Sir, you have my undivided attention...

There's an obvious disadvantage to being at the bottom of the professional food chain at a hospital; you are expected to be at the receiving end of everything ranging from priceless medical knowledge - from those actually willing to share it - to... well...crap. The trick to smoothly navigating these everyday involuntary one-way transactions is by having a permanently interested look on your face. You are simply fascinated by the words coming out of your professor's mouth. It doesn't matter if he/she is talking about medicine or what happened to them on their drive over- you shall hang on to their every word.
Try to gradually perfect the balance between having a look of deep interest on your face while you're internally trying to navigate the crowded halls of your mind trying to remember that distant dream you had for yourself and what was it that you really thought at 15 you would be doing at 25.
It gets easier as the days go by and eventually feigning interest isn't so hard.
The downside however, is that you may soon become a sticky professor's favorite fledgling and he or she will seek you - even hunt you down Goddammit - to share with you things they think that you simply must be informed of.
Tread carefully, children.

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!?

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.

I'm a Doctor! Well sorta...

Imagine me saying that a la Zach Braff, all full of myself in my fancy work p.j.'s (a.k.a. scrubs).
So I technically graduated and I'm currently 6 weeks into my year as a house officer (a.ka. my year of living dangerously...dun dun DUN).

I went ahead and picked the group with obstetrics and gynecology as the first round and my oh my, what a hoot! Suffice to say that adoption does not get enough love in this country and anyone who tells you girls that pregnancy is a beautiful thing should be instantly smacked on the head. Preferably with something capable of causing brain damage.

Between the random pools of blood and vomit on the floor and all those women screaming their heads off at once, topped off with a doctor getting a miniature nervous breakdown every now and then, I just can't seem to see the beauty. Not even when the resident finally lets you assist in a delivery and you hold that strange squishy creature in your hand covered in a strange variety of ..well... crap and you're looking around frantically for someone to take it away before it slips out of your hand.

Eh, it's the circle of life maaan...(no, I'm not using a bong right now).

I've learned in these past few weeks that I'm not nearly as much of an insomniac as I fancy myself to be. In fact, I actually like to sleep every now and then.

That I'm always going to find blood somewhere on my hands, no matter how careful I am or how many pairs of latex gloves I carry around.

That working in a hospital requires you to be an asshole/bitch/jerk more than your normal daily quota, as unfortunate as that is.

That everyone in the hospital steals from everyone else. We were actually sent out more than once on missions to rip off both the internal medicine and surgery hospitals of as many cannulas as our formerly innocent pockets could carry. We all died a little inside as we started our career in crime *sigh*.

That washing your shoes before you step into the house is always a good idea because you're never quite sure exactly what it is you slipped on while walking down the hall that day.

And finally that requests are a great way to lose weight, if you steer clear from all the junk food (a.k.a. mysterious and greasy toxic waste everyone in the hospital seems to order). Eat your heart out, Jenny Craig !

I'm too cool to worry, you know...

Here I am, just hangin'..

My grades are gonna show up presumably within the next 48 hours but I'm not worried. Nu-uh..no siree. I mean why should I? They're just basically some numbers. I mean, its true that these numbers are the summation of any effort I put into the last six years of my life and most likely will determine where I spend the next six but I digress, they're just numbers that will not get any higher or lower if I worry, right guys?

The thing is, I just want to make plans for the rest of the week. What does that have to do with grades you say? Well, if they do show up online or in college, I'd hate to be in a position where everybody can get theirs except me. Not that I would cry, hyperventilate or possibly pass out..but I would just feel so lonely and left out and no one likes to feel that way, friends. No one.

And while the F5 button has been fun to play with (its so much fun seeing the faculty's results' page load over and over again-such bright colors!) , I really should get up before my index finger falls off because I'm assuming I might need it in the future.

This entry was brought to you by a calm and cool medical student who is patiently awaiting those pesky results, ya know, just to get things over with and not because her heart is trying to break free from her chest. Toodles!

Medical School - Bringing you closer everyday to....

Cold-blooded Sadistic Murders!

And that's not even a figure of speech....

