Doc Ahmad Hajiri

Assalamu Alaykum (Peace be upon you all) Last week was, if I could literally translate it, was indeed a "hell week" for us ICCs. We had our final exams on Pharmacology, Otorhinolaryngology (ORL), Ophthalmology, Pediatrics and NeuroPsychology, had our Annual Comprehensive exam (200 items presented in a time-allotted powerpoint slide) and our ever-dreaded Grand OSCE (stands for "Objective Structured Clinical Examination, something like a practical exams with different stations). After the last exam in Friday of that week, we were already in a "finally-its-over" mode until the results of the exams came in. Some of the students did not make it to the passing rate of some station sin the OSCE and so they have make up for their grades. I failed in two of the stations (Psychology and Pedia: Vaccinations station). That afternoon we finished the "repeat exam" for the Psychology station, Alhamdulillah we all passed. The repeat rotation for pediatrics was s...

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 ...

It's official. I am indeed THE toxic magnet in our group. It was just recently proven last Friday during my short ER duty under the Surgery Department. Just a little over an hour since I logged-in and a number of trauma cases came in one after the other. Two vehicular accident with one of them receiving a compound, comminuted open fracture of the left tibia and fibula (in simpler terms, his bones where crushed and we can see them jotting out from his bleeding legs. He was literally screaming his lungs out due to pain @_@  Yeah, sorry for the bloody description...). Not an hour had passed and another patient was brought to us, unconscious and barely breathing. What happened? He tried to kill himself by hanging with a rope x_x Good thing our DEM doctors are really good at "reviving" (?) patients. He was given proper resuscitation procedures while we try to interview his family members what really happened and how long he had been "hanged". It was just a f...

THoughts of the Week (TOTW) # 11 What happened this week: Started with FCH250: Community Medicine in Urban Setting, Being an LO, 24th birthday and being sick, Herbal medicine.  In five hundred words, I would aim to share all the thoughts I had in this week. Be it in complete paragraphs or just mere thoughts that come into mind. Here are the things that wrapped up week #11 for 2015. The Essence of Community Medicine “Health is not just the mere absence of illness but a complete state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being.” –Alma Ata declaration of Primary Health Care (1978) “Public health is everyone’s business”, “health is an inalienable human right”, “The ultimate goal of community medicine is to ensure equitable health for all” are just among the concepts being bombarded to us since our freshie days. And here we are again, refreshing those ideals, engraving them once again in our hearts. Community medicine has always been close to my heart....

Assalamu Alaykum! (Peace be upon you all!) We are back in the colourful world of Pediatrics after a week of break with the second half of Pharmacology module. After the nerve-racking exam last Friday, it was indeed a welcoming relief to see the colourful walls in the OPD Pediatrics with all those Disney characters all around. And of course, the cheerful smiles of our angelic patients never fail to keep our days brighter as well. The colorful walls in the OPD-Pediatrics There are more better photos of Disney Princess somewhere. Case Conferences and Higher learning! This week we had two case conferences, a lecture on complementary feeding (where our professor gave us chocolates! Yeay!) and lots and lots of Out-Patient exposure! Our rotation of 12-hour duties in the Pediatric Emergency Department (Pedia ER) are also being wrapped up for this last two weeks of our training in this department. This Friday my group will have our second and last 12-hour duty :) Pretty ...

Assalamu Alaykum! (Peace be upon you all!) The second week as an ICC student in the Department of Pediatrics just ended with a rather "incomplete" sets of days in a week. We had special non-working, no-classes holidays the past 2 weeks that reduced our class days from 10 to 7 (due to the Feast of Black Nazarene last January 9 and now the Papal Visit from Jan 15-19). And as a result, all those supposedly scheduled lectures and case conferences were cramped in the remaining school days!  It was actually exhausting: to report on a case conference at 7:30 then have an ER duty the next night and then go back to class the next morning!!! What now, are we finally and slowly turning into zombies? But then again, we chose this path from the very beginning, and there are no reason to complain about these right now... Why dream of being a doctor if you want to feel nothing but ease and comfort? Things don't do that way. Always. And exhausting as it may seem, we are still hav...

Assalamu Alaykum! (Peace be upon you all!) My block’s next rotation starting this month (January) is with the Department of Pediatrics. Yes, the wonderful world of Medicine for the little ones! We will be training in Pedia for a duration of four weeks just like our past rotation (in OB-GYN). It is also among the “Big Four” departments that all medical students must be familiar with in order to, well, pass. But like all other departments that we have been to, what I am really looking forward is learning more about dealing with patients in this department, enjoy my stay in this rotation and see for myself if I will be comfortable with it—you know, for future references. And with our experiences in Pediatrics for the past two years, whenever I hear the term “Pedia”, the very first thing that would come in mind: There’re too many graphs and charts! This is perhaps the only field of medicine that has so many graphs and charts that one needs to be familiar with in order to survive...

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...