† Top Cancer-Fighting Food †

It is sad to notice that we're living in an era where more people are now surviving to an age when they are more likely to develop cancer. Cancer is everywhere: I deal with cancer patients almost everyday in my previous job, I've seen my grandfather and dad being diagnosed cancer and many friends' parents as well. This is catastrophic.

There are many ways to help fighting cancer off and one of it is via food controlling. People nowadays are too busy and they tend to go for fast food which is totally a damage to the body. Optimize your food selection may greatly cutting down the risk of cancer.

Fighting Cancer With Colors: Fruits and vegetables are the best choice for a healthy diet. The more the colors, the more nutrients they contain. Note that vegetables and fruits may not contribute their cancer fighting properties directly but its long term effect is well known in term of clearing the toxins from our bodies.

Cancer-Fighting Breakfast: Folate and vitamin B may help to reduce cancer. These nutrients can be found in cereals, oats and brans.

Food Rich In Folate: Asparagus is one of the examples. There are many more presented with folate such as eggs, chicken liver, sunflower seeds and many more grain products.

Run Away From Preserved Food: Eating preserved food once in a while may not harm you but a long term ingestion of such food might bring chaos to your body. These preservatives are actually the inducer of cancers and they can be a catalyst for tumor growth.

Army of Tomatoes: Rich in vitamin C and antioxidants, tomatoes showed beneficiaries to several types of cancer especially prostate cancer. Having it boiled instead of ingesting it raw is a better option to absorb its nutrients.

Green Tea Fights Cancer: Green tea has been shown to protect the colon from cancer. You may also read my previous post about green tea.

All About Grapes: Grapes and grape juice, especially purple and red grapes, contain resveratrol. Resveratrol has strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It helps in preventing cell damage that is believed to trigger the cancer process in cells.Grape seed oil is also a powerful antioxidant that is useful to be consumed.

Alcohol Kills: Know the optimum alcohol amount to drink. Excessive intake may actually increase the risk of cancer such as esophageal cancer, liver cancer and stomach cancer.

Protection From Fluid: The average fluid requirement for a normal person is 1.5 - 2 liter per day. It may help to reduce bladder cancer.

Everything Goes Green: Green leafy food is the best. Having it stir fried with minimum amount of olive or grape seed oil is the best method. If its possible, 2/3 of your food should be consisted of green leafy food.

Dark Green Leafy Food: The darker the leaf, the better it is.Such dark green leafy food are rich in vitamin B and fiber.

Turmeric The Exotic Spice: Recently, there are many advantages being found in turmeric. Not only that it can suppress pain (Narcox), it is also found to suppress proliferation of cancer cells.

Red Berries: Raspberries, cranberries and strawberries are powerful antioxidants. These berries are recommended to eat in an appropriate amount.

Blue Berries: Blueberries and bilberries are also powerful antioxidants. Having it every morning along with your cereal or oat is always a good choice.

Sugar-Less: Not to say that sugar will cause cancer, but it will actually displace other nutrient-rich food from being absorb by the body. Anyhow, cutting down sugar intake is always pros more than cons.

Cooking Method: In the end of the day, what takes into account is the method of your cooking. Always remember, involve more water and less oil. That is the safest.

Supplements Are Not Wonder Drugs: I'm a pharmacist and of course I recommend taking supplements everyday. However, many people often misunderstand the usage of supplements. "Oh, I'm taking supplements everyday so I'm safe now." This is totally wrong. Taking supplements without controlling one's diet and lifestyle is still a failure.

† Cytotoxic Drug Reconstitution: Exposure, Spillage †

Cytotoxic drugs are therapeutic agents that inhibit or prevent the function of cells. Such drugs are commonly used in chemotherapy to inhibit the proliferation of cancerous cells. Chemotherapy Drug Reconstitution (CDR) is one of the highly specialized pharmaceutical services performed by the pharmacists only in hospitals that have aseptic rooms, involving preparation and compounding of cytotoxic drugs.

