Reminders...

Salam..

A lady with alpha one anti-trypsin deficiency who is struggling to breath properly & is waiting for a lung transplant...

A young boy admitted under section 12 (child protection) whose father hang up on the Garda (police) when they called him..

A nice elderly man whom I admitted but arrested & passed away the next morning..

A very polite elderly man who would be delighted every time I saw him but was struggling to speak as he is dysphasic (having difficulty to speak) from CVA/stroke..

They were some of the patients whom I met recently..

As I was listening to the lady's chest, I thanked Allah for giving me the chance to breath with no difficulty..

As I was waiting with the boy to get his x ray done, I thanked Allah for giving me a loving family who is always there for me..

As I finished doing CPR, I thanked Allah for still giving me the chance to live..

As I was waving good bye to the very nice man was going to be transferred to hospice, I thanked Allah for giving me a good health..

And there is just so much more that I am thankful for... Alhamdulillah..

This morning, a patient of mine told us a story, about how scared she was for having to go for a brain surgery.. It was in the 1970's.. her husband couldn't be there for her as he was working to get some money for the surgery & her mother lived far away.. and there were no mobile phones at that time...

Before going into the surgery, she asked the surgeon tearfully, 'Will you please make sure that I'll be alive for my husband & my mother?'

And the surgeon touched her nose and say, 'Hey baby doll, pray to God.. pray hard that He will guide my hands'... And she did...

I pray that my job will always keep me closer to my Creator.. Ameen..

Till we meet gain..

Sweet tooth..

Salam..

For the past week my husband & I both have been unwell - fever, sore throat, myalgia, flu.. and poor appetite.. although we are not yet fully recover, we are much better now.. Alhamdulillah..

For the past few days we have been eating porridge, soup, and then porridge again.. and then porridge & soup.. and soup again;p hehe.. and only yesterday I cooked something other than porridge & soup..

As my appetite is recovering, I just felt like eating a delicious moist chocolate cake with delicious chocolate toppings.. *drooling*.. as it is not easy to find a halal & nice choc cake here, the only viable quick solution was to make it myself.. so, my quest for a nice recipe begun.. but I didn't spent much time hunting for a recipe merely because my appetite said we must make the cake ASAP! (I remember the time I had dengue fever, once my appetite was back, I was really, really hungry for rice, like I have been starving for a month! - no joke)..

The recipe that I tried yesterday was the famous moist choc cake by Bebop.. you can just google the name, and you'll find the recipe easily.. the cake was supposed to be steamed but my steamer isn't big enough.. so I baked instead using waterbath technique.. the cake turned out fine.. a bit too muddy for me though.. maybe I wasn't following the instructions properly.. but it was ok and it was an easy cake to make.. and more importantly, my stomach is happy! burpp.. Alhamdulillah:)

Enjoy the pics!

Pardon the mess.. (both inside and outside the dish..;p) - who cares, I just wanna eat;)

A missing slice (already in my stomach!;p)

C'ya next time, insyaAllah!

p/s: why do they call it sweet tooth?? doesn't really make any sense... teeth don't have any taste.. sweet taste buds? haha..;p

Another year ending..

Salam..

Looks like my blog is very dusty now.. ok, where's my vacuum cleaner.. let's clear all the dust away;p

Much has happened since my last entry.. my parents & not-so-baby brother were here for 3 weeks (although it felt like just a week!).. we went to Spain for a week & we had a blast there! lots of stories to tell but am not in the mood of story-mory right now:) let us leave that for another time.. ;)

I don't really have anything particular to write about.. just wanted to have a post for the last day of 2010.. another year is indeed ending.. I'm not particularly crazy about celebrating new year.. but I do have resolutions for the new year.. I think I will just keep them to myself.. ;) I hope whatever our new year resolutions are, the ultimate goal is fauzul a'dzim..

Allah has promised to the believers -men and women, - Gardens under which rivers flow to dwell therein forever, and beautiful mansions in Gardens of 'Adn (Eden Paradise). But the greatest bliss is the Good Pleasure of Allâh. That is the supreme success.

Have a good year ahead, biiznillah!

Off work..

Salam..

The past few months have been particularly hectic for us.. I was working again for about 3 months, from 2nd week of July up till last week.. to be honest I did enjoy working again (although the were times I was stressed out at work & wished that I wasn't working but overall I did enjoy coming back to work;p)..

