Community, Herbals, and Red Velvet: TOTW #11

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. I went to Medschool with the purpose of someday somehow be able to serve the far-flung areas in Sulu who never had the chance to even see a real doctor. Now that I am here, how many times have I forgotten those ideals that I had during my first day in medschool? 

And so I hope my two week rotation in Community Medicine with bring all those back to me ^_^ I never really lost them. They were simply "covered" up by all those bio-medical shiz for the past months in ICC.

Going to Singalong all in one Jeepney ride! 

Meet and greet with Dr. Raduvan (not Dra. Duvan! haha) at Fabella Health Center

Scouting the Estero de Paco that separates Brgy 734 from Brgy. 736 (our barangay)

Seems things are pretty peaceful here. 

Liaison Officer, again.

Being a Liaison Officer (LO) is pretty challenging in whatever field of rotation you may choose to be an LO of. I have already experienced being an LO for the whole class for a single course (BDI: Biopsychosocial Dimensions of Illness) which comprises not one, but 5 departments including: Pathology, Microbiology, Parasitology, Psychiatry and Family Medicine. It was exhausting alright, yet fulfilling. A kind of challenge that one must experience once in a while.

This week I embark on another challenge to be an LO for our 2-week rotation in Community Medicine. I thought it would be easier compared to last year where I have to handle five departments and collect papers and evals (evaluation forms) from 158 students (now I only have to deal with one department and 20 evals! Yeay!). The Pros: you get to meet amazing professors and exchange numbers and email adds with them. The cons: you have to think about every schedule, every activity, every paper assignment, every deadline, every day for the next two weeks. Oh well, been there, done that. So what’s wrong in doing it again right?

One of our professors, Dr. Cordero, once said: 

“The LOs are the ‘matured one for the entire rotation’.  Like, they are forced to be matured for that short duration of time: always the one to start the discussion, check the attendance, get all the papers, encourage the students to be early, etc. And then that ‘maturity’ will be passed on to the next LO in the next rotation.”

And he is right ^_^

I pray that I could handle this duty well and may Allah make it easy and worthwhile for me. Ameen.

Meeting with Health workers and Barangay Kagawads: Briefing before going to ocular visits in the community

Herbal Medicine

Well, one of the exciting events this week was our “Herbal Medicine Preparation” session also known to us as the “When Medstudents go Master Chef Mode: Herbal Edition”. In less than 4 hours, we were taught how to prepare syrups, linements and ointments using three of the research-proven local herbal medicines: ginger, oregano and makabuhay.

The Competing teams:

The Secret Ingredients

The Kitchen utensils: recycled and used wisely

Master Chef mode: Time is running out! But hey, pour them gently...

The end products: Ginger linement, Oregano Cough Syrup, and Makabuhay ointment

Birthday Blues

I turned 24 this week. And I was having a very bad flu that day.

Still, Alhamdulillah for all the blessings for the past 23 years. Indeed I could talk all day just trying to enumerate all the great things that happened to me for those years and I have only One to thank for all those things: Allahu Azza wa Jal ^_^ And one of those ultimate blessings I could never ever get tired of being thankful to Him, is for giving us a wonderful mother ^_^ Alhamdulillah! I love you inah!

Here’s a trivia: Of all five of us, I was the only one who was born in our humble home. It was those times that my family was having financial problems that we cannot afford to go even to a lying-in clinic, let alone a hospital. So when I was finally excited to go out to see the world, my father was only able to bring my mom into her room and get a local midwife (Panday) and help my mom in labour. After hours of waiting, tadaaaa! And I was born!

And on that day, my mom would often gleefully share: “On that day, your ama’ (dad) and I were not able to sleep just because we finally had our first son, and we named him ‘Ahmad’”. ^_^

Alhamdulillah!

PS. I don’t usually celebrate my birthdays with cakes and balloons and parties and all. What Islam taught us is that we should be thankful to the Lord Almighty, pray and and ask forgiveness. We should remember death in every day that we become closer to it. And we should be thankful, for sooner we will be able to meet Him as well in Jannah (Heaven) in sha Allah! And with the prophet Muhammad’s (Peace be upon him) Sunnah (examples) he usually fast on the day he was born. Unfortunately I wasn't able to fast on that day because I was sick -_-

But my dear forever-mates who are so cool bought a delicious red-velvet cupcake for me (and another block-mate who had a birthday the day before mine). And of course, gifts are gifts and one should never refuse gifts given whole-heartedly by loving friends. I LOVE YOU GUYS ^_^ Cheesyness overload haha. For more years of friendship and medical madness!

Excuse my usual disheveled hairdo.
These guys are my awesome forever mates.
That Red Velvet cupcake was ~awesomely delicious!~

yumm!

Apparently, 500 words is not enough haha! ^_^

Salam Kasilasa!

-AIMD