Doc Ahmad Hajiri

Assalamu Alaykum! (Peace be upon you all!)   [NOTE: This is a really, really old post! For those applying to UPCM for school years 2021 and beyond, it is best to visit the UPCM website for updates. Download and read the latest primer here . The details in this blogspot may not be applicable anymore. Read with discretion.    You can send me a message on my FB Page here :    Thanks!]  This post was originally published in January 2015, almost two years after I entered the great hallways of Calderon in UPCM. Now, it's January 2018: roughly 6 months since graduation, and here I am, a full-pledged UPCM Alumnus and now a licensed physician! Wow! Then I realized in this blog that this post reaches more hits that the other posts I have published , and I know I badly needed to update this...And so I did. I tried... And so... To those aspiring future martyrs amazing medical students who will sacrifice their social lives really enjoy learning the wonder...

*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...

Emergency Room Surgical Trauma Rotator It was just another regular evening on a 24-hour duty at the Emergency Department (ED or ER, for most of us). I was one of the only two Trauma Interns on duty and was just taking a break from charting a very long list of patients--ranging from those who fell from stairs to those intoxicated madmen stabbing each other to death! It's a rare occasion for Trauma ER to have no patients in 3 hours time so I grabbed that opportunity to go out and buy a cold drink at the ER kiosk (it was already around 1:00 AM by the way).  On my way back to our station in the Acute Care Unit (ACU), I could see the triage area was already in a mess. ("Triage" by the way is the place where patients would go first before they are assigned with to different departments). There were piles of stretcher-beds (with patients on them, of course!) and hordes of their watchers waiting to be seen by our Triage officer (TO). Where was the TO, you asked? I wo...

  Internship ends in a few days (July 1 to be exact) and since March 22, we started the #Last100Days of Internship countdown. Those who are following my Instagram account would know that I have been posting random pics with the countdown numbers (see above photos). I tried my best to complete the 100 days but it was just so hard! haha. And now, who would have thought that we are now down to the last 50 days! It happened so fast! I can't even believe that the ten months of internship--no, the FIVE YEARS in Medical School is about to end! SubhanaAllah!  I do not even know what to feel right now. Should I be excited, because everything's about to end? Or should I be anxious and scared, because... well, because the daunting future that lies before me is certainly scary! (read: Board exams, being a full-pledged MD, too much expectations from everyone...) Still, as I keep on recounting the remaining days of internship, I just can't help but look back... those enume...