Reasons for concern:
There has been an increase in concern over the potential of cytotoxic drugs to harm personnel who are exposed to them including workers who prepare, administer, or handle cytotoxic drugs. Due to poor selectivity between cancerous cells and normal cells, cytotoxic drugs tend to give several undesirable side effects. It is rather shocking to find out that a measurable levels of cytotoxic drugs have been detected in the hospital compound when cytotoxic drugs were compounded without proper equipments and techniques. Detectable amounts of various cytotoxic drugs in the urine of health care workers were also presented. The hazardous exposure of cytotoxic drugs may cause workers to experience acute symptoms such as mucous membrane irritation, allergic reactions, subjective symptoms including fatigue and dizziness. A long term exposure (occupational) may cause chromosomal damage, which leads to higher risk of delivering malformed babies. Therefore precaution must be followed to minimize such exposures.

Source of exposure:
Workers especially the oncology pharmacists and assistants who compound the drugs, doctors and nurses who administer cytotoxic drugs are most likely to get themselves being exposed via inhalation of drug aerosol, absorption through the skin and very low possibility but undeniably ingestion through contaminated sources. Incidences of needle prick injury may occur if the personnel is not properly trained.

Drug Preparation:
Exposure of cytotoxic drug to the personnel can be minimized during the process of drug preparation through a proper education and training in syringing techniques, as well as the use of appropriate protective equipment and apparatus. It is essential to ensure safe work practices are fully understood and practiced in the premises. Personnel also need to understand the function of each of the equipment (safety cabinet, syringes, gowns, goggles, mask...) and apparatus (syringes, needles, filters, butterfly clip...) used. Practical technique is important in this field as it determines how well a personnel is able to provide a spillage-free drug transferal and delivery while performing closed-system drug syringing.


Drug Administration:
Nurses and medical officers may be involved in administering cytotoxic drug to the patients. Special precautions should be taken while performing cytotoxic drug administration because poor delivery technique may cause leakage or spillage. Therefore it is important to make sure that personnel who perform drug administration are well trained. Uncooperative patients can be a problem during administration, for example, an agitated or mentally unprepared patient who refused to undergo cytotoxic drug treatment and this increases like-hood of spillage. Thus it is very important for the pharmacists to ensure each of the patients are ready for treatment.


Spill Management:
Spillage of cytotoxic drugs should be handled with utmost care. It is important to have a proper procedure getting ready all time and whenever spillage occurs, the cleaning process can be taken place within shortest period of time. Every oncology ward should have at least a box of chemo spill kit standby for use. Whenever spillage occurs, all patients and medical workers should be evacuated from the area and warning sign boards should be placed at all entrance. The medical personnel should immediately put on the chemo protective gowns and equipments provided prior to cleaning of the spillage area.


Disposal of Wastes:
Residuals, syringes, vials, swab, gloves or IV drip bottles that have contacted with cytotoxic drug should be disposed and properly identified. Bags and containers, or even sharp wastes that are used to transport cytotoxic drugs should be designed purple in color. Before discarding the wastes, it is also important to mark the container with a "CYTOTOXIC WASTE" label.

Many reports have shown the relationship between cytotoxic exposure and risk to the personnel's health. Therefore a country's Ministry of Health should always think about health professions who work or having themselves exposed in this field.

My point of view:
A recent debate about cutting the health profession's allowance in Malaysia is rather disappointing. From my point of view as a health professional working in the government sector, I hope that the ministry would seriously think twice before making their decision.

† Bon Voyage Mr Leong Weng Choy †

This is a special dinner organized by Cheau Huey in order to celebrate Mr. Leong Weng Choy, our very senior pharmacist in Hospital Kuantan (HTAA) whose going over to Sabah in response to his U52 promotion.

Mr. Leong has always been a very hardworking pharmacist in our hospital. Gentle, stoic, serious and discipline are words best to describe his personality.

A number of us attended Mr. Leong's farewell dinner. Those who attended Mr. Leong and his family members, HTAA pharmacists including Mr. Zakhi, Pn. Mahani, Pn. Rohaya, Chee Meng, Khien Yung, Wei Siang, Pek Leng, Jia Yi, Boon Peow, Kit Yeng, Shal Ling, Laj, Michelle, Huey San and Ain.

As it is shown in the photos above, everyone is paying their full attention to Mr. Leong not only because they respect Mr. Leong, most importantly also because Mr. Leong speaks extremely soft all the time. Any exogenous input of voice will have the tendency of making Mr. Leong's voice becoming unheard.

