Medical computerization

Back when I was still training in Medical School, we had to lug around portable typewriters in order to make our charts -- admitting forms, requests for x-rays and workups, discharge summaries etc. I do see the wisdom in that, because our handwriting was so much more difficult to read when we had to write under pressure or when it's past bedtime for most people and we've been awake for more than 24 hours already. Not the best circumstances, prone to mistakes, and for the most part repetitive. It's the same patient history that we're typing over and over again. For some reason, the resident staff didn't allow any of us to use computers, even if it were just to use Microsoft word. Of course, notebook computers were even more expensive at the time, and only a few of us could afford them and could actually bring one of those plus a printer to our on-call room. It's still the typewriter, baby.

 Times have really changed. Now, all the clinics I go to use medical computers for everything -- charting, billing, queueing patients, etc. It still is not a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination, but it has certainly made a lot of aspects of patient care more organized and more easily accessible. It is, without doubt, an improvement over the old system.  I am happier with what we have right now.  Hmmm, I hope that can be applied for writing down claims for HMOs.  It's such a drag having to write the same info over and over again.

Computer games

I think it's kinda ironic that my brothers and I were never really hooked on video games when we always had them when we were younger, despite the fact that it was the Martial Law era.

We "inherited" my uncle's Atari when he got tired of it. It was funny. The "tennis game" had these big pixels. A few pixels joined together was the "player" or racket and you were supposed to move the controls to block the large (square) pixel "ball". It's such a far cry from the PC Games that we have nowadays.

Since my parents go to Hong Kong often, we have a lot of those Nintendo game and watch. One unit is only 1 type of game. We had a lot of fun with them, but of course, if it's only 1 game, you eventually get tired of it.

We didn't go through the Family computer. But we did play some games on the old green monochrome desktop PC which was considered "hi-tech" at the time. My mother also bought a Nintendo Game Boy, probably one of the earliest versions, but we only played the Brick Game. Which was a pity, because later there were stand alone Brick game consoles which cost much less.

Now we really do not get to play those computer games anymore (except maybe for Solitaire :) ) which is just as well.  I didn't even buy a PSP for my son, and he hasn't gotten around to wanting one and asking for one.  I'd rather that he doesn't ask for a while yet. :)

My techie mom

My mom is very techie for her age. She's more advanced than we are when it comes to the latest gadgets. Imagine, her laptop is a Mac, she has an iphone and an iPad (a gift, actually). I'm glad, because it does give her something to do (I guess it does prevent Alzheimer's since she gets to use her brain more often!

Before she got her IPhone, she was using an HTC touch phone. Here's the catch -- it's in Chinese. So was her old laptop (the one that preceded her Mac) -- the Windows was a Chinese version. Which causes problems when she encounters some technical problem (for example, needing to use a scanning software) because while my brothers and I know Chinese well enough for everyday use and conversations, we're not very good with the Chinese Tech-speak.

So, it's a good thing that her present gadgets are mainly English but Chinese can be used. She needs the Chinese for her work and conversations with friends, but for the tech stuff, English is much better for all of us.

Browsing buy.com

Ever since our laptop broke down, we haven't been able to have it repaired. Sigh. No time! As of the moment, I am typing away at my mom's laptop. But of course it is different. Firstly, I can't work when she needs it. Secondly, I cannot store data on the hard drive since this is not mine.

I am very much tempted to look through the specials at buy.com and get a new laptop for myself. There's a Sony Vaio notebook there for a special price of $699.99. With free shipping too! Well, I guess the free shipping does not include international shipping but since my cousin's supposed to come here soon, I wonder if it would be okay for her to bring it home to me if I have it shipped to her?

In any case, we still hope to have our laptop seen by an expert, so that we'll know if we could still use it. What I regret most are the stuff inside our hard drive. Some are quite important, others are sentimental. I am hoping that we could somehow recover the data that's on it.