How’s me?
Life has been great so far Alhamdulillah. Indeed, when you let go of the painful things that you’ve been holding on for so long, you’ll be at peace and you’ll be happy. Being dependent on a person is not good, you’ll feel lost once they are away.
“What’s meant for you will reach you even if it’s beneath two mountains. What isn’t won’t reach you even if it’s between your two lips.”
And so these words heal. Always. Anyway, Let’s start.
I have been occupying my holidays doing a few things at once right now. It all started as a volunteer with the Sarawak Children Cancer Society (SCCS) at the hospital. There, I knew a few doctors and pharmacists. These doctors enjoyed dragging me around in their rounds and clinics but I don’t really haha. So, these doctors has got a lot of on hold project for the community that they wanted to arrange but they ain’t got no time for that. Thus, they asked me to arrange it for them. This year, it was about the health fair project 2018. I prepared the proposal but only been accepted just after a few times. Well, being rejected was normal. Trust me, it was not easy at all especially when you are working with the strangers. That’s when I realised, hey, I missed my friends in UM a lot. But, life goes on. I need to do this myself. I arranged for 15 tests to be done there myself, called for people to sponsor myself and applied for the equipment but with the help and guide from the doctors of course.
So, to begin with my experience at the health fair 2018, I was at the cholesterol level checkpoint. We did have a portable lipid analyzer but only to check for total cholesterol. The crowd was amazing at that time. I was happy but I was very disappointed at the same time. To get down to the community just to realise that they have little exposure on health awareness was sad. I could say that a lot of patient who came on that day has decided to stop taking Statin for years on their own without consultation from doctors due to the fear of taking medications side effects. Most of the side effect being stated was kidney failure. And futhermore, they have stopped going to their appointment with their doctors and they never checked their cholesterol as they said, “I’m fine and I’m still fit.” As I was explaining, few of them also told me that they did not take their medications but they replaced it with red yeast rice supplement which also contain statin. Is that possible? They also mentioned things like Fish oil, Beta Glucan in oat meal. I was speechless because they’ve been replacing their medications with these supplements. And I did not agree at all. What’s more disappointing than this was their mind set was very rigid. I can’t even say a thing to change it since they have been doing it for so many years and yet they are still healthy but all I can say was please go back and see your doctor to have a full check up on your lipid profile. You might feel healthy but you won’t know what’s happening inside your body. That’s just about one check point. Now, I do understand why these doctors really wanted to do this programme despite their packed schedule.
Another things I’ve been doing at the same time was helping a pharmacist at her pharmacy. It was a private pharmacy. She needed a help since there was a lot of patient and she’s alone. I knew her from her friends who always joined a morning round with me at the Paeds ward at the hospital. To help at the pharmacy, I have to meet the founder or should I say the owner of the pharmacy. So I went there to meet Mr. Liew. Mr. Liew has been staying in Australia for years before he decided to come back to Malaysia and open up a pharmacy with the help of a pharmacist of course. So, he interviewed me for maybe like half an hour and end up saying, “Your english is impressive. Where did you learn it from? “ Nothing like, “ Your knowledge is impressive. Where did you learn it from?” So sad right hahaha. But yeah so currently, I’ll be going there helping whatever I can. Amazingly, I have been seeing a few types of skin diseases, common cold and flu (how and what to give for treatment. I was really really badddddddd at this and so the pharmacist taught me.), orthopedic cases (came in to get an equipment for support either shoes, or pelvic binder) and etc. I think I got a patient who came in for abdominal pain, wanting a medications. It was at night. But he looks like he had acute appendicitis and so the pharmacist and I told him to go to the hospital instead. I don’t know about your place but in my observations, most of the people like to get over the counter drugs without seeing a doctor for a diagnosis. Some even just google the treatment and asked for medications but of course we couldn’t give it. When we asked why didn’t you go see a doctor first instead of buying an antibiotics from the pharmacy from an elderly patient, they said it’s troublesome and the doctors didn’t listen and understand my problem. So, number one solution, doctors, listen well. A reminder to myself too.
To be honest, I have no intention of doing any of these at all. It was extremely tiring but they all wanted help all at once.
“ Permudahkanlah urusan orang lain. InsyaAllah, Allah permudahkan urusan kita.”
That’s what I’ve been thinking all this while. Aside from that, making the patients understand, giving correct advises and helping them sort out their problems really washed away the tiredness. I hope I’ll be enjoying what I am doing and will be doing until the end journey of my career as a doctor or maybe one day as a surgeon. After all, you should always finish what you started.
P.S. I’ll be writing on my journey as a medical student for the past 5 years in my next blog write up, okay! Stay tuned. Have a good day!
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