MY SUMMER DIARIES: SUMMER TRAINING

Hellllllllllooo folk. Missed me? Cause I sure did. First I gotta tell you that alhamdulellah I passed my exams and I'm now officially a sixth year medical student. OB/GYNE was a bit tough and quite heavy subject to end the year with, compared to those who finished with anesthesia, psychiatry or elective course the luckiest ppl of the year!

Let's have a quick review over fifth year. Shall we ? The first thing I was hoping for at the beginning of the year is to start with a light subject that doesn't include an oral exam. Guess what? It was light but my group was the first one to have an ORAL and the most jinxed one when it comes to marks!! after spending about 2 years -as I recall the doctors telling us so- in just creating the study guide, Unfortunately, the course was a total miss. But to be fair it was quite useful. Then we spent 2 weeks with anesthesia and critical care course. All what I can say is: "ALLAH AL-MOSTA3AN!!!!!" bs I really enjoyed it. On the other hand, Psychiatry was surprising. Cause I thought it's gonna be depressing deadly boring course but it wasn't. it was refreshing and very interesting. When we were done with them all, pediatrics and OB/GYNE were hiding loads of surprises. Not very good ones I must say. Not gonna talk about Peadz for a I have mentioned it briefly before in a previous post, but in short it was bad. in contrast, I was utterly excited and fascinated from the very first day of OB/GYNE. I got bored in the middle of the course though. I blame my bipolar personality .. or it could be my depressed personality actually, because all my energy was consumed to the last drop by the end of the year and I was struggling trying to enjoy and benefit the rest of the course.

It was one hell of a year. We were crashed .. oppressed .. experimented on or lab rats (the famous pet name of my class) but we fought back trying to take the upper hand. We won some battles and lost the others but the war hasn't come to an end yet .. It is still on. The fact that we survived and became stronger than ever is the greatest victory in my opinion. And by stronger I mean we've become more independent, more mature, more mindful of our rights and have learned how to adopt with their actions expecting the worst trying to prevent it. I know .. it sounds medieval, but this is the fact that we have to face. > > > (Game of Thrones) effect LOL :P

Anyhow, summer vacation has started adding some fun to my dim life. I was planning on having a summer training at King Fahd General Hospital in the surgery department. Actually me and my friends wanted internal medicine, but it was already full cause we were a bit late to apply. Lucky us, every year some of the already registered students drop out. so there were some spots for us at our desired department after all. Our training was for 2 weeks of which I only missed 3 days. Surprisingly, I didn't do that just because I was bored like I used to do with OB/GYNE, I had quite strong reasons. One of them is that I had to take my father to ER because he had an accident when he was in Egypt few days before I started my training. He neglected his injuries so his condition had deteriorated since then. Thanks God he's much better now, but still need orthopedics consultation.

The first week was a bit boring, unorganized, lifeless and certainly not much educational. The second week on the other hand was exciting. although that I attended only 3 days, but I learned a lot! We were lucky to have Dr. Abed with us. A very nice, simple and down-to-earth doctor. He was so kind with us -the students- and even to the interns and residents. He was so eager to teach us as much as he can and didn't save an effort to do that. He made it his job to let each one of us observe important findings and perform the proper clinical examination on a variety of patients with good clear findings. He never made us feel inferiors or dumps. have I mentioned also that he is so funny and has a huge sense of hummer?! I Wish that you could hear his laugh, you won't be able or it would be very difficult to hold your self not laugh on him too. Me and the girls wanted so much to record his laugh, but we thought it would be mean and impolite so we refrained. Such a great doctor that we will always be grateful to. we spent 3 days with Dr. Abed attending rounds. Then we were supposed to switch with other girls to be with a different doctor. But again, the whole process wasn't well organized. So we ended up with no supervising doctor. Me and my other two friends decided among us to attend the clinics since we've never been to one before. We were lucky to attend the clinics with the chief doctor of internal medicine At KFGH and his buddy. Both of them are known for their decent reputation and for being one of the best respectful doctors in the hospital. That made us feel a bit .. mmm .. Ok .. scared A LOT!!! But in the same time excited and tuned. It was a challenging experience, having seen more than 30 patients over 3-4 hours trying to reach a diagnosis .. make the right decision or even checking their conditions and following up with them all that in only 5 - 10 minutes. The process is pretty much exhausting that the doctors kept telling us and the nurses that they are about to lose their tempers. I feel for them for I have witnessed a fraction of their given hard work. It's a very enriching and exciting experience and most certainly VERY rewarding. I loved how almost every patient was showing their gratitude by praying for us with the most kind and grateful words a person can ever receive and hear. It tickled me and warmed my heart for patients encouraging me to do my best to become a good physician in the future.

By the end of the second week, Me and my friend Mariam missed the last day of the training because we had to be at King Abdulaziz Hospital aka "Al-Mahjar" to renew our BLS certificate. We needed to do that in the present time, because in sha'a Allah we're planning on serving Pilgrims during the holy month of Ramadan at ( The Holy Mosque ) by providing them with good and necessary medical care whenever they need. I think it's a great opportunity to apply some of the basic medical knowledge that we have gained through the past years in med school. Beside, we would be serving a noble cause and gaining (Ajr) in the same time. What could be better than that?! =)

Aside from gaining knowledge, we have met a couple of new girls from different colleges and places such Russia. We blended with each other, but to tell you the truth I didn't warm up to any of them. I dunno why, but me, Mariam and Zainab couldn't swallow their attitudes. there was also a couple of male students. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm a racist or have something against them, but they were obnoxious too and we couldn't befriend them or even blend in a professional way. A9ln the situation was a bit weird and kinda uncomfortable. Because we -the girls- over numbered them by far. We were like 17-18 girls against 3 boys!!!! So when we were devided into 4 teams, there was 1 male in each group. At first, the air was filled with awkwardness and we kept asking our selves whether we should befriend the poor guy or not? how should we act? Should we include him in our small talks or discussions? .. it was really awkward. But then, he seemed to be so .. mmm.. what's the word?! huhh (cold) and one can also see a glimpse of arrogance in him. So we decided to semi ignore the guy. Whenever he seemed interested, he was welcome to join our small talks. Sometimes he seemed reluctant with a glimpse of shyness and other times he seemed totally the opposite - y3ny faj2atn yed5ol 3ar9' o yel98 feeky bdaraja mo 6abee3eyya!!!!.

One small thing I loved about this training is that I felt like I was spending my time in something useful instead of just being asleep for 12 hours or watching movies or TV shows 24\7. Believe me it gets boring at some point.

pshewww.. that was one long boring post. I wont blame you if you decide to stop reading and go. I just needed to get out of the routine I'm living every day and get my a** off the bed .. see you in another summer diary in sha'a Allah.





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