last weekend

I decided to potray my last interesting weekend in a sequential order. Why? Coz I want to! (My mood is very good today despite the terrible autumn weather :-)

Started by Diamond Ball 2004 on Saturday Night, which was strictly for girls only. A good effort done by the college which clearly respects the culture and religion aspects of people like us who don't go to Freshers Ball or Annual Ball. So it was purely girls, no alcohol and halal food. Damn great, especially the vegetarian pasta, I still have the cheesy white cream saucey taste in my mouth. I can eat those for months without eating anything else I tell U. OK I'm exaggerating. But yeah it was a great night, though they were playing loads of Arabian-Indian remix kind of music, which at one point got us tired by just listening to them (what to do, their people dominated the party). At the end of the night, the majority of us (excluding me) were pretty sured to attend the belly-dancing class every Thursday evening in the college. That shows how we suck in belly-dancing.


Something from the party. That's Ailani on the left preparing to go home and me just getting the 'heat' of the night.

Sunday was the Sports Day for PMC (Penang Medical College) students, of the two traditional rivals RCSI vs. UCD. It's my annual event that I attend though I'm not a PMC student (who cares). So I was meant to play netball which was the first opening game in the morning but I woke up really late on that day of the tiredness from the ball, so by the time I reached the UCD sports center the Men's Basketball match has already begun. It's the favourite team so guess who won, OURS of course.


Defense mode. Look at the center, Mo who's a Kuwaiti. See? It's not only me who's a non-PMC. He's not even close, not even a Msian. Whatever, good job guys!


3 shot, or was it a 2.

Then it was the time for Women's Basketball. It's been a long time since I played a 'proper' game so I knew I might end up flat in the court. And the truth was I did (sigh). It was not so organised how we played the game as most of us just came and played, there were no proper practice or even proper positions, it was so like netball. The UCD team has only one anchor player whose others just passed the ball to her and she did all the shootings. Clearly she was the only one with the bball skills but even then we couldn't nail the team. That showed how inorganised our team was. I just played for two quarter-half, everyone seemed wanted to play but didn't contribute much going in the court (that includes me I guess). But that doesn't matter much, what's more important was the burning team spirit and the supportive fellow friends who were endlessly cheering for the team. And what matters most was we had a lot of fun, though I was a bit disappointed for the lost. Nevermind, there's always next year.


Some of the players. My disappointment showed on the face. It was a good game anyway.

I went back not long after that leaving the rest of the other games for the day, which I've been informed later that we lost the 2nd Men's Bball match and also for the soccer match. Guess we have a lot to do before next year to gain the title back. On my way walking back home, I stopped by at the Grafton St when I saw people gathering around one corner. There were people performing Ginga, a type of martial art I guess, which reminded me of the ol' Mark Dacascos movie I saw when I was a kid. So cool and groovy.




And I continued my journey back home until I reached my favourite place.


Perfect.

And I spent the rest of the day doing some works on the breakfast table while watching the repeated O.C and One Tree Hill on telly.


Having the guilt after eating a bar of almond praline chocolate from Butler's Chocolatey, I decided to eat my healthy breakfast cereal pack for munchies while doing my works. Err actually I've already eaten a pack of Ripples crisps before that. My my..

That summarises the great weekend I had. Thank You Lord!

here comes the month

Dear doctor colleague,

In a few days time, we are welcoming Ramadhan. Surely we have a strong will to undertake this annual project seriously. Let this year's Ramadhan be better than previous years for all of us. InsyaAllah we will make a plan to prepare ourselves so that we will have a sweet success at the end. We are not going to miss that Lailatul Qadr again and the only sure way to "catch" it is by performing ibadah every night from day one. That also means we have to pray tarawih, reciting Quran and munajat in our on-call rooms and while waiting for blood results or operating theatre calls. Plan also to take annual leave in November purely to spend the last ten days "talking and crying" to our Lord. As doctors, if we can stand doing on-calls all year round, it is only logical if we can answer our "bleep" for Allah's call. After all it is not that Allah Who needs us, but we need Allah.

+From my med-related yahoogroup.

Practice Islam like U practice life. No matter who U are, what U'd be.

That Evening

For the past few days I had few chances of walking back home passing by the canal near my neighbourhood before dusk, and man my heart was as calm as the water in the man-made canal (I usually reached home when it was already dark). The evening was serene beautiful, with people in their own mode of transportations heading back to their crib, leaving me clinging to the brigde rail sipping the cold autumn breeze. Water calms me down, I think I've mentioned that before. I was born and brought up near the beaches in Terengganu and I'm proud of that, being part of the people of coastal areas. In the evening the whole family would go to the nearby beach in a car, sometimes I cycled there with my sister, and we would wait for the fisherman's boat to return from the sea to buy some fresh new fishes and other seashells for dinner. It was much cheaper and fresher than the ones in the market. And now U wonder how sub-urbs people live much longer than the town acers. Fresh fishes and poultry products, there was no fast food restaurant in the cowboy town I used to live until recently I heard a KFC being opened there.


The white swans approached me when I was getting nearer to the water, thinking I had some bread to be given. Sorry pals, next time I'll ask Yani not to make bread pudding out of those expired bread OK.


Not long after that a guy came and gave some huge breadcrumbs to the swans. It was simply the gift from above.