One of the reasons that I thought made my working days much enjoyable & bearable was the crazy super cool team! yes,we were crazy! I really love the team.. from my SpR to the interns (and of course my already well-known nice consultant!:)), we were having so much fun together! my SpR is super nice & easy-going (& 'mad'.. hehe.. sorry Jude!);p.. the other SHOs are all great craic - Barry, Andrew, Anne & Geraldine.. the interns (Peter & Brid) are super hardworking & crazy too! together, we did went nuts;p haha.. It just made the days easier & way less stressful with great colleagues! the last week I was working was the week of the NCHDs changing teams.. so we bade goodbye to Barry, Peter & Brid (actually Brid was already off sick since a few weeks earlier).. & welcomed the new members of the team - Marie, Ciara & Aoibhinn (they are super cool too!).. it was great working with them & I do miss all of them.. to be honest, I was sad leaving the team.. I thank Allah for giving me the opportunity to work with such a great team!

In the 3 months of working, I just had a week holiday together with my dear husband.. and in most weeks, we rarely did spend much time together.. there were weeks that I got to speak to him just in the car on my way going to or coming back from work (that was just a 5-minute journey!).. so I'm really looking forward for our next holiday together..

Maldives.. keep on dreaming of going there for a holiday..;)

Our next destination definitely doesn't have any beach but I don't mind really.. my idea of a holiday is just to find a place to relax & away from the usual everyday routines.. Ideally no TV, no internet, no video games;p hehe.. and lots of time for us to just chat away.. ;)

InsyaAllah will update again later..

Atrás a trabajar..

Salam..

It has been quite some time since my last entry here.. and the main reason for it is that I'm now back to work..

It was definitely unplanned.. initially, I chose to be out of work as my dear hubby is working in the ED & I knew that his shifts are changing every week.. and it would be very inconvenient for us.. and I was proved right! last week I was working from 8am to 5/6pm and he was doing the 4pm-12am shift.. and this week he is doing 6pm-2am shift.. so we barely had the chance to speak to each other.. and for the past week, I had been breaking fast all by myself except for a few nights that I went out & the night that a few friends came over.. we are 'lucky' as for now as it is just the two of us.. I can't imagine the time when we will have children of our own.. I really don't think that this is sustainable..

I have been seriously thinking about non acute medicine.. although I love acute medicine, I don't think that I can survive a few more years to come before we can achieve the position that will allow us to have reasonable working hours.. A few days ago, we were discussing about this matter in our team.. about how many doctors chose the field that would give them the chance to have life outside the hospitals.. one of my colleagues was saying, the top achievers in his class are all taking radiology as they chose to have a good working hours.. and he himself is planning to pursuit haematology.. I do agree.. internal medicine are far too busy.. especially being a registrar.. during oncall, basically the registrar is taking care nearly all of the patients in the hospital - he/she needs to review all the new admissions, the sickies in the wards, the HDU patients and the surgical patients that need medical review.. it is a very demanding job.. I am not surprised that foreigner doctors are filling up the general internal medicine specialist registrar schemes as many of the locals chose not to do internal medicine..

And as for me, I haven't decided yet.. still doing lots of thinking.. many factors need considering.. and along the way, I continously seek the guidance from Allah... for He definitely knows whats best for me.. Although I have planned to be off work during this Ramadhan, He has better plan for me.. coming back to work this time makes me realised that I actually enjoy & miss working.. especially with great colleagues! I will definitely miss this team.. from my lovely SpR, 'crazy' fellow SHOs & superb interns, we are the A team! (or at least that is what we thought;p).. we are having great time together.. and I thank Allah for giving me the chance to enjoy my work.. and I hope I can stay happy & keep enjoying my work in many more years to come.. ameen..

I wish you happy celebrating the remainder of this Ramadhan..

Unsustainable..

Salam..

Not so long a day ago, I had vented about the stretch me and my fellow colleagues in ED are facing to keep the department, at the very least, crawling, if not walking.. I can say with very confident that I enjoy working in Emergency Medicine, and that is a fact.. But right now, because of shortage of personnel in the job, it feels like I am being sucked into the vortex of 'Job comes first, Life only then'.. It's like in the army!

