A Dose of PFC

Six full months glided by unnoticed. Having finished two clinical rotations (surgery and OB-GYN) and community medicine, we're halfway to finishing medical clerkship!! Whoah! Another blink of an eye and we're done, InshaAllah. Clerkship is not just about learning the disease processes in actual setting, for me, it is more about learning to mingle, adjust and deal with all different kinds of people. For the first three years of med school, we are mostly confined in the four corners of the room discussing what is it out there in the hospitals. Reading and re-reading our books alone and an occasional glimpse of patients. Until clerkship officially started, we wouldn't know what it is really like out there. It is a harsh environment, I tell you, and three full years in med school is not sufficient enough to get fully prepared of what's to come. As if everyone is awaiting, possessing that urgent desire to grill and roll you in the dust. However, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. We emerged  unscathed. Alhamdulillah. For the past six months, clerkship taught me to cultivate three important traits.

PATIENCE

All my life I believed that I was patient enough to handle all kinds of pressure blowing from all varieties of people I stumble upon. I believed I was well-adjusted and pliant enough. Until all the physical and intellectual fatigue accumulated, I felt like bursting, screaming, ranting and weeping like a baby. I was at the brink of deterioration. I blamed some undesirable people who unjustifiably wanting to make our lives miserable as a form of revenge of what might take place in the future. Knowing that outrageous actions won't help which might even contribute to some demerits, the best thing to do is holding back the tongue to avoid nasty, irrevocable words. Calm down and ask for guidance to the Almighty to help you think the next best thing to do. 

FAITH

Every single day in the hospital is an unexpected and unplanned scenario. Nobody knows what's gonna happen next, no options are presented but quick actions and equanimity are required. One has to trust his instinct and just have faith that everything's gonna be okay. With faith, that feeling at the end of the day as you go out of the hospital premises without toxic patient left in the ward, or without ER or ward death at your 24-hour watch is superb!!

COMPASSION

ALL patients--rich or poor--share something in common: pain. They're not whiny attention-seeker brats but are in great need to relieve discomfort they're feeling. And if there's another thing I understand, watchers are not getting any OA but they're somebody's loved ones who care utterly and would entirely give anything to free their dearest from the pain. To be able to manage a patient effectively, one has to put himself in the patient's shoes. The way you want to completely relieve your discomfort is exactly the way your patient does want it.

For the next six months, I pray that I may apply these things I learned about myself as well as apply and master the medical theories I have learned and will continue to be learning. I also pray that the relationship I have with the people around me will continue to be healthy and constructive rather than destructive. I am trying to make my everyday life in the hospital a fun and memorable learning experience so that one day, as I look back, residual happy memories that paints a beautiful smile will come flashing on my mind. 

REALIZATION: We're halfway through clinical clerkship!! Alhamdulillah. Pediatrics, Internal Medicine and Ancillary then we're done. Six more months to go!!

Pintados

Last night, my friends and I decided to go to Mugna for the last stretch of our Community Medicine rotation as we will be plunging into the hospital officially starting on Monday for Pediatrics. Mugna is a mini-carnival set up only during the Dinagyang Festival here in Iligan City which will be on the last week of September. All throughout my med school years here in this city, I've never involved myself for the fiesta. Most likely because I used to lock myself in my room and take advantage of the spare time to advance on my readings. Talk about not having a life. Now this time, before I leave the portals of this city I thought of experiencing things that I can reminisce when the batch reunion comes. There's so many things one can see at Mugna, there are ukay-ukay and DVD shops, the rides (er, not the EK or Disney-type rides you were imagining), some carnival games like shooting and toss-a-coin, illusion make-believes (which we figured right then and there was all mirror tricks!!), food stands (read: balut and mani), and lovers smooching around. Mugna is a place to satisfy our shallow alter-egos. Since I want something that will remind me of last night, I had my dorsal foot impulsively painted with henna tattoo!! 

