Doc Ahmad Hajiri

This is the Mus-haf (Qur'an) left by my father. I found this in our old house and brought it with me. My mom told us that he would often read Surah Yaasin and Surah Al-Mulk as we, his children start to doze off and sleep. And this was his favorite (and perhaps the only one?) mus-haf. I could no longer remember his voice. I could no longer remember his warm touch and embrace. I can only remember his face from that old faded picture in our family album. I could only remember a few glimpse of those memories with him: carrying me on his shoulders as I try to touch the low ceiling of our house; him tousling my hair as he go to work or the Masjid to pray. Of him coming home with a half-gallon of ube-flavored ice cream--our favorite! And that one last conversation I had with him when he told me "Soon, son, you will enter school and learn a lot of new things." I was 4 back then, giddy and excited to enrol in kindergarten. Twenty ye ars. 20 long years since that fat...

This "offensive" as their means to "solve" the problem is like giving paracetamol to an end stage cancer patient. They are creating more problems than solution. Chaos than peace. More lives and properties lost than preservation of them in any way. And as the number of families affected by this war increases, as more and more dead bodies to be considered either as "perhaps a rebel or a collateral, maybe both?", they are creating MORE REASONS for those people who lost their l ove ones, those who remain and survive all those terror of war, to take arms and resist. How hard is that to understand? Say the Military kills 24 "rebels". How many of those 24 are actually civilians caught up in the crossfire? Have we ever asked about that? Should we really accept everything that these men in green, these "Arms for Peace" are saying? How many of those families, sons, fathers, even daughters and sisters, friends, neighbors will feel the p...

Assalamu Alaykum! (Peace be upon you!) A few days from now and the tragic incident in Mamasapano, Maguindanao will reach it's first month (which coincides with the EDSA revolution anniversary). A lot of things already happened. Things came out from a "shock to all", to a "word war in the internet", to "teledramas and privilege speeches" and now to "twists and turns". And only God knows where we are heading after it reach one month, and perhaps beyond. Really, I am supposed to stay silent about this. As may have been manifested by the days of delay of publishing "Medschool-related" posts here in this blog. I just can't seem to publish my medschool adventures while these things are happening. And I still cannot decide whether to post something about the 'incident' or not. Breaking the silence I never really wanted to post about sensitive issues like what I usually do years back. I have learned my fair share ...

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...