_ By Dr. San Oo Aung

In the ongoing National Conference, Myanmar Tatmadaw is openly planning for their eternal military dominance in Myanmar.  Just see the fact that the President must have fifteen year of experience. They blatant rejected or totally blocked the chance of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to be even able to stand as a candidate for the leadership with the lame excuses.    

Bench mark of Myanmar Tatmadaw’s choosing any person for appointment, promotion, choosing for special training abroad is NOT the MERITOCRACY but “the military experience”. That is not a top secret but an open declaration of Myanmar Ttmadaw since Ne Win’s era.

Just look at the most obedient, dutiful, subservient, submissive, well-trained, brave, courageous, heroic, fearless, valiant security guard who is willing to sacrifice his life for his boss or job. He should be rewarded and promoted to be a supervisor or even up to the manager of the security department. But we may be wrong if we base all the promotions, choosing the persons for training abroad and future recruitment of our company base on that security service or related to that person only.

It is very worrisome even about the future nuclear programme of Myanmar. They should choose the best scientists, Physicists but not only the military related persons. Just see what happened to the present Medical field in Myanmar. For further studies they had chosen their children, relatives only and the some of the Medical professors able to sneak in some of their own relatives. There was and is no meritocracy in Myanmar Medical field.

Now the relatives of Tatmadaw, who became specialists in different fields of Medicine, are using first class or state of the art medical facilities with the stone aged mentality in Myanmar. I hereby presented the true tragic story which is even shameful for all of us. So, kindly allow me not to mention the place and names of the persons involved.

Once a patient who has a myxoedema or hypothyroidism, a disease caused by decreased activity of the thyroid gland, causing a subnormal basal metabolic rate of the whole body, went to consult a Physician for constipation and abdominal discomfort.

The Physician just rush through the physical examination and ordered a CT Scan of abdomen. (May be scam, wishing for a kickback from the radiologist for that expensive investigation.).

The Radiologist done the CT Scan and reported that there was a Cancer of the Rectum, the terminal portion of the large intestine, ending at the anal canal which ends at the anus.

So the patient was referred again to the Colonoscopist to examine the colon with the fibreoptic flexible colonoscope. The Colonoscopist is using the state of art latest equipment. He used the robotic arm and controls the whole procedure with the remote control by watching the monitor screen. He recorded his procedure in detail. The following is the excerpts of his records_

“The scope enters the anus. And then after going for about two to three inches, I saw the annular rounded, well defined constricting mass obstructing the lumen. I could not go around that mass. I saw a small hole at the centre that was like a slit. I managed to enter the scope through that narrow opening but caught in a blind end, cul-de-sac. At last I give up proceeding, retreat and decided to take biopsies from the mass. I took biopsies from three different positions. And then the biopsies were sent to the Pathologist.”

The Pathologist examined the biopsies and reported back as Adenocarcinoma, A malignant tumor originating in glandular tissue.

So at last the poor patient was referred to the Surgeon. But that night the patient suffered from “Acute abdomen”, sudden severe abdominal pain.

The Surgeon ordered the plain X-ray abdomen, erect and lateral. He found the GUD, gas under the Diaphragm, which indicates that there is free air in the abdomen. Normally the gas always stays in the stomach and intestines only. There are some rare causes of GUD but usually the gas came out when there is a hole or perforation of stomach or intestine. So the Surgeon decided to do the urgent laprotomy that is open up the abdomen, search the cause and proceed as necessary.

To the Surgeon’s surprise he could not find any disease in the abdomen and so decided to close back.

Now let’s do a postmortem. Pardon me; I should not use this word as our patient is lucky and alive. I don’t mean the real postmortem but a retrograde analysis in detail what went wrong.

Although I had no chance to read back our gold standard, prescribed Surgery tax book, Bailey and Love for few decades, I still remember the words at the start of the Abdomen section. “Abdomen is a magic box.” But I still remember a footnote also, “If you do not put your finger, you have to put your foot in it”, reminding the doctors, especially Surgeons to examine the P.R. or Per Rectal digital examination. In laymen terms, to put the finger into the anus to examine and after all, more than 90% of the the said suspected  Cancer of Rectum is within the reach of the doctor’s examining finger.

The Physician missed that the myxoedema is the cause of the patient’s constipation. Even if a first year clinical student missed that, he could be failed.

The Radiologist had given the wrong diagnosis of Ca Rectum on the normal CT Scan.

Colonoscopist entered the wrong hole, vagina, mistaken the normal cervix of the uterus as a tumour. Even entered the uterus unknowingly. During the colonoscopy, it is a normal procedure to pump a lot of air through the scope. So the pumped air passed through normal uterine appendages and entered abdomen, bloated, distended and showed the positive GUD.

The Pathologist looked at the normal cervix cells and diagnosed as Adenocarcinoma.

So this is the result of ignoring MERITOCRACY and choosing the relatives and friends of Tatmadaw, to become specialists in different fields of Medicine. Now they are using the first class or state of the art medical facilities with the stone aged mentality in Myanmar.

I had already stated that I am worried even about the future nuclear programme of Myanmar. They should choose the best scientists, Physicists but not only the military related persons.

And the most important job in a country is the political leader. Even if all the combined skills, abilities and experiences of the SPDC Generals, to rule Myanmar or Burma, pale when compare to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. We all must stick to the MERITOCRACY. Even the top military commander should be under the politician, civilian Defense Minister.

And all the military personals are trained to obey the orders without questioning back. So even in the military’s primary task of defending our country, they need to obey the decisions of political leaders, whether to start or stop the war.

It is time to start recognizing the merits of meritocracy dear SPDC leaders. Above true medical tragedy represents the whole politico-economic scenario of present Myanmar. I still remember the notorious quote of the SPDC Minister, “Kyune Kine Mhi_Kine Kyune Mhi” was stupidly translated into the teak tree is depending or leaning onto the Kine plant and vise versa.

Stop the charade, just appoint Daw Suu as a Prime Minister and allow opposition to form a government to run the day to day events. You all SPDC leaders could just stay above as the guardian Council to protect the disintegration of the country, to oversee whether the government is corrupt or not and at least to ensure for your safety.