Day 4 in Zalm

Well, as I had written in my previous post, I was assigned to go to Zalm for a week starting last Monday. It is now Wednesday evening. The work has been fairly light, and I spend my time watching TV series that I have downloaded on my laptop in the last several years. In fact, it is quite a change from the earlier toxic routine where I used to study with colleagues on Skype each day in the evening. Now that studies are no longer a requirement, I am enjoying my time doing things that I had kept off from doing the last few years. Zalm is a small village, and has nothing to attract a visitor, so I am mostly confined to my room. 

The way I pass the time also included going out with a Pakistani friend - Dr. Rahim Baksh/Baloch is an FCPS-qualified ENT surgeon from Karachi and is posted in Zalm. He stays alone, and is therefore available to me for spending some pal-time. We went out to eat on the past two days, and yesterday, it being my birthday (by the Gregorian calendar), it was my treat! Back home in India, my family cut a cake, which they did on Skype so that I could also witness it. On Facebook, I received more than 200 greeting messages on the wall, on Whatsapp, perhaps 4 dozen, and several of my friends wished me personally by calling me or messaging me through other apps like WeChat, Hangouts, etc. It felt nice to receive messages and calls from literally hundreds of people!

My request for an emergency exit is pending approval. 

Today, I officially received the MRCPCH Clinical exams result. I have passed, and will now need to apply to the Royal College for Membership (it is priced at approximately INR 40000 per year!) ... I am officially now able to write the letters after my name. Yippee.

Four more nights and three more days remain before I can return to Al Muwayh.

Thank you for reading this. Do leave your comments!

Days 4 and 5, Ahmedabad: Just going on

When I took a decision to live away from the rest of my family by going to Ahmedabad a full week ahead of my MRCPCH exams, I probably thought that this would be the right way to immerse myself in studies and come out at the exams fully prepared. Instead, the days that have passed have been the usual: I have not been able to study in a single-minded way. The hotel that I am staying in has been good. The proprietor and his family have gone out of their way to make my stay comfortable. Mr. Jignesh Sharma has literally bent backwards to please me. A couple of negatives have been that their internet service has not been on par all the days. In between, there were many occasions when the net failed completely. To be fair, however, they responded every single time and got technical people to come and rectify the fault every time. Since yesterday, their internet has been working perfectly. 

While I went to a non-veg restaurant opposite the roza a few days ago, and then again today morning to have my breakfast, the other meals have all been in the hotel. Being a Punjabi kitchen, the options for lunch and dinner are limited to a thali consisting of tandoori roti with 2 vegetables, dal and jeera rice on most occasions; once or twice, I tried to break the mould and ordered differently. They made khichdi and kadhi with zeera aloo yesterday afternoon for lunch. They did this only for me. In the evening, I ordered a grilled vegetable sandwich, which turned out to be good. The only other demand I keep making on them is to have 5-6 cups of tea all through the day, the last one being at night. And they have always obliged, never complained. Indeed, the management and staff at Lalji's hotel need to be complimented for being so cooperative and nice. 

Ahmedabad is under a chill nowadays, and mornings are cold. In my room, I have seldom needed even a fan, let alone an air-conditioned environment. The location of the hotel is a bit odd, as there are no major shops, restaurants or facilities nearby. In the mornings and through the day, there are many hawkers on carts selling diverse food items from breakfasts, non-vegetarian meals and tea, to south-Indian idli sambar and Gujarati poha. I had poha for breakfast yesterday, and it was pretty warm and good. Other than this one occasion, I have avoided street food so far.

The burning Chinese lanterns on Uttarayan are not unique to Ahmedabad. I was informed that similar burning lanterns are now commonplace in Vadodra, Surat and many other cities in Gujarat. My daughter informed me that similar lanterns are also available to launch at Marine Drive in Mumbai. Although these lanterns are a great sight, they have led to fires all over Ahmedabad. The local newspaper has documented 30 places where fires caused damage to homes and shops in the city this year!

The final evening stretches out before me as I look at my books and worry about what more I can revise. Two meals, one night, 4 cups of tea and a night of sleep divide me from the exam that I will go for tomorrow afternoon. Whether it will be a triumph or not is to be seen. However, this experience is certainly something I am not going to forget for a long, long time to come. Thank you, dear reader, for reading this entry.

To those who came to this entry casually, may I urge you to read a few more entries before this one first, so that you will be able to understand what exam I am giving, and so on. If you should like what I have written, do feel free to sign up for updates on this blog.

