I'm a horrible person...

Sometimes I get angry. Get angry at patients, get angry at myself for doing so and eventually get angry at everybody else.
I get angry at patients because they can be so frustrating sometimes. It's horrible because they're so weak, vulnerable, horribly aware of their own vulnerability and where I work, they're often quite destitute. They also give you the vague impression that they're going to be back very soon because they just can't and/or won't take care of themselves. You know that diabetic will be back in less than 6 months to get another toe ( or maybe a whole foot) chopped off. You know that drug addict will be back in less than a month to get another part of him fixed after fighting with another drug addict.Then there are the relatives, who are a whole different ballgame.
So when it's 3 a.m. and patients won't cooperate because they're so terrified or they're insulting because they don't trust us since the only doctors available at 3 a.m. in government hospitals are the really young ones, I tend to lose my temper. I become impatient and I yell. I become pushy and downright harsh.
So when an initially terrified young woman woke up after a C-section and weakly kissed my arm to thank me before I even realized what she was trying to do, I felt like the worst person in the world. I don't deserve any gratitude because even though she might not be aware of how horrible I can be, I unfortunately am.

Didn't see all this coming...

I never started this blog with the intention of neglecting it but I can understand how it looks that way considering I haven't so much as looked in its direction in almost a year.
Anyway...I have my reasons..trust me.
The last time I wrote, I was talking about how difficult it was to get my papers done so that I can graduate and start my residency. Well, a few stacks of paper and many sleepless nights after that, I started my anesthesia and critical care residency.
The funniest thing I've realized about my chosen career after just a few months down its path, is that for someone who puts people to sleep everyday, I hardly get any sleep myself. Whoever thought up 36 hour shifts was obviously devising an extremely advanced way of slowly crushing the collective souls of residents everywhere. It's even harder when you have to sniff that lovely magical knock-out gas that accidentally leaks out of our decrepit machines and builds up in the OR everyday. No wonder coffee isn't cutting it anymore!
Then there are the dee-lightful staff members. I've said it once and I'll say it again; prospective university staff members need psychological evaluations before being released onto the rest of us. I can only smile, nod and say " yes ,sir/ma'am" while wanting to gauge my eye out with a blunt spoon for so long before cracking.
*Sigh*...more on that later..I need to go punch my fist through a wall or something...

Red Tape

Egypt is unique. There's really no doubt about that. This is probably the only country of the world where getting out of medical school is so much harder than getting in it. We seem to be clawing our way out of one of the gates of hell just to prove that we've spent almost a third of our lives in this hellhole.
The way we're drowning in paperwork is getting downright comical. They're like little bureaucratic supervillains that never seem to die. As soon as you think you're done with one of them, it seems to breed two more. Then those little bastards seem to be dancing in front of your face jeering about the number of stamps and approvals each one of them wants - nay, my pretties - demands!
It's also weird that while the university hospital seems to have an abundance of officials and employees, yet we have to do some of their work. We have to go around the hospital buildings getting our attendance and vacation histories, which for some reason are so impossibly hard to transfer along with our names from one building to another.
Also, if they find it necessary to drown our paperwork in so much ink, how about we stick all those with the mystic power of the ink within the same vicinity. I'm not asking for much here; just stick them all in the same building.

I'm just asking for a little mercy for our sore feet. Is that really so much to ask for!?

What About All the Rest?

I don't know how to say the following without sounding like a complete asshole but I'll try.
I think it's awesome, amazing and mind-blowing that the Children's Cancer Hospital (57357) is enjoying this tremendous amount of support, both moral and financial.
It sort of bugs me though that a great many other hospitals in Egypt that are just as needy (if not more) are not getting nearly as much attention. It seem that somehow, the massive media campaign aimed at promoting the CCH's efforts has made it more well...fashionable to direct donations there compared to other hospital.s
My own personal experience is limited to El-Demerdash (a.k.a. Ain Shams University Hospital), but I don't think I'm being pessimistic in thinking that it's only one among many hospitals that need serious financial support just to stay afloat.
I go to work every day and I see this crumbling establishment trying to pose as a hospital that receives a ridiculous amount of patients each day complaining from every ailment imaginable under the sun.
As awful and life-shattering as cancer is, there are also many other awful diseases out there that need so much to treat or even to diagnose properly. I've witnessed young residents with my own eyes pay for patient's treatments out of their own pockets and let me tell you, their pockets are by no means deep.
It's not just money either. Blood is more commonly unavailable than not and sometimes it can make all the difference.
So is there anyone out there willing and powerful enough to advertise the needs of other heavily pressured hospitals in Egypt so that all those generous Egyptian philanthropists (and for once, I'm not being sarcastic) can be made aware of other places where their help is badly needed?

Things that Go Bump in the Night

So I just started my pediatrics' round, last Saturday. If there's one thing I've come to notice with my keen observational skills, it's the absolute lack of any semblance of hygienic conditions within the hospital. I mean, sure it might seem hygienic to a family of rats but it's not exactly fit for 10 hospital wards full of babies.

Last night, my friend and I decided to wander off from the hole in the ground we like to call the "ER", after our red blood cells finally decided to give up the good fight against the ER's horrible ventilation (or lack thereof) and we began to feel our brain cells slowly withering from the lack of oxygen. So there we were, strolling through the hospital's empty hallways with the intention of visiting our friends on the second floor, when suddenly...

We thought we thaw a puthycat!

It was a puthy..err... pussycat indeed...

In fact, there were two of them, rummaging through the garbage in front of one of the wards.

Needless to say, cats playing around in what seems to be last week's macaroni inside of a friggin' hospital, by no means make a pretty sight.

Then if that wasn't enough to permanently turn us off from the practice of medicine in Egypt, the following events take place while we pass one of the balconies :

Me: Wait a sec, I think I just saw something move.
Friend: What? Where?

~*We both put our heads together and squint through the darkness until we see..err..a rodent of some kind~*

Me: Eww! It's a huge RAT!
Friend: No no, it's ...it's got..thick hair on its tail.
Me: EWWW..omg shut up...o look..the cat looks like it's trying to pounce on it...how cute!

After the furry little fellow scurries along moments away from inevitable doom, we conclude it was in fact a weasel...and if we had any doubts, it made it's identity entirely clear by scurrying, once again, in front of us on our way back and a few inches away from the kids sleeping soundly in their beds.

I finally understand why the pediatrics hospital is commonly known as the "The toilet of El-Demerdash".

And if you're a toilet's toilet, you know things have got to be bad!

Close Encounters of the Avian Kind

It's not very reassuring when your resident tells you that the patient who just threw up on your shoes the day before, has now been confirmed as the 65th case of Avian Flu(H5N1 strain) in Egypt.

It's also kinda difficult to hide it from your family - ya know- so as not to worry them or anything, when it gets printed in the newspaper the next day and everyone at home jumps whenever you sneeze or cough. Even when you tell them that there's no human-to-human transmission...yet.

Well hopefully because if a virus wants a place to mutate where else could it find a better home?

Okay okay, enough with my fear mongering...

The poor woman came to the hospital 9-months pregnant and as custom goes in certain.. well..I guess you could say.. socioeconomic classes here, she was raising the chickens, so she could eat a couple after she gave birth. She and her family kept denying that little tidbit however, until her condition became severely deteriorated and ventilatory support became necessary.

As my father would say, "E7na sha3b ghalban walahy".

It seems however that the Dr.Sha3bolla approach isn't working too well and the Ministry of Health needs to start working on a new game plan, since we're now the proud owners of the highest number of Avian Flu cases outside of Asia.