i have been obsessed with the titanic since i was 9 years old. not me reading all about it again. did you know, that eventually after the survivors were brought back, operations were launched to retrieve the dead bodies. and of those mostly only the first class passengers-
were brought back. because only so many bodies could be brought back and so they mainly focused on the first class passengers justifying this by “the need to visually identify wealthy men to resolve any disputes over large estates”. many third class passengers and crew were-
a newborn female was brought in to be evaluated yesterday. her father went, “bari aas thi beta hota. ye 4th beti hai.” stuff like this always makes me angry so i went, “aap kaisay aisi baatein kar letay hain. ye tu Allah ki na shukri hai. Allah ne aap ko aulaad de di hai aur aap-
june was like a constant feeling of heartbreak over and over. it was a wholesome month. it had its moments. but the feeling of your chest physically hurting because of the sadness and the inability to control things is the worst. day two of july and it feels heavy again.
after they’ve had “too many” daughters. broke my heart. how the mom was raised through the same mindset. how the girl will go through the same mindset now. how she’ll never know her worth. how the cycle simply goes on and on. breaks my heart.
ye keh rahay hain.” he didn’t say anything after that. the girl was healthy, MashaAllah. but what made me even sadder was how her mother’s name was mafia. for those of you who don’t know, mafia is short for Allah Maafi mostly which is a name some people give to their daughters-
saw this video made by a guy of doctors sleeping in their chairs in a near empty ER. felt disgusted. because this nation will never understand. they’ll never understand what it’s like to work 30 hours continuously with no sleep. or how bad the conditions at our workplaces are-
literally, no camera can do this view justice. i took this back in may 2019 with an iPhone 6. it was freezing. my phone turned off as i took this. the view was everything. the place was everything. i miss hunza. 🫶
videocalled my nano today. said to her, “nano, aap ko pata hai aap bohat pyaari hain”. her: “nahi ye tu mujhay aaj hi pata chala hai”. random but i love how she never forgets to talk about nana abu. i never met him. but i told her today, how i think we’d have been really good-
we as a nation, don’t consider doctors human. and we don’t respect them either and here’s how:
a patient comes in with respiratory distress. i leave everything i’m doing (even though the OPD is flooding with patients) to attend to her. they don’t even have an ER slip yet-
housejob is like there’s one department that owns you, teaches you and accepts that you’re independent enough to look after patients yourself. and then there’s another department that degrades you everyday, keeps you like servants constantly reminding you that it’s your job to-
the saddest thing probably is how you eventually stop praying for some people. people who were a part of your prayers for so long, and then there’s one day when they’ve sidelined you to the point that you don’t feel like talking to Allah about them anymore.
i miss my friends you know. a year ago me would never tweet this. would be scared of how weak it would make me look. laughs. but the truth is the truth. i hate how it’s over, we’re all in different cities and on different paths now. and it only grows further and further away-
i didn’t know qasim farooq. i never talked to him. i think i saw him once in college. but i do know how he was all anyone was talking about yesterday. there was so much speculation as to what happened to him. we had ER yesterday and whenever anyone would have some free time-
wrote this huge caption with my convocation post and made my parents read it. my mom started with, “ye tu itna saara hai” and then concluded with “bohat pyaara likha tha menahil” and a huge smile on her face. and my dad started with “meray paas itna time nahi hai” as he walked-
got pricked while opening a syringe and my thumb started bleeding and swelling up. not me going to wash it and put a bandage on it and an attendant going, “inn dr. sahiba ke paas tu time hi nahi hai, inn ka tu haath zakhmi ho gaya hai, ye tu dil pe hi le gayein hain”. istg-
AIMC was established on 2nd May, 1975. but the first academic year started on 12th August. my favorite place is 47 years old today. 🤍
forever grateful. and still overwhelmed.
i was writing about housejob yesterday. and i happened to remember the eve of the end of housejob. the chaand raat of unemployment i called it. last day. last call. there was something magical about it. truly. i never use the word “magical” to describe anything, you know. but-
i walked out of my last ER today as a house officer. finally. it felt good. the 10 second walk from paeds ER to the hospital entrance made me look back at all i’ve accomplished in this one year. i was nothing at the start of housejob. compared to what i am today, i was actually-
during my housejob i decided on the kind of resident i’d like to be. i decided on how i’d never let any seniority ever get to my head. six months into residency, i’ve actually seen house officers be very happy when they have calls with me. one step closer, every day.
i can’t believe i’m saying this but the weather outside right now finally feels like we’re going to get cold evenings real soon. it’s not windy but the air has this coldness in it. and it smells like autumn. slightly like autumn. finally!!
baffles me how when someone asks me how many siblings i have and i answer with “two sisters”, they have to ask, “bhai nahi hai?” like? why would i not tell you that while answering the question itself? make it make sense.
this kid who was diagnosed with diabetes recently was shifted to the ward upstairs yesterday. today she was back in the ER with her parents looking for me because “mein ne sugar sirf in se check karwani hai, jab ye check karti hain mujhay dard nahi hoti”. yarrrr 🫶.
favorite part of today was when i had to take samples of a 1.5 month old and her mother was like, “aap na lein, aap se uss din bhi sample nahi hua tha” (in my defense, “uss din” was my first call in paeds) and i still went ahead and took the sample in the first prick and i just-
it’s like no matter how many times i look at the translation of الحمد للّٰہ رب العلمین, the way how i feel about it doesn’t change. “praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds”. worlds. plural. there’s just something about “worlds” that always leaves me in awe. we are so small in-
PMC is ruining the medical profession in Pakistan, what with the 30 different online MDCAT exams in a month and the multiple exams that are being imposed on us after MBBS. why isn’t anyone paying attention? why is the government not taking any notice? why are you doing this?
