On hot gossiping with the surgeons

Throughout my several weeks experience of being a full time clinical student, I've sat with several different teams in the hospital. I've sat with the general surgeons, ENT surgeons, vascular surgeons, anesthetists and radiologists. 

And sometimes quite inevitably, you're drawn into the slimy gossiping session between members of a group although you were there just for a 2 hour session and all you do is sit around hoping to be invisible so no one would ask you questions that the answers to you knew, back when you were in second year that is.

And many of the times the topic of the discussion would be about how people from other departments are not doing justice to the people talking, who are always either the victims or heroes of the situation.

How the radiologists would have five coffee breaks before tending to your request forms, or how the surgeons always want to cut everything out plus at least one unrelated organ and how they don't know anything about medicine, how medics think too much and complicate matters, how nurses are always unnecessarily bitchy about medicine charts and would ask you to do things with an annoying fake smile, how the psychiatrists are themselves nuts and always act like they're important, when everyone knows that they'd like to be, how the samples you send to the pathologists are never enough to draw a diagnosis from, they usually want the whole organ.

The conclusion from these discussions is almost too predictable. It is: We are right, everyone else is wrong. What we do is the best, everyone else is crap. If we could have it our way, all the patients would be better looked after and everyone, ranging from the crappy people we work with to the people who aren't even born yet would be happier.

 I don't think I'm happy with whats happening here.

Because I've seen how these different people work. I've seen their dedication, their sacrifice, their passion and their efforts. All of them contribute to patient care. All of them are striving to achieve that one goal up there, to make sure the patients are, at the end of the day better than when they came in.

I'd take the risk of sounding naive and ask; isn't that what we all want?

So instead us saying "what you guys do don't work, and we know this because we've had training for years on end in what we do and we see no other way that would work best save ours and so, screw everyone else, come, join us, become one of us because when everyone is in our group, all the patients in this world would be healthier and happier"; maybe we should embrace each other and say "Thank you! Thank you for tending to the people whom I cannot reach out to, the people whom I cannot understand and cannot stand to be in the presence with, thank you for doing something that I don't think I'm capable of doing, things that I lack the skills to do, thank you for going further than I can, or closer than I can, thank you for speaking different lingos, thank you for understanding things in a different way because only then can we compare ourselves and see our mistakes. And most of all, thank you for trying to achieve what I too am trying to achieve."

That's life isn't it? We'd love to think what we do is best, but we should know that this world is quite like a hospital. There are young sick people, old sick people, teeny weeny sick people, bleeding people, people with cancer, people with colds and coughs, people who have 'pathological' thinking, people with inherited diseases, people who brought their diseases on to themselves, people who don't want to be treated, people who are difficult, people who are simply...different. Different from each other and thus need different treatments. And so there are the medics who play with drugs, surgeons with their knives, psychiatrists with their words, nurses with their hands, radiologists with their films, anesthetists with their happy serums and security with their 'guns'.

This is an absolutely personal opinion, and I would admit to it being totally arguable and flawed, but I'd like to shout it out anyways.

Instead of putting too much effort in debating who's best, we may all benefit more by actually thinking about getting to the goal together. And if people think that they like to do things in a certain way, the way they can be most comfortable in, taking a slightly different path, instead of condemning their understanding and efforts and saying what they are doing is suboptimal, maybe we should give them a pat on the back and say "hey, if you think you're comfortable with that, go for it! Coz God knows, I don't think I want to do that, so it's good that you are willing to do so.  As long as you're getting there."

They are working hard already to do what they are doing, they deserve to at least be happy with it.

"Allah x tgk result dia Allah tgk usaha kita snanye" (A friend of a friend of a friend...blablabla, date unknown) 


In support of choices and happiness
Azfar

On what its like to be beautiful

Kalau menjerat burung kedidi,
Janganlah senja baru ke taman,
Kalau memikat idaman hati,
Janganlah rupa jadi taruhan,
Janganlah jangan rupa taruhan
(Joget Senyum Memikat, Siti Nurhaliza)

I have a confession.

It may not be the most comfortable thing for me to say this, because I think its quite atypical given the circumstances that I've been brought up in and the surroundings I've been in up till now. And I know many people who would laugh at this, or would just give a semi- hearted, confused "Ay". Actually, I think most people I know would do that.