An Egyptian endocrinology professor at Ain Shams university has been convicted of killing a man, proceeding to cut him up with a chainsaw and finally running over the victim's head with his car to make it impossible to identify him. This dude used to be a fearful fixture in the 5th year oral exam circuit and I've seen more than one student examined by him last year laughing hysterically with a bewildered look in their eyes after reading their news.

Is it now obvious why I say that professors at our faculty require psychiatric evaluations before being unleashed onto the students?

My condolences to the victim's family because as strangely (and macabrely) funny as this is, it doesn't make it any less horrible.

Physical Abuse Courtesy of ...Medical School

The expression "Victims of Medical School" 0r "Da7aya Koleyet Teb" has always seemed a bit of an exaggeration to me. Last week though is probably one of those times when it actually applied to some of us!

You see, we take some private lessons in the most absurd places. Specifically, the inner alleys of El-Abbassia. Mind you, I'm not talking about the residential areas there in general, I'm talking about the innermost, darkest, broken-down, suspiciously odoriferous areas surrounding the faculty.

Last Thursday, a random resident driving over a friend's foot while standing in front of the um.."educational center" where we take our lessons, prompted one of our male colleagues to shout something along the lines of "watch it!". After that, apparently all hell broke loose. The man stepped out of the car, people started pouring down from the apartments (still in their sleeping "garments") and pseudo-thugs ready with their retractable pocket-knives started running over from the local all-night cafés. They then proceeded to beat the crap out of every male student who just happened to be standing there. The used their fists, random chairs and a few tables to cause as many bruises as possible along with some ripping of clothes and breaking of glasses for good measure, while the girls were locked in the aforementioned center or fled for safety.

This ended in a dramatic scene where the police drove in after our Professor/Doctor/Tutor drove over to get them.

Then the credits began to roll followed quickly by "THE END".

No, seriously. I'm not making this stuff up.

Let this be a warning to all those who wish to enter medical school : If you thought it was just about the studying, think again kiddies, think again!

Listening to : New Order - Crystal

The Biggest Trap?

I love it when Doctors/Professors literally spit out their "pearls of wisdom" at us during rounds. Seriously, the stuff I hear coming from these men's mouths is pure comedy gold.

I remember during my OB&GYN round last month, there was this particular doctor who blew me away. We only saw him twice but he had a particularly profound effect on me during one of those times caused by one of his highly entertaining "pearls.

I'm paraphrasing here, of course but the gist of what he told us one time when we were discussing the value of knowing the patient's and her husband's respective ages was:

"See? Her husband's much older than her. He probably needed someone to serve him. That's what these marriages with significant age differences are usually about. You see, the biggest trap a man can fall into is ending up outliving his wife because then there would be no one to take care of him in his old age. I mean, a woman can serve herself when she's old and on her own but a man still needs taking care of! "

So let me get this straight...
A elderly widower's biggest problem would be the absence of a female "servant" rather than a "companion"? His biggest problem would be the inability to shout "JANE! ME HUNGRY! FEED NOW!" at someone? And an elderly female widow needs nothing because any thing's manageable as long as she can cook and clean after herself despite any decrepitude old age might cause?

This is actually as silly as the notion that a widower should get married as soon as possible because he needs someone to take care of the house while a widow shouldn't because she should stay loyal to her husband's memory and think only of her children.

If this is the biggest trap a guy could fall into, the biggest one a girl could fall into is ending getting hitched to a guy retarded enough to think of her as an investment to keep him comfortable in his old age.


Listening to : God is an Astronaut - Radau

Random Embarrassing Situation

So I had an Obstetrics and Gynecology exam recently. It was one of those exams where they threateningly go "SHIFT!" every 5 minutes (or so they say-- it feels like we shift according to the time it takes a resident to yawn in between well.. shifts). As a result your brain goes into overload and fries itself until it recovers of course right after the exam and you wonder how you could have been such a moron to mess up like that.
So I go in all ready for action. I was going to do all that I could with the patient in the hypothetical 5 minutes that I had. I choose the first relatively high surface I find to begin writing on. I go ahead with the questions and the patient quietly says " Doctor, do you mind my stomach, please?". I look down in horror to realize that the "high surface" I have chosen is the pregnant patient's belly and not a commode of some sort. Then again, you'd think I would find it suspicious that there's a commode sprouting out of the middle of the friggin' bed. *Facepalm*
It gets even worse when she answers one of my questions by saying "this is my tenth pregnancy, I've had nine miscarriages". She then adds with a glare " I hope this one works out!".

