Seow Voon and I have gone to do the med check-up this morning at Alor Setar GH. Long time since we have stepped into the hospital, and caught a whiff of pathognomonic hospital 'fragrance'. Lots of SARS posters around. This is our experience in this particular GH, but I presume the experience would be similar in your respective state GHs.

The check-up officially costs RM20, includes X-ray, urine dipstick and urine for morphine & cannabinoids (yes, you heard me right, so dont go popping illicit pills before the check-up, but booze is ok). If you tell the counter (hasil) that you are a 'bakal doktor houseman' and show all the letters you got from SPA, you get a waiver. The clerk will stamp 'percuma' on your form and you dont have to pay anything. Once that is done, we went to the X-ray dept, got X-rays report done in 20 minutes. Then we went to a 'makmal kajihayat' where we were given two urine containers each. One container is for morphine/cannabinoids, the other for dipstick. The dipstick result was ready on the spot (obviously), but we have to go back tomorrow for the urine drug test result.

Then we head on to a nurse counter beside the outpatient clinics where we had our height, weight, BP and visual acuity measured. By this time, our check-up form already have these items filled up by the relevant depts: chest X-ray, urine dipstick, and biostats (ht,wt,BP etc). So, what is left is the item for 'dadah' in the urine test and the actual doctor's clinical report, which is due tomorrow.

We spent about one hour and 15 minutes doing all that. It may be faster if you approach senior/doctor whom you know to help out. But one hour plus is not too bad, ya?

So much for the long story, hope that will give you guys an idea what it's gonna be like. Stay tuned for stories on uro-jantina check up tomorrow, same time, same channel.

Oh, btw, the 'saksi' part in the med check-up form can be filled up by anyone, so just ask your siblings or parents.

P/s ggho-st: have you received your SPA letter or have you started practising the art of making burgers?
esther: welcome back to the humid weather