clap your hands if you’re also crushing under the weight of multiple existential crises every single day, you don’t understand the pointless pursuit of so many things and you’re already tired of your mind running in this rat race that leaves no one with any conclusion ever.
mostly. or how they’ll always consider it their birthright to treat government doctors whichever way they want, because they’re “government doctors”. the same people, if seen in a private setup, are much well behaved because they know they’re paying for the servives there.
lahore getting to the final in front of their home crowd. the rain starting the minute they win. the players going around the stadium waving to their fans. the tears of joy in their eyes. chills. khoobsurat!! i hope you win the final.
this nurse in the OT said to me today very randomly, “aap mujhay bohat pyaari lagti hain” and honestly, it made my day. it’s in the smallest of things, really.
best friend is sitting in a library in new york and i just saw her snap story and she’s reading the note i wrote in her diary. that is my handwriting right there and i wouldn’t even have noticed it if it was someone else’s story. i am not crying but i’m pretty close to it.
wholesome-est thing from paeds:
a patient comes in, a baby girl. haseeb is taking an NNU history for the first time and we’re all here hyping him, he asks, “iss ka naam kya hai?” the grandmom: “abhi tu paida hui hai, aap hi koi acha sa naam bata dein.”
there was this scene in the latest episode of razia where mahira khan says that men who harass women are dogs. and a disclaimer comes at the bottom of the screen with “we apologize to dogs”. yes.
wait a minute. i never upgraded my phone to the new iOS because of storage problems and i never realized that APPLE MADE A LIGHT BLUE HEART EMOJI. finally!! you don’t understand but this was actually my dream!! for there to be a light blue heart emoji. it’s my favorite color. 🫶
dr. shahid sarwar is the only HOD i know who isn’t surrounded by PGs and HOs as he goes to take final year’s lecture. he’s here at 7:49 AM walking to the lecture hall on his own with his laptop bag on his shoulder. i don’t know, for some reason M2 will always be superior.
i hate going out in scrubs but sometimes you just have to. had to go with dado for her routine checkup with the doctor today. was post call so went straight from the hospital. we stopped at khaadi on the way back. a woman here just thought i was a salesperson.
04.07.18
three years ago when it rained really heavily in july, i took these the day all of AIMC actually looked like venice (i know, it shouldn’t have). nevertheless, these pictures look like paintings. and they are my favorite pictures ever of AIMC.
i can tell from the five years of giving professionals that not one external examiner i ever came across was unbiased. most had an obsession with the colleges they came from and were against students of specific colleges for no rational reason. this is the worst thing uhs could-
some days you get tired of fighting everything. constantly. today we are tired. i’m tired of us giving it our all but never being enough. i’m tired of the helplessness that comes with it. i’m tired of the tears that keep welling up in our eyes. i’m just tired.
but no, as long as it’s government, it’s taken for granted. we are taken for granted everyday. it disgusts me. how inhuman some people can be. i have seen opd patients show up at iftar time and expect to be seen within minutes when they know we’ve have just sat down after-
nothing in the medical profession, is more draining than attendants being rude to you for no reason at all, when all you’re doing is being a decent human.
they ridicule and degrade us. because we’re doctors, so we must have some superhuman code of conduct. but they can do whatever they want. disappointing. to say the least.
hours and hours of work. the same happens at sehri and no one really cares. the general image of the healthcare profession is so bad in the public’s eye, that most people don’t even bother to act like they care anymore. but we’re expected to care for them at all times. even when-
you don’t increase salaries. you don’t respect your doctors. anything that goes wrong in any natural scenario is a doctor’s fault according to you. you implement baseless exams. exam after exam. you don’t listen to us when we protest on social media.
while i was in ent there was a patient who had her thyroidectomy done. she was already told that her thyroidectomy would not be without risks given how complicated it already was. she lost her voice post procedure. but it was slowly, very slowly coming back. the other day-
i was going through my camera roll as i was deleting the unnecessary stuff. and i came across the day the fourth prof result came out. 15th june, 2021. the day i got a distinction. the only one i got. in ent. i will never ever forget how happy i was that day. i had been obsessed-
thinking about how when the result came out last year, it was around 8:30 and i was just randomly walking around eating a biscuit because i hadn’t eaten in a while and i had started to feel dizzy. my sister asked me if i was stressed out because we had all heard the result-
this is why i am scared of government hospitals in pakistan at this point in my life. they’ll terminate you for things you have absolutely no control over. i can recall a hundred incidents from my housejob alone where attendants misbehaved with me simply because the hospital-
So this doctor who politely guided the patient's attendant that he doesn't have enough vents ( oxygen in lay woman's words) had been terminated by the govt. Utterly shameful and disgusting. How it's his fault that there aren't enough ventilators available. PATHETIC SYSTEM.
friends. i think that’s what love is. almost 26 years to my nana abu’s passing. and my nano still talks about him like he never left. i never met him. but i love him. because of her. that’s what love is. 🫶
thinking about how in M-2 when i had a breakdown during the last ER and i was outside sitting with ayesha and having a major crying session, our consultant on call happened to walk by and saw me. he asked me what it was. i told him. he patted my head with the words “sahi ho jaye-
istg i’m smiling everytime i look at the AC and can read the temperature without glasses. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! i got my lasik done finally and i just. legit!! y’all mean y’all can see this good without glasses or contacts!! whatttttttttt a wild conceptttt!!
currently missing AIMC, and the sense of routine that came with college. the wards, the lectures, my favorite people, mall ka khaana, udl, the cafe, pretty much everything.
disclaimer: i will be annoyed in a week of college opening (whenever it opens).