Preparations for the final part of the exam: Into the last week

My sitting for the final part of the MRCPCH exam is confirmed and I would emerge from the exam venue exactly a week from now, either victorious for having conquered the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health's Membership exam, or a bit sad at not succeeding this time. In either case, the journey so far has been memorable. I still remember writing about my ambition to do this exam 3 years ago in this very diary. It was one of my stated aims when I chose to leave my home country and work in Saudi Arabia. I feel a sense of accomplishment, because I have cleared the first two parts of the exam and will appear, on the 18th of this month, for the CLINICAL part (the final one), from GCS Hospital, Ahmedabad. To fulfill that purpose, I flew from Mumbai to Ahmedabad today morning, and am writing this post from a newly opened, reasonably priced and clean hotel just across the road from the exam venue. This hotel is called Lalji Hotel. Owned by a father-son duo of Vaishnavi Gujaratis, this is a 12-room two-storeyed hotel on Naroda Road. 

The person I have interacted with is Mr. Jignesh Sharma, the son, who has completed his hotel-management from UK and has started this modest hotel with his own funds on a 200 sq. m. plot owned by his father. A chef at heart, he personally supervises the hotel's ground floor restaurant menu. While they serve thalis for lunch, the dinner menu is a la carte, as he told me during the chat I had with him. He is an extremely affable chap and has gone out of the way to help me feel at home in his hotel. The room is small, but clean and has all the necessities I need to be able to study. The only thing lacking was a study table, but we improvised one using two small side tables, each 18 inches high, stacked, one atop the other. A chair was missing, but he readily provided me with one. The Wi fi he had wasn't up to the mark, and he arranged for a new router, which he affixed within a few hours of my arrival, so as to facilitate my stay. I had upma for breakfast, and a limited thali for lunch. The upma was very tasty. The Punjabi thali was tasty as well, but if I had to critique it, I might say that the vegetable portions were inadequate. There was paneer sabzi and potatoes, with three tandoori rotis (they serve it with butter by default, but I asked to be served them without the latter). There was a small helping of pulao rice with dal fry, but no sweet dish to complete the meal. I would rate the thali a 6/10.

So, now it is just past five p.m. I am awaiting my friend Dr. Paresh Shah, who was working in Saudi Arabia until last year, and whom I had called to help me fix a hotel in Ahmedabad before coming here. However, he was unable to find something really suitable, but it is rather kind of him to call me and would be coming to the hotel to meet me any moment now (this is feeling like a live blog now!) The friend who DID arrange this booking at Lalji is my class-mate and work-mate Dr. Nimish Shah, whom I had also called from Saudi about 2 weeks before landing up here in Ahmedabad. He got the number of Lalji from Just Dial. And he remained in touch with me on Whatsapp and finalised the booking without any trouble to me. Thanks to both of these fine doctors who went out of the way to help me.

That's all for now. Will update you all, dear readers, of life in Ahmedabad, and about the exams from time to time. Signing off now. Thanks for reading.

So, what's happening? A tribute to my study colleagues.

Okay, so first out, thank you dear readers for your comments and for your good wishes to me! I really appreciate it. We have formed a small study group. We use various media to study online. For example, we have a group on Facebook where we share files and pictures, videos and schedules. We have a group on Whatsapp where we share questions, videos, and so on. And, finally, we have a Skype group where we practice case scenarios and communication skills. 

I must mention a few of these dear colleagues here. First out, let me talk about Dr. Sanjay Shukla. He hails from Jaipur, Rajasthan. We go back at least a year and a half, since I began studying in mid-2013, and we have been together since then. In fact, we were together in June 2014 when we both went to attend a study course in Bangalore, India. Sanjay is a very pleasant-mannered person, and he is very keen to complete this certification for Membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (MRCPCH in short).

Next on my list is Dr. Imtiaz Beg. He is a young pediatrician from Lucknow, India. He is currently working in Saudi Arabia and stays here with his family. He is a sharp, well-read person, and exudes confidence whenever we meet online. I have learned a lot of things from him, and he continues to inspire me.

Then, there is Dr. Sarita Shenoy from Mumbai. Daughter-in-law of my M.D. guide Dr. N. B. Kumta, Dr. Sarita joined our group fairly recently, but has been a great colleague and I love her way of counselling a patient in mock communication scenarios, as well as her grasp of common paediatric challenges.