Now, where's that dude telling you to shift when you actually need him!?

Dr.Shrinking Violet is Currently Unable to Examine You...

There's something I can't wrap my head around these days (lol breaking news, I'm sure.); the fact that despite us being in our FINAL year of medical school, my colleagues (particularly the chicks) insist on acting like they're oh-so-embarrassed-to-be there when certain medical terms comes up in conversation. Here I'm referring to stuff that everyone else would understandably be too embarrassed to bring up while having lunch with friends; menstruation, scrotal examination, breast examination..etc.
I can understand people who haven't entered the deathtrap known as medical school going into mini-attacks of convulsions when I talk about unsavory topics like these with them (I'm so sorry Juka!) but seriously, other doctors-to-be (hopefully, someday) acting like I just said an especially heinous curse word is très annoying. Blushing in the middle of a PURELY scientific discussion about the dos and don'ts of the examination of a particularly sensitive area in the body(something we do at least TWICE weekly during our surgical rounds) is almost as bad for a med student as fainting at the sight of blood is. Seriously, you're going to be house officers next year. Unpleasant and often smelly situations will be the NORM.

Toughen the hell up or sit the f*** down, kids!

I despise falsely conjured modesty and hate that educated people choose to adhere to the relic -and in many situations- completely uncalled for behaviors deemed appropriate by their society just for the sake of appearances.

/rant off

One of my favorite songs (and videos) :

The Perfect Drug - Nine Inch Nails ( Lost Highway OST)

Incoming Call

It's amazing how people react to something they're not used to hearing...actually it's amazingly moronic.
Yesterday, I was sitting in the middle of a lesson and my cellphone rang ( I had forgotten to turn it off, as usual). The song I had on was Deep by Nine Inch Nails (one of my favorite bands ever). I had about 300 medical students either staring at me like I'm psychotic or giggling like little school girls who just learned -like omg! - how a baby is made.
I wasn't using the ringtone to make a "statement" but I just use whatever I have on my cellphone, which is naturally, whatever I listen to. O and I'm telling you now, if I ever have Nancy Ajram or Elissa blasting out of my phone at any given moment, you can help me pull the trigger and you don't even have to clean up after me. (No offense to people who like them)

Things I've learned from Medical School part III

In this edition...Procrastination and ridiculously inappropriate emotions.

Procrastination: I don't know how or why med students gained this bizarre reputation of spending most of their waking (and some of their sleeping) hours glued to their chairs , hard at work amidst all those text books. "Da7a7" is a particularly favorite term the populace use to describe us. I mean sure, we have insane amounts of work and very little time and/or energy left to do it after going through all those rounds and private lessons but guys...just cause we have a lot of work, doesn't mean we actually do it. Since I've started medical school, I've noticed that we've all developed terribly exciting hobbies like sitting around watching the clocks go by with our mouths agape (sometimes a little drooling , too) , walking around the house/streets , wildly gesticulating and wondering how we're supposed to pull this off or sitting in front of the television with our eyes empty and glazed and again with our mouthes hanging open. It doesn't matter what's on , as long as it's colorful , pretty and doesn't require 200 multiple choice questions to be solved right after while the material is still fresh. It's simple really, we have the time and yet we waste it. You could blame it on anxiety , avoidance , denial , low self-esteem or even perfectionism. Going through an educational system which stuffs massive and often useless amounts of information into your head and expects you to perfect it from A-Z will do that to you. Internal medicine for example is approximately 1000 pages and that's basically like studying a dictionary by heart but unlike a dictionary , at least 300 pages are full of crap that is never even applied clinically. Combine that with insane time tables that fit the university staff's social life and vindictive professors (I'm not sure who they're seeking revenge on exactly but apparently we're pretty high on that list .) who , you know , just for the heck of it decide to slam us with a test that's meant for someone hoping for a master's degree rather than a lowly undergrad ( not that even a postgrad student would pass it, mind you ). Ya know...just to stir things up a bit...cause a few riots in front of the dean's office , a few fainting spells in the middle of the tests or some simple mass hysteria. That sorta stuff.
The maximal form of procrastination , though is how at least 1/3 of a 1600 student class postpones a test each year for 3 months. I never really understood how it was O.K. for part of the class to take the test in September and the rest to take it in December with no consequences whatsoever. It was originally intended for situations like an illness , a death in the family..etc but now it really isn't all that necessary to have a good reason.You just pay a 100 pounds and that's it...3 extra months at your disposal. We all start the year together, know about the exams together , yet it's O.K. for some people to take tests later than others and still get the same treatment. It's O.K. to leave that back door open for those people who just can't get their act together on time. I know what panic attacks feel like and I know how it's like when you feel like you're likely to vomit if you read another word but is it healthy to promote this sort of mentality among people many of which are expected to make life or death decisions at a moment's call? Don't try to make sense of it..I've been trying for five years and I'm still not there yet.