Rota

The new rota has been proven rather 'inhumane' for us.. Tough, to say the least.. At the present, we are doing 12-2-14-break schedule.. That's twelve days straight (5x 9-hour shifts, then 2x 12-hour shifts, and then 5x 8-hour shifts) starting on Monday morning, finishing midnight on Saturday the week after.. Even that seems breathtaking to explain!

And after that is the long-awaited, highly-anticipated weekend off.. That's the '2' part..

And then, the nightmare stretch begins..

Five days of 6pm-2am shift Monday to Friday,
then 2pm-2am Saturday and Sunday,
then midnight-8am Monday to Friday,
then 8pm-8am Saturday and Sunday..

And all that is really hard to swallow..

After all that

After all that, then we get the deserved break for a week (after a week of nights, which is standard) but also have the opportunity to pull an annual leave entitled to us for another week.. Which in total gives us just under two weeks of leave.. Now, doesn't that sound lavish?

Of course, it does.. And I like the breaks! But, is it humanely possible for a doctor to work 26 out of 28 days, albeit shift work.. Sure, you wouldn't let a pilot fly an airplane for more than twelve hours, you don't see a truck driver on their ninth hour on their shift!

Venting.. Is that all there is?

Not really.. There is also the legality of it.. The European Working Time Directives (EWTD) has documented that doctors are to only be allowed to work at a maximum of 48 hours per week.. I'm sure by now you have your calculators out and start adding up the hours than you and I are clocking every week..

As for me :
Week 1 - 69 hours
Week 2 - 40 hours
Week 3 - 64 hours
Week 4 - 64 hours

Ooh.. That is easy way off the scale for legality, isn't it?

Well, hopefully the people of Ireland will understand this situation and will start talking and writing to local and national politicians, newspapers, TV stations and make the policy-makers understand what they are doing putting the populations life in the hands of overworked medical professionals..


Hopefully, in the next near future, Miss Harney will change something and make the system better, before it all collapses and lives are sacrificed..

Salam..

Tough.. And It Will Only Get Tougher..

Salam..

Just under a week (I guess) from my last entry, and here I am now again facing the blog page, scribbling nonsense.. Maybe, it is just another way of me venting..

Ramadhan

Alhamdulillah, we have now entered the holy month on Ramadhan.. Myself and Ina have now completed two days of fasting, and to be perfectly honest, it is quite different from the ones we had encountered before..

As we all are aware, the Hijri calendar is shorter than the Gregorian calendar, which essentially makes the Hijri months going 'backwards' in relation to the Gregorian.. And as we have anticipated and, in a way, 'feared', Ramadhan now is getting closer and closer to the summer times - at the season where the days are long and the nights are short.. Even for this Ramadhan, at least at the very beginning, fajr is around 4 o'clock and maghrib is around 9 o'clock in the evening.. That makes it easy 17 hours of fasting daily.. Put going to work in between that, and some other work-related issues, subhanallah, it is hard and challenging..

Day-1 of fasting is usually the hardest of them all where our body and mind are trying to adjust to the change.. Ina was oncall up till 10 o'clock last night.. She managed to finish by 9.30 pm.. Kak Riza and Ustaz Wan invited us to break our fast at their place, and so we did.. I picked Ina up and brought her there.. Thank you, to both of them..

Still another 28 days to go, insya-Allah..

Work

Work being work, it is tough and will only get worse, at the rate things are going.. Specifically, we are short of SHOs in the Emergency Department (ED).. At present we only have 5 out of possible 8.. Furthermore, we are short by one registrar..

And work in the department is not getting lighter, with the closure of some services in the satellite hospitals - Ennis, Nenagh and St. John's hospitals..

Fair play to the bosses who have worked, and still working, tirelessly to try to fill the quorum.. At the moment, we are doing 12-day shift, 2-day break, 14-day shift and then post-nights break.. With these numbers, the job is becoming less and less appealing for other people to apply.. *sigh*

A good news just before I left work today, insya-Allah we will be getting two new colleagues in the next two weeks.. So, hopefully this will help alleviate some of the burden we are experiencing..

There is 'I like the job' and there is 'I'm just too tired to cope with this job, no longer physically feasible for me'..

Well, so much for venting.. Maybe some more some other time.. Hopefully, I will be blogging about something more educational and meaningful the next time..

Salam..