This has something to do with my preferences in people. An attraction I guess.

I like beautiful people.

There. That's it. I've said it.

Atypical much?

Let me explain.

I have, after so many years of living understood what beauty means. The epiphany came only several weeks ago, when I was in the wards, doing student stuff. And I saw this lady. I think that she's a nurse, I couldn't remember.

She was a bit plump, a bit 'mini' and probably a mother to at least 3 children. Dark skinned, with facial features of a Maori, curly black hair, which was cut short, and a glass framed spectacles dropped low on the bridge of her nose.

She is not, I must admit, the typical beauty. That is, physically she was just ordinary, like most of us. But there were things about her that were so beautiful. I didn't know why, but I kept looking at her the whole time I was in the ward. I saw how she greeted others with a cheerful hello, how she made others laugh and how her eyes twinkled when she laughed, how she bustled around the ward huffing and puffing while humming an easy tune, how she grasped the arm of a nurse that looked devastated after the death of a patient to give comfort, how she offered that fellow nurse a cup of tea to calm her down.

And mostly, I noticed the pure, sincere smile she gave a patient who just crapped himself in bed, too tired to bother about his bowels. I saw her and I thought

"Owh God, how beautiful is this lady". And, without thought, I smiled.

And so right there, in that moment in time, I understood who beautiful people are. They are people that you would never get tired of looking at. Because their nature that is so calming, soothing and comforting.  And their nature bursts out of them like rays of light, shining the people around them. And the people around them respond to them with sincerity and honesty, with so much cheer and happiness, it showed through the shine in their eyes. 

They make smiling a reflex.

It made me understand those odd couples who people shake their heads at, saying how inappropriately matched they are. A beauty and a beast, or a prince and a hag. Generally, a set of appearances at the different extremes of the spectrum. And I then thought, just because the only thing we know about them is their appearance, it doesn't give us any right to say anything. For all we know, those hags and beasts may be more beautiful than the beauty or the prince. And have you seen them princes nowadays? Many of them are just a bunch of fat, lazy, corrupted and broken human beings. Nothing to look up to if you're lucky enough to not have to look at how high those noses are. 

And so I can't tell you what its like to be beautiful, not just yet. I don't think I make people smile on reflex. Not just yet.

But I do know some people who have that affect on me. And I believe that I'm going to find many more from now on. And when I find them, I'll learn from them. On how to be beautiful.

P/S: enjoy this music video. I think there are many beautiful people in there

Prayers for you dear reader, to be and always stay beautiful.
Azfar

“Allah does not look at your figures, nor at your attire but He looks at your hearts [and deeds].” (A man many miss even though they've never met him, several centuries ago)

Where'd I go?

Hey hey people!

The question up there really isn't a rhetoric one. I seek to answer it now.

Yes, my blog has come to a complete stand still for the past 7 weeks. My reason is one, studies.

Yes, lame, yes, quite predictable, yes, boring.

But that is it. For the past several weeks I have been living a surreal reality. I've been waking up and getting ready for the hospital for morning rounds which started early in the morning (God and people living with me know that me waking up early for anything save going out somewhere for leisure is next to impossible), and had (imaginative?) friction with some people and had also several clinical mishaps happening all during those weeks . And at the end of those days, I was feeling so exhausted that when the clock strikes 9 at night, my eyes went all red and watery and I was pretty much ready for bed. Except that I wouldn't go to bed because I had to read to try and catch up with the syllabus. That was the first time I felt so tired in so many years. So unhappy in so many years.  I'm glad its over, and I'm glad I passed!  =)
So yes, my clinical exposure to surgery has just resulted in me crossing surgery out of the list for my career options. So my registrar's laugh when he heard us say our rotation is for 6 weeks and he said "hah, enough time to corrupt your minds" ends up unheeded, by me at least.

I think I like surgery, its quite straight forward, but the people (the surgeons!!! but of course there are always exceptions), the workload, the hours! Its impossible to live happy!

I've been thinking a lot lately and I think its safe to say that I've got some entries coming up soon. 1 on something general, 1 on friendship and 1 on brotherhood.

I'm so excited!!!!!! How about you?!