Inappropriate emotions : I've been worried lately about the mental reactions I've been having. I'm not being dramatic when I say I think I'm slowly dying inside. It's like I'm being replaced by a cyborg known only as MS-11240820357. Just last week, while I was still recovering from the trauma of my four internal medicine exams and wondering how I'm supposed to get the energy to get through my pediatrics exam and then my orals and practicals, a friend of mine called and the following conversation took place :

Friend: I have some really bad news..
Me : omg..what ? ( my mother looks really concerned at this point because according to her , I turn a deathly pale)
Friend : "...." 's father passed away , yesterday.
Me : Omg , that's horrible (at this point...the color returns to my cheeks.)

It seems totally normal except that I turned pale because I thought that our IM results had come out early for some insane reason...BUT NO , it just turns out that a colleague's father has died instead and that was actually easier news to handle for me *HeadDesk*.

I was also at a practical lesson a couple of days ago for my pediatrics exam. A child the doctor was examining started to cry ( out of fear rather than pain, we don't torture little kiddies...not yet anyway) . You know what was going through my mind while the poor kid was crying ?? " Damn, what do I do if my "exam case" starts crying ?? I'm no good with kids anyway! " . YES, I know I'm a horrible person and I'm pulling out the gun out of the drawer as we speak to prevent myself from turning into a monster. ( or at least that's what I should be doing ..or you know, looking for a cliff or a really drunk driver or something.)

Thank you, Medical School ! Thank you!

O , I almost forgot... HAPPY EID EVERYONE! :D

Stating the Obvious

First of all, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy and Blessed Ramadan!

I obviously haven't been updating as often as I should because of how busy I've been for the past few weeks considering my finals are just *gulp* around the corner. I'm gonna have to take an official break from blogging for a while to spare you entries like these :

"It's been weeks now since I've seen other human beings, I'm hoping for help to come soon before it's too late."

"I keep seeing and hearing things late at night...I don't know whether it's all in my head or just all around me...the dark thing , it comes mostly at night"

"I can feel the dark thing getting nearer...I'm starting to lose hope that help will ever come. Now, no food or water either most of the time.."

"I keep seeing it in my sleep...and O GOD it's too horrible...and the worst thing is that it's inevitable!"

"It's here and ...and ...NOOoOOOoooOO!"

Yes...as you can see...I'm lotsa fun during my finals...you can even ask spellz...I stayed over a couple of nights recently and scared the crap outta the poor girl a few times while I was actually sleeping.
Like I said, I'm gonna take some time off till I at least finish my essay exams ( yeah yeah, no loss I know !) but I'll probably have some interesting stories to tell about my oral and clinical exams what with the extortionist/chronic patients who are going to be my exam topics and nepotism rearing it's ugly , shameless head all around med school especially around exam time.

Pray for me people , please! And Happy Ramadan once again.

See ya.

Quick Poll....I need help!!

SO I'm having a bit of a dilemma regarding my coffee habits, my studying and the fact that I'm being examined during Ramadan.

The facts are :

-I'm being examined Internal Medicine on 27/9 , 29/9, 1/3 and 3/3.
- All of these dates will be in Ramadan of course.
- I have a vicious addiction to all forms of caffeine especially during exam time when it seems like sleeping will simple make all the bad things go bye-bye.
-Considering the size of the subject matter, I'll start the "final revision" between 5th-7th of September. I use the word "final" very loosely.
-Ramadan will most likely be on the 13th of September and iftar will range between being at 6 to being at 7.
-I'm cranky and headachy every year during the first week of Ramadan because of caffeine withdrawal. I basically look like a cocaine addict in rehab.


