Rajan Ratnesar – My early post- graduate story in Malaysia (photo taken by Speedy in London 2019)

I have written this at the request of some of our colleagues who wanted me to describe my post-graduate experience, first in Malaysia, then England and now in the USA.

As most of you know, I left Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) shortly after the final results were released. The idea to go overseas to do my Internship was given to me by my good friend Jimmy Wickremasinghe, who also left for the UK soon after the results.

I studied for the final exam with Speedy and Lubber, and to them, I owe a great deal for instilling in me a desire to study and get a post-graduate degree. About that time, my cousin from Malaysia who was on his way to England to complete post-graduate training stopped over at my home in Lauries Road. He encouraged me to go to Malaysia for the Internship and then proceed for postgraduate studies. My uncle being high up in the Malaysian Health service, also encouraged me to go over and, arranged for the Internship at General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, a hospital much like our General hospital Colombo.

As in Sri Lanka, we don't get to choose our speciality for Internship, and I was assigned to surgery under Mr Alhardy (a hot-headed hard taskmaster, unlike any of our visiting surgeons). He was a "Dato" (Sir) and was the physician to the Agong (king). He was a classmate of my uncle at the University of Singapore. Unlike in Sri Lanka there were only two surgical units. Each unit had the consultant, one or two senior registrars who had their FRCS, a junior registrar either studying for the primary or had passed the primary, one medical officer who had just finished the Internship, and two or three interns. The call system was managed so that each unit took care of their service, and alternated for ER calls. As for the interns, when one first starts out, call duty is everyday for approximately three weeks and after that on rotation with the other interns on your service. All admissions both elective and emergency are done by the interns. All minor surgery is done by the interns including appendectomy. When a patient is admitted with a diagnosis of Acute Appendicitis, the intern will take the case to the OR, put in a spinal and proceed to perform the appendectomy, with the help of another intern if one was available or with one of the OR nurses, most of whom had their training in the UK, which was a great asset to me because they spoke excellent English, not to mention their appearances! By the time I finished my surgical Internship, I had done a partial gastrectomy and one Total Nephrectomy. This led me to specialise in one of the surgical specialities.

The uniform for the Physicians was a "Dr Kildare" type of tunic with white pants, mainly in the surgical services. But in Medicine and Paediatrics, one could wear a shirt and tie and a white coat.

The housemen's' quarters were small one-bedroom apartments. Some of the lady Physicians would share their units. The president of the housemen's quarters had a larger unit, and I was fortunate to be elected for the post after two months. Of course, this had responsibilities, being in charge of the food, assigning rooms when new interns started, making sure the laundry was delivered on time etc.

On the social side, there were parties hosted by different Interns, mainly those who were bachelors with ready availability of guests of both sexes. As for the food in the quarters, they were mainly Chinese, sometimes quite tasty but often quite bland with a watery soup rice and either chicken or pork, rarely beef or mutton. Having grown up in Serendib island SriLanka, I was accustomed to hot curries, thanks to my uncle and aunts who would take me to their homes for a good Ceylonese meal. I soon made friends with a bunch Sri Lankan Malaysians who too preferred rice and curry and so were able to enjoy the Sri Lankan and South Indian cuisine at the local restaurants.

Most of the interns bought cars as soon as they graduated. I, for one, waited to save money to use when I decided to pursue post-grad studies. However, my fellow interns were quite understanding and would offer their cars should I need it for dates or otherwise. The daily routine always ended up with night rounds, and after that, those on-call would adjourn to the hawker stalls set up after sunset on the street by the hospital. Their food was delicious spicy noodles. One called "Kway Teow" was my favourite and of course Lion Lager or Anchor beer. If we were needed, the ambulance driver or the orderly would come and meet us at the hawker stall. If we were not on call,,we would often go the bar at the supermarket usually after dinner, to enjoy beer and a chit chat and of course, some gossip about the pretty ones of the opposite sex. My next two rotations were in Medicine and Paediatrics, and though they were interesting,  my desire was for something surgical. Once I finished my Internship, I was assigned to the OPD for a couple of weeks, and the only Pathologist had a heart attack,and I was assigned as the Pathologist. Thank god for a good PA, who did the post mortems, especially the homicides. He told me exactly what to write down in the report that needed to be submitted to the Police and for deposition. There were hardly any tissues that came for analysis, and if there were any, they were sent to the University of Malaysia. Incidentally, there were quite a few Sri Lankans in the faculty at that time, including Dr Francis Silva, Orthopaedic surgeon who taught us in Sri Lanka, Dr Puvaneswaran, Prof of Ob-Gyn who was killed in a plane crash, Dr Mahendran, Prof of Paediatric surgery both Sri Lankan graduates.

My surgical boss Mr Alhardy had allowed his Registrars leave to go on scholarships to UK and US and only had one Junior Registrar and the Interns. He requested that I be assigned to his service. This was a great learning experience for me. It was also very challenging being on call almost every night supervising the interns as the Junior Registrar was busy studying for the Primary FRCS.

At this point, I needed a car as I was no longer in the Houseman's Quarters, and though I was tempted to splurge and buy a sports car, I decided instead to buy a Fiat 850 which I had till I left Malaysia. In the meantime, I applied to enter the UK. During this time, my wife of 49 years who was an intern and I were invited to a Chinese banquet (a ten-course dinner), and it so happened she was seated next to me. I had known her as another intern and had greeted her on occasions. During the course of the dinner, she challenged me to pick up a mushroom with chopsticks and eat it well.  I succeeded, and one thing led to another, and I began dating her,and now we are man and wife!

Mr Alhardy decided to retire, and within a few weeks, I was transferred to another state in the North East coast - Kelantan. There I was Medical officer to the surgical and Ob service, and that's when I chose Ob as the speciality I would pursue. Fortunately for me, my wife then Fiancée, also was transferred to the east coast but to another state about 3 hours' drive and this enabled us to continue our courtship. About four months later, I got the approval for entry to the UK, and I still was in the studying mood and so left Malaysia. Of course, there was a long list of stuff my family wanted, and so I decided to travel by ship and what a journey that was!

There are other interesting incidents during my stay in Malaysia, but I think I have written enough and do not want to bore my friends anymore. I shall consider writing about my experience in the UK as a follow up to this.