO was trying her best to converse in Irish, which I thought was not a bad attempt at all. After a couple of minutes the ward nurse then came to offer a hand but even she wasn't that fluent in Irish. She was gasping for Irish words simply to ask the question; "Is the pain worse at nightime?" which is plainly important for drug prescription for analgesia. Of course I couldn't be of help at all lol, the only phrases that I understood were "Conas ata tu?" and "Slan!" which were like- everyone knows those!
Anyhoo this situation reminds me to the PPSMI issue which was once heated in my home country. I think the temperature has gone down a bit now. Although I prefer myself writing in English, my personal opinion would be, I'm against PPSMI.
I mightn't be the best person to talk about this but from my teensy experience and contemplation I realized that from one angle we can perceive PPSMI as being an attempt to escape from problems simply by creating an alternative without thinking of the way to solve the underlying problems.
I remembered when my cousin spoke to me about how poor the Malaysians' english is despite having learnt the language since kindergarten. I sparked in me that it was indeed true. Even me myself went to the kindergarten at the age of 5 and perhaps having started learning english at such a young age I would have expected myself to be very articulate in that language but see, I am not! Speaking-wise especially.
I reckon the way to improve the situation is to look back and investigate the flaws of the existing educational system and rectify them instead of trying to get away from the problem with an extension of the usage of English language till the 5th Form in the secondary school. Quality is more important in this case as compared to the quantity of years in which the students will be learning in that language.
Isn't that the way to kill two birds with one stone where we want to strengthen the Malaysian's english proficiency without putting aside our mother tongue to be forgotten by our children. If we were to materialize PPSMI I think we are apparently jeopardising our Malay language and literature; and you can depict the end result by looking at the situation happening in Ireland now. To find a teenager who could speak Irish is like one in a million.
I'm not denying the fact that being able to master English brings light to the chance of lifting our country to a higher stratum in the eyes of the world but not to forget in chasing our dream of being a developed country there's a couple of things that we shouldn't let go of, which is our language.
I was saying to a Malaysian friend on the ward while watching the old chap sitting on his chair, "Perhaps if Malaysian government were to apply PPSMI in our country then we'll find that all the Malay accents will be lost. No more Terengganu accent [as I speak the accent] or maybe, in 50 years time all Malaysian citizens will be speaking English with Terengganu accent". And we burst into laughter imagining "how'd that be possibly possible?". Who knows.
I'd end this entry with an Irish saying which goes;
"Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam"
A country without a language, a country without a soul.
A country without a language, a country without a soul.
Opened for hit backs. Wallahu'alam.
* PPSMI : Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik di dalam bahasa Inggeris [Teaching and Learning Science and Mathematics in English]
