Doc Ahmad Hajiri

*PF = Professional fee A patient's question that is hardest for me to answer is... "Magkano po, doc?" (How much will I pay, doc?) I remember back in PGH, whenever we tell them  "wala po. wala po kayong babayaran sa aming mga duktor." (Zero. You don't need to pay us anything at all). Their faces were  always left in awe and disbelief. Almost to say to us "weeeh? di ngaaa?" But now, I am in an uncomfortable seat and I have to helplessly smile and direct them towards the nurse who in turn will lead them to the cashier. Waiving a PF is always an honorable act that we doctors would want to do. Especially to those we know are indigent and could use those money for other things like their medicine, or transportation back home. How I wish I could waive each and every PF for my patients. But I just can't. Doing it would be tantamount to suicide. Especially to young doctors who are still struggling in this messy world he just stepped ...

  Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah! All praise is indeed to Allah alone! I still can't believe that I am now a LICENSED DOCTOR! Seriously, to say that I am still in cloud nine, is an understatement!   As one mentor once told me: "You will be floating there for a year, at least!" And he was right! Alhamdulillah, last September 22, 2017 the results of this year's Physician Licensure Exam was released and it was indeed one of the best news in my life I could ever ask for. I am now a duly licensed physician in this country. I now have the license to heal, to cure, to do surgery and to prescribe medicine. And with it comes the big responsibility of not harming my patients as well. I never felt how heavy this responsibility before until now. Ma shaa Allah. This was a dream that I never once thought of having nor achieving when I was a child. (You see, I really wanted to become a Civil Engineer like my late father). Still, Alhamdulillah God gave m...

Becoming a doctor was never easy. But I never thought that it was this scary. As our  ICC year (third year in Proper Medicine) approaches the end of the road, more ad more realizations and learning experiences build up to prepare us for the next years of training to come. Through those months of rotations, we e have experienced the transition from dealing with paper cases to real patients, from weekly exams on theoretics of pathology and pharmacology to their applications in real clinical settings. And From choosing which letter in the scantrons to shade, to choosing which diagnostic tests to order for our patients while (always and always) considering the financial limitations our patients in PGH have.  All these you have to decide for your patient and take responsibility as a future physician. Say, if I have only one test that my patient can afford to order, which one should I choose? Which drug is cost-effective and will solve my patients’ complaints? And no ...

Assalamu Alaykum! (Peace be upon you all!) No, this is not about my first born son. We are still way too early for that! haha. This is about the first baby boy I delivered (or helped or assisted in delivery) during our 24-hour duty at the Labor Room-Delivery Room (LRDR) in PGH.  Well, the experience was indeed something to really cherish. Simply witnessing a baby being born right in front of your eyes, and hearing his first loud cry is simply ... see? I can't even find the right word for it! Just SubhanaAllah! (Praise be to Allah!) Life indeed is an amazing gift only He can give. The story was: We started our duty at exactly 7AM last November 29, 2014. At first we were all clueless as what to do. We were the first group in our block to be on 24H duty. so we practically don't have any idea, until later on, we started learning things, starting doing things that are requested of us to do (I will publish a separate post about LRDR duties in sha Allah). Everything wa...

  J Last Sunday evening I had another wonderful time meeting familiar faces in this rather new world I am now affiliated with: The world of Medicine. And what’s better? I was able to become a part of a growing ‘family’ of professionals with a two unifying ideologies: Medicine and Islam. The Islamic Medical Association of the Philippines (IMAN Phil) is a non-profit organization founded in 2007 with the aim to create a massive network of Muslim Professionals and Specialists in the medical field, uniting them not just because they have a single faith (Islam) and profession (doctors), but with the single ideology of serving the ummah of this generation. You can check the website of IMAN here:  imanphil.org The dinner meeting I attended was nothing but a simple informal gathering, organized by IMAN to meet-and-greet the Muslim Medical students in the Manila area. Although only a few of us were able to attend (most of the invited were on duty), it was still a wonderful g...