Ma, Ma and Ma the many meanings of Ma

April 1, 2008

Ma, Ma and Ma

Today I tried to get to the hospital a little early but my taxi driver did not turn when I asked so we missed the hospital and had to turn around to go back. Still I made it in time for the end of morning report and to review a few films.

I then had my morning Vietnamese lesson. I am trying to learn 5-10 words or a phrase a day. I did learn "turn left' and "turn right" which will be helpful in the future. Vietnamese is a mono-syllabic language so there is no combining syllables to make new words. Instead by intonation you make one syllable have multiple meanings. Ma with different diacritics marks can mean ghost, mother, morgue and horse. There may be two others they haven’t taught me yet but the difference in the sound is difficult to reproduce. Oh by the way, pho the morning soup and national dish, also means street. That I am even trying to learn is thought to be unusual and nice. We did go check up on several patients and then saw a new patient with naso-pharyngeal cancer which is very common here (saw three cases in 2 days) but uncommon in USA with only 4-5 cases in my 20 year career. I am amazed at the physical strength and endurance of the Vietnamese. I think that most patients with a problem like his would be in so much distress that they could hardly talk. A lot of patients are on radiation but no one complains of a sore mouth for the radiation burn.

In the afternoon I walked over to the Temple of Literature which is 1000 years old and the original national university, a nice respite from the noise of the city. I have pictures and will post soon.

While I was writing this yesterday I was called by Cuong that he had tickets for us to go to a Vietnamese Opera so my writing was cut short. The Opera was long, hard to understand but beautiful and ultimately meaningful. The story is too long for here but this is an ancient culture.

Today I finally made it to morning report on time. Cuong having taught me "re phai" which means turn right!!! I was able to get to the hospital directly. I have worked with some residents, met with medical students and then reviewed more cases for palliative care and managed to work on some of the lectures. I am really tired tonight and we had dinner with the head of the Infectious Disease Center tonight at her house. So off to bed early.