So...



Much obliged, people ! :D

Greetings Earthlings

No , no. The fact that I haven't written anything in this blog isn't because of random experimental alien abduction. At least none that I know of ...but the truth is like, totally out there , dude.

Anyway, the fact is I had a couple of tests in the 2 colossal subjects I have this year ; internal medicine and pediatrics. They both sort of included the entire syllabus, yet strangely enough , they weren't my part of my finals which start in less than 6 weeks. Only in med school do we find this strange proliferation of exams until they make sure they've got you cornered for the entire summer.
In this past week I've discovered that my capacity for staying up multiple nights (till maybe 6 a.m.) with very little sleep is increasing. The fact that I'm walking into inanimate objects all day long is completely irrelevant. As long as I can read , the bruises are just fine. I've also noticed that late at night, around 3 a.m., I seem to recall every single horror movie I've seen and every horror book I've read (plenty of both). The secret to not freaking myself out is to keep making continuous noise. If I sit silently for too long, I start to think that maybe someone /something is whispering my name (something possibly *in the house*) and then ..and then , maybe I'll spot something (let say it's human-like but entirely black, with shiny yellow eyes and sharp colgate-smile-white teeth) grinning at me in the doorway which would probably prompt me to run into my parents room to ask for help except *gasp* , they've been transformed into flesh eating zombies (*braaaaaainssss*) and they're out TO GET ME....this is usually the point where I realize that it's time for another cup of coffee.
My finals start on the 27th of September insha2alah and continue to the first of November. Internal medicine is a 4 day test and before anyone (dares) to ask me the brilliant question : " like omigod, you actually stay there for like, 4 days? " ...No, we don't. It's Just so friggin' big that they decided to examine us 2-3 hrs everyday for 4 days till they run out of material. Did I mention that it'll be Ramadan, one with very long summer days, at the time? As Sue would say, O joy O joy...as my friend S.I. would say , cover me and cry. Our student union asked our Dean to push it back a couple of weeks but the comedian he is at heart , forced him to enthrall us with this line : "Why don't you ask the Mofti to push back Ramadan a couple of weeks..Neeyahahaha", to which medical students in houses around Cairo responded with a collective chant of " Burst into flames! Burst into flames!". The chant didn't work though, we were missing a vial of a virgin medical professor's blood.
We've got some black, black days ahead of us...

On a lighter note, you know that new Ahmed 7elmy movie, "keda reda"? Yeah..aha...don't see it. A friend convinced us to go see it yesterday after the exam , seeing as we could've used a few laughs and we ended up walking out of the movie before it ended. I don't know if it's the fact that I have a mild degree of depression but is the Egyptian threshold for cracking up getting lower by the minute? I wanted to grab the guy sitting behind me in the theater by the collar , shake him and ask him " What are you laughing about!? Huh? Huh? It's NOT funny, it's STUPID! Do you want to be a mindless baboon? Huh? *slap slap*Do you!?Do you!? ". He was well over six feet and looked like he was well-fed , so I decided against it.

I saw this song on scrubs (so typical, isn't it?) and I really like it :



Bub-bye, now.

Things I've learned from Med School (Part II) : Patience, my love.

In our blessed faculty’s hospital , known as el Demerdash (a governmental/university/teaching/really cheap and miserable for the most part hospital), you’ll find a huge display of human misery. It’s really one of the bleakest places I’ve ever been, particularly the children’s hospital which is always overcrowded.

When you’re in your 5^th yr of med school and you’re actually dealing with patients hands on, you realize with a great degree of shame that you’re intimidated by them. You actually perspire, tremble a little and wonder if you were really cut out for this when you have to perform an examination or even take their history.

Is it because we still haven’t gotten used to the idea that we’ll be dealing with human beings and not just answer sheets? Sure.

Is it because not an insignificant number of our professors will make fun of us at the smallest mistake in front of the entire round?