This is a limited edition of Mr. Leong with his 'V' sign. On the right is his son laughing at his father. Its sad to know that Mr. Leong is going to leave us but we do feel happy for his U52 promotion. Therefore, we would like to wish Mr. Leong all the best working in Sabah and take care always!

† Good Preparation Practice Workshop 2009 †

July was a busy month. I just came back from a workshop known as Good Preparation Practice (GPP) in Empress Hotel of Sepang. Initially I thought it was going to be a super dry and boring workshop but I guess I was slightly wrong about it. I guess meeting up with friends and other pharmacists of 'my species' was something really interesting back there because sometimes I think being the one and only chemo pharmacist in Kuantan hospital somehow makes me feeling a little bit lonely.


Here's some of the friends I've met during the workshop. From the left, we have Yap from Queen Elizabeth hospital (love talking about cutting cost of the department), Leong Huat from Sultan Ismail hospital (interesting fella who enjoys drinking and gets aggressive after a few bottles of beer), Ong from Sri Manjung hospital (a serious and polite guy... maybe because he's married?) and Joanne from Kuala Lumpur hospital (loves clubbing and shopping... wow!).


The workshop was basically about establishing a standardized policies and procedures for the aseptic department in Malaysia. Debates and discussions were carried out among the pharmacists and it lasted for hours.


Some pharmacists remained neutral, keeping himself away from debates and yes Sao Voon from Teluk Intan hospital I'm talking about you :P


I guess Leong Huat was beginning to feel bored and he started to ask around for entertainment. Typical of this cheeky guy. Haha.


Here comes our 'after office hour' entertainment... card games!


Card game alone is pathetic isn't it? Of course the combination of beer and peanuts were tagged along with our 'after office hour' entertainment. Here we have Loong from Ampang hospital with his remarkable beer post and it means "no matter how many bottles I drink, I will not fall".


Well, I guess I'll need to do some censoring here because Loong lost in the card games and he was forced to take off his clothes. Thank God his 3 layers tummy wasn't that obvious in the picture all thanks to my 2 mega pix Nokia phone camera.


We also have Ju Nee from Sg. Buloh hospital and Chan Yen from Kuala Lumpur hospital who joined us in the drinking session.


Well, I always think: balancing our life is important. We need to work hard to earn money along with experience, and of course we need to play hard as well to compensate your hard work.

Related posts:
Pharmacist Related

† Kuantan Hospital PRP's Moment Of Glory †

Another year passes-by and this batch of Kuantan hospital's Pre-Registered Pharmacists (PRP) are going to graduate soon. Most of them are worried about their coming posting because Pahang's full of many 'dangerous' and 'yet-to-be-discovered' areas awaiting for them.


I was invited to attend their farewell dinner and we really had a great night in the restaurant called Santai in Tanjung Lumpur. As you can see our William Tong (left bottom) with his trademark eye-catching surfing pajamas short pant.


This is our Mr. Lai showing off his best PRP award certificate. No wonder he looks so happy. (Sorry HP I revealed your secret)


The happy faces of PRPs. Glad that they enjoyed their time here in HTAA. Well, all the best in becoming a good pharmacist in future! I'm sure we will see each other again in future since we're all in the same field.

† JKNP Annual Dinner 2009 Finale †

Its been 5 years since my last stage performance. Kinda nervous but I was surprisingly calm as well. My colleagues did a great job in doing their singing in the songs 'Kau Ilhamku' and 'Heal the World' especially Zhi Yong with his 'on-the-spot-full-of-feel' singing skill.


A photo session the bosses: Pn Rozita U48 of Hospital Kuantan's clinical pharmacy department, as well as Ms Wee, the head of pharmacist of the whole Pahang. I'm glad to hear from her telling me that she loves the songs performed especially MJ's Heal The World.



Photo sessions after every memorable sessions became a 'must-to-do' event for kids nowadays.


I guess silly poses are something common to do during a photo sessions right?


And here we have the 'Fatt Tat' duo (Soong Fatt & Eng Tat) who come all the way from Hospital Raub and Klinik Kesihatan Lanchang respectively. Both of them really look like someone high ranking such as 'Datuk' or 'Yang Berbahagia'.


The guys taking picture with Datuk ah Fatt and Yang Berbahagia ah Tat. A message to Song Fatt and Eng Tat: Good to see both of you here in Kuantan!


And this is one of my favorite photos, me surrounded by pretty girls! Kekeke XD