No More Surgery For Me
This is a sad day for UAE. May god have mercy on the soul of late Shk Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and grant him eternity in Heaven inshalla.
Life as a surgical intern is one of the most testing experiences of a doctor’s career. I am glad to say that my four months of work in surgery came to an end. I do not wish for any of my beloved ones to go through the same ordeal. I am now working in psychiatry which is quite a different experience. A beautiful thing about psyche is that it makes me appreciate how good my own life is by studying how miserable other people’s lives are.
I made lots of mistakes and made lots of friends. Everybody make mistakes. I have seen very senior figures in the profession making mistakes. You learn to move on.
A mistake I will always remember
Short haired, tanned, smiling, pleasant but frail lady in her 70s will always stick in my mind. She was admitted under our care for few days for investigation of a number of strange seemingly unrelated symptoms. Once we got her immediate problems fixed, there was a strong suspicion that she had a nasty cancer and we started investigations with this in mind. Now, Doctors take refuge in tests in a variety of ways. The obvious one is that you do your tests to aid you in your diagnosis, which you should already have in mind before requesting the test. You can also do tests when you haven’t a clue what is going on - otherwise known as “throwing the text book at your patient”. Or, you can run tests when you know what the diagnosis is but you wish that you are wrong. Or you can run tests to have a written proof, a document in hand to blame when you tell your patient they have a terminal illness and they are likely to die very soon. Our lady didn’t know the main suspect for her problems is cancer. If we are right, then she does not have long to go. We may have mentioned it in the passing but never properly emphasizing it. One morning, a week into her admission, she asked me what she was being investigated for. My heart sank as we now have to explain. Next morning, her body gave up and she died. We were beaten by her cancer and this was inevitable. We were also beaten but our selfishness and inability to confront the things we fear. We failed to give this lady a chance to talk to her family, tell them her last wishes, say her sorries and good byes, and wrap up the remaining lose ends of her life. Had we told her she probably had terminal cancer, she may have been better prepared to go.
I am filled with envy to read that kitten and uaeadorable are both doing their master degree. One day when I grow up, I want to do an MBA or EMHCA. MD would be nice too, but I think I will leave that for when I become old and wrinkly.
New year resolution:
1.Get out more and do more exercise.
2.Post in my journal more.
3.Catch up with old friends.
4.Get my business up on its feet.
5.Get a D-SLR and do more photography.
6.Do more diving (and get a new logbook).
7.Find out more about my ancestors and my genetic journey.
8.Pull this together.
January 5th, 2006 at 4:14 am
Welcome back.
Surgery & Psychiatry - eh? You must have a fair share of interesting stories there. Though I doubt we’ll be hearing much of the latter due to its confidential nature.
Re:resolution no. 5 - I recently read an article reviewing a few D-SLRs, amongst which the Nikon D70 got the highest rating. Just thought I’d share that.
January 5th, 2006 at 4:52 am
I can’t believe you finally posted something.. FINALLY!!
Allah yr7am Sh Maktoom oo y’3ammed roo7ah eljanneh ~ameen..
That was such a touching experience about the old lady.. I guess like they always say.. we learn things the hard way..
You are already accomplishing alot with being a doctor *mashallah* 3eqbal more & more accomplishments.. I know you can do it! ;)
Your new year resolutions sound good.. you better stick to them.. especially more posting & photography!
January 5th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Welcome back!
Your blog is one of the first that I ever read - and I’ve missed your posts.
You have a great list of resolutions - we also propose to do more diving this year.
Happy New Year - and may all your resolutions come true.
regards
nzm
January 5th, 2006 at 9:09 am
Welcome back and wish you all the best in 2006. The old lady did have the right to konw what was wrong with her, but I think that everything went too fast and she was a little bit too unlucky.
January 7th, 2006 at 12:15 am
Firebrand, long time ago when i was young and foolish, i bought a canon SLR and stocked up with loads of lenses and equipment. Now, i can either switch to grown-ups Nikon, or stick to my Canon so that I can use my stuff on the new camera. I think i am going to stick with Canon.
