[super machine]

We had our 2nd day of training yesterday. True to my words, our driver came 25 mins late. I'd already told Dr L to ask O to come much earlier cos he'd be late anyway, but perhaps he doesn't have much punctuality sense either. Sigh. When we reached there about an hour late, I was shocked to see that the training hadn't even started, and the trainer told us he'd been waiting for people to show up since 9am. Haiz. I guess next time I'll just ask hubby to drop me directly. Even if I'm super early, at least I won't be guilty of making anyone wait for me.

What machine have we been training on? It's this awesome chemical analyser which can run about 92 different biochemical tests, 44 tests per run, and about 400 runs per hour. Fantastic huh? It kind of obliterates the need for a graduate to do the running of biochemical tests, but I guess that's what technology is aiming for these days. I think any Tom, Dick or Harry could be told which buttons to press and voila, albumin, creatinine, urea and what nots can be measured in about 10 mins.

the super machine

Which leads me to the topic of research here. Research has not been a big thing here since recently. Even then, it seems to be picking up quite slowly, with doctors still prefering clinical work and trials to basic science research. Most of the basic science research is only done in universities here, and they have very few research institutes (I'm only aware of one, and that is part of a govt hospital). It seems that funding and infrastructure isn't a major problem unlike in Sg. My centre for example, after getting HUGE funding, probably has enough money to set up its own lab. I've toured several labs from beaming doctors/scientists who are all out to impress this S'porean and I must say I have been impressed - from latest super high throughput PCR machines that do ALL the work for you at the press of a few buttons to this super machine that can run plenty of tests in such a short time. They cost millions of riyals, and I'm sure they're probably in the millions of sg dollars too. Unfortunately though, what seems to be lacking is the expertise to carry out research. If they can be impressed by an "epidemilogist" like me who has such basic knowledge in the field, it makes me wonder about the quality of their research. Many of the labs also seem to be newly set up and still looking for overseas experts to guide them. Oh and I should mention that most of the people who are interested in research are locals who have been trained overseas and, I assume, have been exposed to the research world.

Thankfully I guess the problem of skilled manpower can be solved by the abundant funding that the govt is putting into biomedical research (sounds a little like Sg...hope they don't get disappointed as our ministers are 10 years later lol). I think if they were to hire a few capable s'poreans (ahem..like me..haha), they would be well on their way to churning out excellent 2nd tier journals. Meanwhile, let's hope that their enthusiasm in research continues to grow and that their motivations are not driven by the monetary rewards (did I mention PIs and co-PIs get monetary incentives??? kind of unfair because us downlines who actually do the nitty-gritty don't get such bonuses...hmpf!).