during her stay in the hospital, the doctors would do their rounds and visit mum every morning. and yesterday, i had the chance to talk to the team of doctors that attended to her. it was kinda interesting to try to differentiate and to explain the different categories of doctors to mum. to her all these years, there were young doctors and old doctors; as there were doctors with white tags and doctors with black name tags…
and in recent years, due to specialization and better knowledge of the various levels of doctors, it has gotten increasingly difficult to use hokkien (my dialect group) terms to explain to her what these levels are. so now, to differentiate between the different seniority of doctors, we use the following descriptions:
- houseman - "hak seng lo kun" (literally in hokkien, it means "student doctor")
- medical officers - "ghing na lo jun" (children doctor - but not a pediatrician. the word "children" is used to describe a doctor who is still young in the profession)
- consultant - "tua lo kun" (big doctors - doctors who are high-ranking)
:-)
interesting! how about old medical officer: lao lo kun! haha
ReplyDeleteHaha!
ReplyDelete"Lao lo kun" is for doctors who are elderly or look old and carries a certain authority. So that also includes consultants, elderly profs, old mos, etc.
:-)
Maybe a bit unfair to the "houseman" to be in the same category as actual medical students?
ReplyDeleteharry.
i supposed it is unfair alright. but well, what's important is that mum understood.
ReplyDeleteand yes, when need be, housemen would be "ba lu phit giap hak seng lo kun" (recently graduated doctors) and undergrad medical students are "ah buay phit giap hak seng lo kun" (student doctors who have not graduated), just to draw the distinction.
:-)