Well, sometimes. Depends on how resistant you are to ridicule really

Mainly though…It’s because Demerdash patients are professionals and I’m talking about the chronic patients especially. They know more than you do. Much more than you do. The thing is, someone say, with hepatitis or with a valve disease has been coming to this hospital for 10+ yrs. He’s listened to the professors talk and talk and talk in both rounds and in private lessons. So basically these patients have graduated from med school twice over. When you go up to one of them all full of the intention to act as ..errr…doctorly as possible, he/she gives you the complete scientific explanation of their condition and how to examine them(where to put your hand , how hard to press , which order to use..etc.). Naturally, you’re crushed and the idea of crawling into the foetal position in a corner somewhere doesn’t seem so bad considering what a silly little thing you actually turned out to be.

Ah yes... I remember my first sheet when the patient pointed out that I had forgotten to ask him his job and marital status and started to tell me point by point what to write about his disease and what not to write . I particularly remember how he said in the exact scientific (English) terms : “I had rheumatic fever when I was eight now I have a double mitral lesion and my father died of coronary heart disease “. I didn’t even know what a double mitral lesion was at that time. There are actually ones who taunt you when mess up something. Like a couple of weeks ago a cardiac patient asked me “ How do you expect to auscultate the femoral without palpating it first?" with a smirk and a sinister look from behind his glasses. “ Well um…I …um…know where it is already!” was all I managed.

Yes, great comeback , I know.

There are even famous patients who get phoned (via their cellphones or special patient “caterers”) in especially for exams and for lessons. These are usually the ones with textbook cases and clear enough cardiac murmurs or signs for our inexperienced ears and eyes or just really rare ones we usually expect to only hear about but never see.

This is all for a price, of course. Rounds are cheaper than lessons as expected ; an hour or 2 is a pound or 2 from each student making up about 40-60 pounds depending on the round each day. Lessons though are about 70 L.E / student for about 6-8 patients and there are roughly about 80 students per lesson. Exams though, well, now we’re talkin’! If you look gullible, a patient can actually squeeze over 150 pounds from you during an exam. There are stories about having to give up earrings and watches. I have even heard a girl actually got asked to give up her wedding jewelry during the exam. Why pay up? Well, there’s always the fear that the patient may give you the wrong information during history taking, therefore steering you away from the correct mode of examination or diagnosis. When your examiner spots something shady in your sheet and asks the patient to confirm, they of course say something completely different. There goes quite a chunk of your grade and your future plans.

Why,thank you very much Mr. Chronic patient sir.

I don’t know if this makes me sound cold-hearted or if the entire situation is too bizarre to make me sound otherwise. It’s like the people you go into medicine to try and help end up being the bane of your existence for the last 2 (and most crucial) years of your undergraduate studies. I don’t resent paying the money but I do resent being taken advantage of, I resent this entire system of teaching medicine and come to think of it, I resent having to feel resentment towards somebody with a chronic illness actually.

Good God, that was long…Ah , well …till next time !

SmartAss Teacher Syndrome

I’ve come to the conclusion that after a certain number of years, educators (whether teachers or professors) start to fall victim to the ridiculous assumption that just because they’ve seen a lot of "those kids” come and go, they can simply take a look at one of them and tell what they’re all about.

Generalizations, condescendence and even premonitions of what the bleak future of these students holds then ensue.

I don’t get it really, is there a particular elixir they hand out to you when you start teaching that gives you superhuman powers to see into the souls, hearts and minds of all you students? Don’t they realize that individuality and creativity are already weak on their own without their attempts while in a position of influence, to generalize characteristics which can’t possibly apply to every single kid in a classroom and that lumping us into categories that are easy to remember really diminish the possibilities of people reaching their full potential ? Why do they insist on continually drilling into our heads that we’re all “lazy”, “parrots”, “of diminished IQ”, “spoilt”, blah, blah , blah ..etc. etc. etc. since we’re children until we actually believe it and start calling each other the same. If teachers/professors aren’t supposed to give you a chance to show them what you’re truly made of without preconceived notions, who should?

