Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao! by Sebastian Sim

Author:Sebastian Sim
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814757331
Publisher: Epigram Books
Published: 2016-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

HAD GIMME LAO been superstitious, he would have believed his marriage was the curse that triggered the string of bad breaks following.

When he was 23 and undergoing internship in the hospital, a nurse swamped with paper work passed him the wrong document. Gimme Lao failed to double-check. As a result, a surgical patient almost had a perfectly healthy kidney removed. His supervising medical officer, who had to shoulder the blame, was so livid she made the rest of his internship a torture. He was practically relieved when his turn for conscription swung around.

When he was 25 and serving as a military medical officer, he was careless and left his cabinet key dangling in the keyhole. A bored and nosy medic on clinic duty went through the dockets and discovered that two of the soldiers, although categorised as combat-fit, were nevertheless granted exemption from combat training and assigned clerical appointments. It turned out that both were ‘white horses’, a term for military servicemen who received special treatment in camp because they came from prominent political families. A scandal began to brew. The two subjects were taunted and ostracised in camp, and their parents were furious that confidentiality had been compromised. The commanding officer had to expend copious time and energy executing damage control. When the ensuing investigation uncovered the trigger point, Gimme Lao was severely reprimanded.

When he was 26, Gimme Lao took up internal medicine at the Singapore General Hospital. The team of interns under his charge quickly learned that Gimme Lao did not approve of sentimentality. In fact, they suspected that Gimme Lao saw their display of compassion as a liability. During their daily rounds in the hospital, the interns were guided by Gimme’s frown to trim their observational reports to the essentials. Gimme Lao had no patience for the irrelevant. Relationship building with patients and their families fell under that category.

None of the interns impressed Gimme Lao. He simply tolerated their presence.

On their part, most of the interns tried to stay out of his way. All except one, a flamboyant young man who called himself Divine. Divine did not hide the fact that he was gay. He painted one of his toenails with multiple colours of the rainbow and vowed to march in Pride parades in all the continents that held them. Although most of the other hospital staff found Divine endearing in a quirky manner, the intern got onto Gimme Lao’s nerves.

At one point, Gimme Lao gathered his team of interns before the bimonthly departmental meeting and asked if they had any issues to surface for discussion. Divine raised his hand. There was this comatose patient in a private ward whose parents barred the gay partner from visiting. How could the hospital help to solve this problem? Gimme Lao shrugged nonchalantly and said he did not see a problem there. The gay partner had no legal recognition and thus enjoyed no visiting rights. The hospital should respect the parents’ decision.

Later in the afternoon, Gimme Lao had a nasty shock when an unfamiliar slide popped up on screen midway through his presentation.

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