Sorry that was it. As if they knew, they were all roaming away after the guy left.


The signal to go home. Goodbye canal, I'll see U again tomorrow morning.

The job I do?

I was walking up and down the wards today, to Richmond then up to Finbar and St Luke looking for my senior friend, then went down back to Richmond to look for the patient I met last week and do some follow-ups, then up again to Finbar after Ailani texted me to join her learning some bedside devices and procedures with the kind helpful senior. Fawaz came a bit later on with Khalid and we met downstairs in front of Adams McConnell. We bleeped our NEW intern using the bleeping phone just outside the ward and few minutes later she strangely passed beside us, went in the ward and called us from the phone at the nurses station in the ward. Funny. But I could accept the fact that she was in a hurry that she didn’t realized we were the ones who called.

So there’s been a change for the intern for every team, my former just swapped with Yanie’s team, and hers went to mine. It doesn’t make any difference though as this is the final week of us allocated to the team, there’ll be a major team reshuffling next week and everyone’s gonna have a new team. I don’t know whom I’d end up teaming with, I’m just too comfortable working with Fawaz and Jonathan, new teammates meaning new introduction from scratch provided it’s someone I know before. And I’m too tired for that. OK I know I cannot be like that, I’m into a profession that needs me to meet new people every frigging day of my life.

So I was thinking of that while walking up and down the wards today, being in the clinical years made me realized that there’s a HUGE challenge of one being a doctor. This morning I was with Ailani and the senior friend when she showed us how to put an intravenous cannula to a patient. Later on she administered some amounts of liquid drug, to be specific it was a bottle of immunoglobulin for that patient, such a simple procedure with the infusion pump made administering work easier as it controls the amount of drug infused in the patient’s vein. We then went to the nurses station and she filled in the patient’s chart that was when we heard a familiar sound of the infusion pump machine giving us an idea that something was not right. A nurse went in to see and came out with a tray in her hands, Ailani then whispered to me to look at the nurse when I realized that there was blood in the tray.

I was not trying to prove anything from there, just to give some faint idea of how a simple procedure could go wrong in the hands of an expert. If I were her, my both knees would go weak knowing the mistake I did but she calmly handled the situation as if nothing had happened. Salute ah. I wonder when would I achieve to that level, when my face would still look confident and calm eventhough it’s clear that something is not right.

Then later I went down to go in the operation theatre, it was my patient whom I’ve been doing the follow-ups who was going to have the surgery at that time. So I changed into scrubs and went to Surgical 6 and got disappointed when the anaesthetist told me that the procedure I was going to witness would be in another half an hour. I couldn’t go out to the wards with the scrubs on, the last and the only option was to stay in the changing room. So I waited for half an hour before I went in Surgical 6 back again only to found out that they still haven’t finished doing the current surgery yet. Come again in an hour maybe, said the anaesthetist guy. Nope I’m not going to, I said, in my heart only OK. I was going to have my pathology lecture in an hour.

The thing happened when I was changing back into my casual-smart hospital attire, when I heard a raised voice near the door. So it was the surgical sister or nurse, whichever they call it, and she was scolding an intern for keeping the scrubs at home, reasoning that there’s been a short of scrubs in the hospital, and she just found out that these doctors had been keeping the scrubs with them at home. And the intern with an innocent face I supposed just said yeah and promised to return back the scrubs later on.

In my mind, firstly, kedekut punye hospital, scrubs pun nak berkira. Secondly, it was a nurse scolding an intern, a qualified doctor. Huh, best tu. And what made it more interesting was the part when the intern just agreed to follow whatever the nurse said. I dunno maybe it was because she was too busy too argue or just accepting the fact that she was caught red handed. If I were her again, I dunno I might as well do the same thing, but I’ll say it’s not only me who’s doing this, and the fact that I’m keeping a set of scrubs with me is due to the short of ‘normal’ pair provided here, and I’m not wearing an ‘abnormal’ ones ok, green for top and disposable grey for pants. Macam hobbits je.


**My two favourite couple from my favourite series, Scrubs. Now U know why it is called SCRUBS don't U? It's the attire they're wearing.

A procedure went wrong, being scolded by a nurse, what more then, I’ve seen a consultant scolding an intern in front of students in the wards, and the list of torments continues. Am I fit for those? Is this the thing I’d long expect in my life?

I’m not having any second thoughts of going into this profession, maybe I’m just a bit too intimidated after witnessing some occupational stress in a life of a doctor.

Be it in any profession, there must be some stress counted in, so one just cannot run from it, prepare oneself, pray hard, with some smart planning, face them all…


**The army I'm graduating with. That was when we attended the compulsory BTN by MARA. Who'd thought I would wear that full school uniform back again? Cap 'Canggih' tu...

Photoblogging

I simply love the collection of pictures in my iPhotos and if something went wrong with this old-useful laptop of mine, the two things that I'd first put aside are iPhotos and iTunes. That's the fact. Since I was just eating the leftover dusts of the technology, I mean I just knew how to put up photos here, I realized that I really treasure photoblogging. So much fun. They said a picture worth a thousand words. They could never be so right. Mind me if you'll get a shorter essay and longer row of photos in my next entries after this, I was just practising what's being told.



U know what I wanna do now? I want to be up there back again in the photo. God I miss those faces.