A micro post !!

That's the bunny we were supposed to do a practical on, in the pharmacology lab !

Uggh ! Its exam time again and I just cant concentrate ! My preparation for the exam sucks and the weird part is its not bothering me at all !! I mean I've always been the kind of person who's tense, and anxious about exams no matter how good or bad my preparation is, but this time I'm all cool and relaxed ! I wonder whether taking exams every five months has desensitized me to the whole exam phenomena or whether I've become a changed person over the past semester !

P.S - The rabbit wasn't harmed in any way during the course of the practical !

SURPRISE !

Aniqa - Its April the 13th !

Maryam - Oh no, its the 13th of October !

Huzair - His Id says 13th April !

Uzma - But I'm sure its 13th October !

Najwa - His facebook profile says April ! Should be April !

Mubashir - Well atleast we know its the 13th ! What difference does the month make ?

here we were discussing an issue as serious as the NASA's space shuttle plan or CERN's million dollar investmnts when Mubashir shocked us with his humor indifference and ,we all turned to look incredulously towards him who gave a triumphant smile, knowing that he'd stolen the show , and it doesn't matter to him how he does it because spotlight is all he wants !

And incase I've successfully gotten my readers to guess what the conversation was all about, no it wasn't the NASA, CERN , UN, no not the gaping holes in the ozone and no , not even  global warming !,  it was the discussion regarding a friend , Hunain's, birthday !! ( hey ! come on ! Its serious too ya know ) .

Most of us (in the clinical group) have just been friends with him since the start of this year and hence the confusion was justified ! The fact that he'd trick and dodge us by saying 13th April at sometimes and 13th October at others for the past 5 months did n't help either ! But ofcourse master's at finding excuses to celebrate birthdays that we're , we finally found out that 13th April was  his real date of birth . Having found that out for sure we planned a surprise for him. The idea was to pretend we forgot his birthday, ( now thats what you get when you keep confusing people with your birth dates !)  No one was to wish him, not by text msgs, not by phone calls, no e - cards and absolutely no facebook wall write ups ! We usually wish each other at 12 midnight on our birthdays but we obviously avoided that as well. The next day in college , we  spent the entire morning making a customised card for him with tags by everyone he knew. Huzair's job was to keep him busy while we did all that and to go buy his present (the day before) that we'd all agreed to give him.

His present is worth mentioning too because it was a wallet from Jafferjee's with his name embossed on it. Jafferjee's is one of the best leather brands in Pakistan . Its a hot choice for everything leather, here's a link to their website jafferjees. (Do check it out, you'll love it, I guarantee).

On the left are the many birthday tags from his card.

So finally, after our ward duty , Uzma and Aniqa rushed to give his card some final touches, Azka and I made sure we escaped unnoticed by Hunain to get the cake ready while Huzair yet again took the responsibility to keep Hunain busy ...After all the arrangements were done, we texted Huzair to bring him , and then.... 'SURPRISE ' We had a Happy Hunain standing in front of the cake amazed that we hadn't really forgotten his birthday inspite of all the confusion !

PS - Mubashir isn't really that indifferent , making silly comments is just one of the many things he does to make us laugh ! No offence Mubashir :)

Intelligent patients, dumb medical students !

I mentioned I was posted in the surgery ward in my  last post. I must say its pretty interesting  and presents with all kind of learning experiences ! Yesterday something funny happened. It was the first time, we went to the surgery OPD. We had no prior idea on how to perform the various kind of examinations that need to be done on a patient (except the gynaecological examinations that we'd learned in the gynae ward) . There came a lady into the doctor's office with pain in the abdomen. The doctor in-charge was a llittle busy writing a prescription for the previous patient so he instructed me to take the lady into the cubicle and examine her abdomen. I smiled at the lady nervously and took her there.Trying to remember all I had learned theoretically about examination, I uncovered her abdomen, making sure my nervousness was not reflected in my demeanor  The first step of examination is inspection ( That I thankfully knew !). I observed her abdomen and saw a transverse mark on her abdomen. I asked her about it and she said it was a scar from a C-section she had three months back. I did the rest of the examination, wrote down my findings and called the doctor.I must say I was really proud of myself because I did the examination pretty tactfully and  better than my own expectations.

The doctor came into the cubicle and asked me about my findings. I promptly mentioned my entire examination and also showed him the C-section scar.. He smiled at that mention, and asked the lady what kind of a scar it was again. And this time, she looked at it and said "Oh, its a stretch mark", the doctor looked at me and said with a huge smile on his face , "Even she knows its a stretch mark !"  It was a relief that the doctor was pretty understanding and made me realise my mistake without making me feel embarassed !

( The cesarean section scar was there, quite below the stretch mark ( obviously ! ) and I had missed it on inspection.( that portion of the abdomen was draped)..That woman , on my question, thought I was referring to that scar, when I really was referring to the stretch mark !! I hope my readers understand the confusion !!!)

Vision

That's Huzair preparing to practice his IV insertion skills on me !

Time flies,and I realise this after around every 5 months. Which is exactly when its time for me to take my semester exams. I mean it seems like yesterday when I came back from vacation after the 4th semester and its time already to be geared up for the 5th !! So obviously, life is hectic again (as if it wasn't already), I can see the ever growing dark circles around my class fellow's eyes, I can feel the tension around me as everyone walks around with books in their hands, courtyards are empty and the cafeteria remains barren as the library grows ever populous ! We're aren't hanging out as much as we used to either..But life isn't all that colourless either, here's a little about whats been up lately..

• The phase 1 of my research just ended ! And I'm really glad about that.
• Dido's sister got engaged. Dido invited to me the engagement ceremony..We had fun and I must say, Dido's sis looked really pretty !! 
• Huzair, Hunain, Zeeshan, Maryam, Anum, Uzma and I practiced giving IV injections to each other in the ward the other day. Now I can proudly say that I've moved on from Mannequins to real humans, I'm still not very good at it but I'll hopefully improve with practice.
• I'm currently posted in the Surgery ward which I'm finding pretty interesting due to the wide variety of cases we get to see everyday. I was even thinking of taking up surgery for my post graduation but I dont think I'll be able to cope with the extra long work hours and the ultra sensitive job nature.
• The weather has changed from hot to unbearably hot ! and its not just the heat, its the humidity that's killing me.
• The Pakistani blind cricket team just won a Sharjah series match ! And I'm delighted over that. I think their hard work and passion should be appreciated and supported.Unfortunately this team is not given as much encouragement and recognition as it should be given. Cricket is a well enjoyed sport in Pakistan and if cricket played by men with normal eye sight gets so much attention, every effort should be made to draw attention to the hard work of these inspiring men as well ! They are men who lost their sight but have retained their vision and stand as role models for all of us !  

                                               

Picture courtesy - Gulfnews.com