This is the wild child in me talking!! Yeah, I do crazy stuff like having my upper ear lobe pierced only because my Taiwanese pop star crush has many piercings!! Which reminds me of him when we were making our scrapbook and found a photo of him in one of the pages of a magazine dated seven years ago. I can't help but cut it out and paste it near my photo. I hope my groupmates didn't notice!! Harhar!!

KEN ZHU!! I haven't had an update about him for ages!!

This is my most favorite page in our ComMed scrapbook. I love its sunshiny and balloon theme!! Of course, I made it. Heehee. :)

Goodbye Community Medicine. You've taught us unity, cooperation, patience, compassion and you've strengthened and deepened the friendship among the group. Our two-month immersion is an unforgettable one. Thank you, Purok 6 Tambacan for playing a significant role in our med school years. :)

Group Four Clerks at the Brgy. Tambacan Health Center

The Roads Less Traveled

I believe each and every person has a dream career. Others maybe fortunate to be living their dreams, some are still trudging the rough road towards it, while others may still be under the tree dreaming and waiting until the fruit falls effortlessly straight into his mouth. I belong to the second category hopeful that in a few hundred days, I'd be on the first category poking stethoscope and doling out meds. However, I have secret dream careers that made me that person described in the third category. I only dream about it because doing something to make it into a reality is ridiculous. Nevertheless, I don't lose hope and truth be told, the images of me doing these things won't stop flashing over and over in my mind. :)

1. A Travel Show Host 

Photo courtesy of Google. This is the heading of ABS-CBN's travel show.

How marvelous it is to be traveling with an all-expense paid trip!! It wouldn't feel like working plus you get to see spectacular sights, taste saliva-inducing foods, experience staying at some five-star hotels, enjoy the luxury of being treated as VIP and of course being enviably seen on TV all for free!! Haha! I know it's not gonna happen to me, UNLESS, I'll launch my own travel show. Which means, I'm gonna be the one to pay for everything!! Argh, not a good idea.

2. A Model

Photo courtesy of stylecovered.com

This probably must have resulted from too much reading teen magazines way back high school 'til undergrad and now fashion blogs. Now, getting thin seems like an impossible dream for me including growing a few inches taller too. Ouch. But I love looking at muslim fashion blogs like that photo above. It reflects that modeling and fashion is not all about showing too much skin. Perhaps, if I take my dieting seriously then I can create my own fashion blog too which might launch me a career!! Haha! Find that ridiculous? Yeah, me too. But hey!! That kinda ignites an idea in here.

How about you, if you're allowed to take a slight detour, what would that be?

The Swan

One of my childhood fascination was ballet. I loved how ballet dancers gracefully move their body like a perfect swan. With every turn of their body, swaying of their arms, and the stretching of their legs all the way to their toes brings admiration to my feisty eyes. The ballerina's slim and slender figure which perfectly fits their outfit adds to my adoration. Like any fantasizing little girl, I wanted to be like them. However being a Muslim in a Meranao society, that is outrageous and I knew it will never come true. But I'd be very honest to say that I still dream about it. Probably I will never become one as my bones hardened already, with every turn and twist might cause me fracture but my future little girls can have all the chance to dance ballet as long as their hearts are into it. And I would be very happy to accompany them to their rehearsals and performances. :)

Photo courtesy of google.com.

Behind Those Rusty Bars

From inside the jail.

The City Health Office tapped us yesterday morning to perform a physical examination among the convicts who will be transported to a bigger jail in Davao City. They were proven guilty of their charges, hence, the transfer. Among them was Amir (not his real name), who was allegedly charged with carnapping. I did some little chit-chat regarding his case while listening to his lungs and heart, taking his BP and in between asking health-related questions. Apparently, he was accused along with a companion who was killed by the plaintiff's camp. He's been here for two years already. He's married with four children, the eldest being seventeen, under the care of their mother at a certain province in Lanao del Sur. His family seldom visits him probably due to the distance. I asked if they are informed of his transfer, he bowed and shake his head. Tears welled up in his eyes trying not to break down, I asked something else to prevent him from being emotional. The expression on his face pierced my heart, as if he has been forgotten due to the shame and humiliation he brought to the family the moment he stepped inside the jail. He's going to suffer for the next seventeen years of his life behind the bars at a place hundred miles away from his loved ones. I cannot imagine the excruciating pain his family experiences with his absence. Such mishap will forever mark in their hearts. 