Just last week, a certain dermatology professor decided that a student who showed up late wearing a baseball cap must have been a spoilt professor’s kid who only shows up to rounds when he has the time and really doesn’t have to work hard like everybody else. Well zippidee doo da , why didn’t I think of that when I saw him? I mean since it’s so obvious and everything *snicker*. He actually said all this after the guy left and I’m not sure if he realized that instead of agreeing with him we all thought he was either an (a) manic depressive (b) moron (c) both. Then he proceeded to point out how we’ve all become lazy, students with no goals or motives. Um , yeah….we all give off the exact same vibe I’m sure. So he not only made several completely ridiculous assumptions but actually managed to project himself as an asshole thus losing all respect we had for him. I’m not expecting him to get to know us each intimately but if he doesn’t even make the effort with a few of us then he should just (in the words of the great common man) stick his tongue back in his mouth, shut up and teach.
We don’t need your assumptions, your mundane theories about life, your clever clever attempts at sarcasm. Just do your job and let us do ours and we’ll both be better off ,believe me.

I'm still alive barely...

I just had to mention that I didn't abandon my lil' cyber blob or anything. I just had a test which went swimmingly well! ( lol, is it obvious that I'm lying? what gave it away? was it "swimmingly"?).
Actually,this week sucked like no other: studying for the test, the flu, throwing up, my mother and I arguing for the umpteenth time..lotsa fun. THEN I go in to one of our resident crazy cat ladies/professors to be tested on an X-ray that was actually not black and white but a pale sickly GREEN. Yes, ladies and gentlemen green. I walked around the room for about 10 mins looking for any source of light that made it viewable but to no avail. She looked pissed off...and she wasn't lookin' very pretty all pissed off like that, especially in that shitty lighting. Then the day ends in a magnificent sandstorm. By the time I got home, I had sand in my eyes, my mouth, my throat, my hair (my friends in dermatology kept joking about how it looked like pediculosis/ lice infestation...ha-ha guys, real comedians the lot of you), my clothes and my toes. This is turning out to be a lovely week :S...

Anyway, here's Mika's Love Today...I've been humming it for about a week now:

Too. Many. Babies

In today's round, I was responsible for taking the patient's sheet. It was a case of marasmus which is basically a condition where there's generalized protien and carbohydrate malnutrition causing retarded growth and mental development in children.
By the time I was finished I had a very strong desire to strangle the mother. Why? Well...
this baby had 3rd degree marasmus which is the highest degree and is characterized by something called "senile facies" meaning he looked like an old man. He had every possible complication I've ever read regarding this disease ; recurrent gastric infections, dehydration, chest infections, ear infections, retarded physical (13 months old and 5.5 kg ,half the normal weight for his age), retarded mental growth (incapable of producing sounds even), ulceration in his mouth and tongue, ulceration in his eyes (he might go blind) , ulceration all over his skin and the weakest cry I have ever heard. According to one of my colleagues , he looked like he was "on vacation from the grave". To top it all off, he was a single child. I mean, what degree of negligence does it take for this to happen ??? The mother looked like she had come to terms with the idea that he was dying , she couldn't remember details about what happened to him , she was most definitely not honest about his history (stuff like this just doesn't happen spontaneously) and according to her, the father is unemployed.

I'm sorry if I sound like a Nazi but for the love of GOD, if you are incapable of supporting a family, why start one?
If you are incapable of raising a child and giving him the love and care he deserves ,why have one?

May God forgive me for saying this, but some people should have their tubes tied at birth. Human life is not a trivial matter. Neglected children are already all over the place , who eventually breed more neglected children. Why ? For what purpose?
It's not just about poverty either, Rich people breed some of the worst creatures roaming this Earth. Rich kids are even worse sometimes because despite all the opportunities give to them, they can still turn out to be selfish , arrogant , useless people. But parents always play a role in them turning out the way they do IMHO.

Birth control is cheap, God damn it. It should be used more often!! If every baby was wanted and if every baby was born to loving and responsible parents , there wouldn't be so many evil , wretched and miserable people in the world right now.

Besides, in a religious country like ours (whether you're Christian or Muslim) , why do people insist on breeding so much when orphanages are filled to their limit? Instead of having three kids, why not have 2 kids and give one orphan a family (as long as you can actually support 3 kids emotionally & financially) ? (And I'm not talking about adoptiing him/her , changing his/her name..just giving them a home)

We're already one of the most overpopulated countries ( the root of a lot of our problems IMHO) in the world , I shudder to think what the streets will look like during rush hour in 10 yrs or so....

--- This is what a marasmic child looks like, this is what I saw today...