There are litraly hundrades of interesting stories that we come across in hospital everyday. I am going to write my impression of them every so often.
Kitten, swap BSc/MBChB for your EMBA?
Blue_Chi, the story actually is more sticky in my mind because I remember pounding on this poor lady’s chest trying to get her heart to kickstart again, thinking - “she should get more timem she should get more time” when we had instructions to stop what we were doing and let her go, because it was not appropriate.
nzm, where do you do your diving? groups?
January 7th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
welcome back bro, its been a very long time since you last updated. Regarding the old lady story, I believe she did have the right to know about her condition. I guess you hate being a doctor when you go such incidents >.
January 8th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
I’ve just bumped into your blog by chance.. and I’m so glad I did..
I luvd the way you reasoned and explained things using your scientific knowledge..
I read some of your previous posts but not all (ma la77agt) and I’m impressed!!
and it’s very cool that you’re interested in computers but ur a doctor..
About this old lady, I’ve heard a lot of stories like that, and I think they have the right to know their medical condition. It’s heartbreaking that she didnt get the chance to say her goodbyes!
And goodluck with your resolutions..!
January 9th, 2006 at 8:31 am
ahh, been waiting for you to post for a while. Medicine is a very demanding career.
Very sad for the old lady too. But I suppose you and your colleagues didn’t realise time was so short.
Take care and all the best in the rest of the year. Hope your resolutions become reality.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Salamz there,
I was just thinking about the old lady and I thought that maybe not knowing she is dying was better for her, I know most people would find it stupid but here is what I think. Maybe she didn’t need to say Goodbye and such but needed to spend her last hours in peace. If she knew she is going to die, with every breathe she will be thinking if she might live to breathe one more time, not knowing she is dying meant she spent the last few hours feeling okay and optimistic about the future, which either ways she won’t have the power to change.
I know this might make none sense but there are two possibilities to the situation, and this is one of them.
Eid Mubarak and good luck in your life and career.
- MJ
January 10th, 2006 at 9:33 am
welcome back e3ashig ..i thut u’ll never blog again !!
its been ages since u last blogged and its nice to hear from you agian =)
a very sad story ..it happened almost everyday ..and the worse thing is that when u cant diagnose the case! what will you tell the patient? you dont know,, neither the consultant knows!
god bless you..
January 10th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
We dive mostly with the Pavilion Dive Center in Dubai - but mostly we just book through them to dive off a dhow in the Musandam - out of Dibba on the east coast.
We’re hoping to also dive with the team from the Golden Tulip Hotel in Khasab, Oman when it gets warm again - they go out to the Strait of Hormuz and see some big stuff - mantas, turtles, whale sharks - one guy even saw a submarine go past him! :-)
We’ve also dived with Oman Dive Center in Muscat - very good outfit.
So, as you can see, we dive mostly with dive centers. It limits us in some ways, because we have to go where they choose, but often that’s also a plus because they know where the best sites are and what is best for the conditions.
We try not to dive in the gulf off Dubai - the visibility is not good - that’s an understatement!
January 11th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
atlast u gave us a long awaited update!
God bless.
January 13th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
My eyes twinkled with pleasure as I noticed this new update! Yipee :)
I’ve recently read an article in New Woman magazine about “retraining”. It explained how most of us enter college at a naive stage in our lives and sometimes end up choosing the wrong major and the career that doesn’t tap into our best skills and innate talents.
It also gave examples of women who retrained from air hostess to professional photographer, lawyer to dietician, teacher to PR professional, etc. Changing your area of expertise shouldn’t be shunned upon. On the contrary, you’ll end up giving your best damn work because you love it, you savor every sweat until you fulfill your purpose.
I highly recommend the book “From the Edge of the Couch” by Dr. Raj Persaud; which gives some fascinating case studies of psychological problems and solutions.
I, myself, am going through this gruelling self-realization of retraining. Hmm! Not easy!
It’s great that you have an ‘06 to-do-list; man - you need more work-life balance :) Cheers.
January 13th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
It’s very very good to hear from you again. allah ywafjk.
August 1st, 2007 at 6:58 pm
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