While it is good that justice is being served, we should be reminded that criminals are human beings too who should enjoy equal rights. If not for psychiatric condition, they must have done the act due to excessive need such as poverty. I hope the victims are vindicated now and may the criminal serve as an example to the rest of the members of his family they they must not emulate.

(L-R): Abby, Ate Agnes, Dr. Glenn Manarpaac, Sheng, Jhalil. Me at the back.
Taken at the Office of the Warden

PROJECTION.

It's when you assume and one hundred percent positive that other people committed the same mistakes that you did and told the same lies that you said. Probably because you can hardly admit to yourself your mistakes, much less realize that you're the only person who did those. Until you cannot resolve your repressed issues, you try to drag other people in the mud so you won't be left alone badly stained, or so you think. And then you try to cover your stinky lies with sugarcoated ones. Your lies cannot contain themselves, they bulge but people are not blind to not notice. 

And voila!! You're the talk of the town.

Congratulations for your ill-gotten fame!

I pity you. I'm sorry. 

Meeting An "Old" Friend For The Second Time.

We meet friends on the road of life, we meet them as early as the moment we learned to crawl. They could be our neighbor, our classmate in school, a family friend, a colleague, an org-mate, someone we sat beside the bus, or someone we've heard their names of. We befriend people we met in person. However in the 21st century, we can have virtual friends---those we meet through SMS or through the world wide web. Haven't tried the former though, but gaining friends online didn't hurt. When the social network Friendster's popularity was at its summit, I gained plenty of friends including from outside the Philippines especially there were very few "real friends" of mine who had an FS account then when I first joined the social network. Then, I started blogging more than five years ago and gained some readers, some were "real friends" some were new. Blogging allowed me to share bits and pieces about myself even to strangers, and reading theirs too made me feel like we've met a long, long time ago. The world is indeed so small because little did we know that those people we met online can somehow be related to us by blood or can be a friend's friend. 

Just like Nimai, I met her through my Multiply account. I remember when she first added me, I thought she was my friend Ni'ma because aside from the rhyming of their names, her thumbnail photo has some resemblance with my friend. When I read her page, turned out she's a whole different person I never knew. Like I said, it doesn't hurt to meet new people so we read each other's entries. We dropped comments at each other, found some common interests and common friends as well. Until I learned we exist in the same city as she's an accountancy major in MSU-IIT. This girl don't just have a pretty face but she has a brain that totally rocks!! Late last year, she went to the States for a short course through the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program. Prior to that, she borrowed a book from me (The Zahir) and that was the first time that we met and had a short talk. It was a very brief meeting as we were both in a hurry. Then she flew to the United States. She came back last June but I wasn't able to arrange a date since that was my OB-GYN days at GTLMH. Earlier this week, she tweeted me and asked about my vacant time and pronto! we set the time and place!! We had a long conversation like we were old friends!! 

Iftar at Peek 'n Berry. Not until we noticed that the restaurant was closing on us, we wouldn't stand to finally go home. :)

She returned my book added with extra post card from Massachusetts and an antibacterial hand sanitizer from VS, which I think of just keeping and not using. :)

This is what she wrote on the card.

You're so welcome Nimzy!! My bookshelf is open for you (feeling ko rin marami akong libro eh 'no? LOL.) You know you're awesome!! InshaAllah, we can achieve our dreams. Go rock the world, girl!!

On the other hand,

My buddy Juey, who is also a great fan of Jane Austen and her book Pride and Prejudice, got her attention caught by this book. She lend it to me. So I guess I gotta fast-read this one as I need to get back to my med books. We'll be saying hello to Pediatrics in two weeks' time, hence, I gotta make the most out of my "vacaye" days. :)