On to my friends from other countries then. Last year, one Dr. Ahmed Sallam was the driving force, and he taught us a lot of things that we did not know as we began our journey to MRCPCH Clinical exams. I miss him greatly as he was really confident. Although we have parted ways, I do call him up from time to time and keep in touch with him He works in Madina in the Saudi-German Hospital there. 

Between May and July, I met Dr. Sherif Sharaka online. Like Dr. Ahmed, he, too, is an Egyptian. He works as a Neonatology registrar in a private hospital in Riyadh. When we first interacted, he was just beginning to study, but he learned fast. When I needed a particular study book, he photo-copied the whole book and couriered it to me in Al Muwayh! And this, without any charge. We dropped out because my internet connection at that time wasn't fast enough, and our Skype sessions used to fail as a result.

Many female Egyptian and Sudanese doctors have also been a part of my study circle, and I must mention that they have all been useful to my own understanding of paediatrics. Some of them have provided me with a perfect foil for me to practice my own methods of communication and case-presentations, and to them I am equally grateful. I must mention Drs. Hala, Huda, Eman, Shreen and Nazik.Thank you all.

There are many more such as Dr. Pranav, Dr. Abdulraheim, Dr. Anu, Dr. Shaju ... and I have surely missed some. I apologise for missing any names. But my thanks go to all of you.

And that's it for this entry.

Returning after a 3-month hiatus

It's been a drowsy three months. I was blogging on the Dayre platform since the first of June, and when their experimental period ended on the 31st of August, I sort of wondered whether that was a better platform to work on, or whether I should return to Blogger. Blogger won, obviously, since here I am, ready to write here. 

So, what happened during these three months? Nothing earth-shaking, but a lot of smaller things. Between the 13th of June and the 29th, I spent two weeks in India. During these 18 days, I was in Bangalore for 5 days, attending a training course for MRCPCH Final exam, which I was hoping to give in India in September. The remaining 10-odd days that I spent with my family in India were memorable as always. 

After this, I returned to Al Muwayh. The locum doctor who was working in my hospital during my absence was the Pediatrician from Zalm, one Dr. Hamza, an Egyptian guy. He stayed on for nine more days, and then, after he left, I was all by myself without a relief/holiday for about one more month. Then, during Ramadan, a new Pediatrician joined me in Al Muwayh. He was Dr. Mohd Afzal Khan from Kashmir India. A few years older than me, Dr. Afzal came as a harbinger of my luck turning. He came to live with me in my house. I found him non-intrusive, and very, very, cooperative in all respects. I gave back my love and respect for him in equal measure. 

After about 8 days of his arrival, Ramadan ended and Shawwal began. A few days down the line, we got a message from the Muderiya that one of us would have to go to Zalm on substitute duty, as their other pediatrician was proceeding on leave. We promised to serve one week each, and asked Dr. Shehab to inform his counterpart in Zalm. He did so, but when the second week ended, Zalm did not release Dr. Afazal, who remained there for 4 1/2 more weeks before he was released from Zalm. (I had already served the first week, and the problem started in and from the second week, when they stopped his return.)

Dr. returned to Al Muwayh in the first week of September. After this, I left for a brief holiday in the second week, reaching Jeddah to attend a MRCPCH training program under the aegis of the kind staff of the King Abdulaziz University Hospital's Clinical Skills center (CSC), and the supervision and guidance of a team of doctors led by Dr. Mohammad Jawwad, FRCPCH. The course ran for four days, from the 11th of September until today evening. I stayed in the Al Naseem area, from where the University was less than 10 minutes away by road. 

Earlier, I had come to Jeddah for a few days to appear for the Dubai Health Authority exams - an exam that I passed! In the interim, I also received an offer of employment from a UAE based hospital group. Thus, it appears that my dream of shifting to the UAE may turn out to be real! 

In India, my family patiently went through their hectic lives as my home's living room and the kids' room was thoroughly renovated. As I write this, I was informed by my daughter that the renovation work has just got over and my house now wears a fresh look.

There are so many more things to share, but I shall return again tomorrow with the next installment. Until then, good bye!

All on my own

As I write this on the early morning of the 1st of May, I realise it's been almost a week since Dr. Yasser left the employment of the MOH (Ministry of Health) and so, here I am, working alone as the only specialist Paediatrician in Al Muwayh. The feeling of independence has somewhat ameliorated the despondency of the situation. I am now the Head of my department, and can implement certain changes right away. At the same time, I am perpetually on call, so that I cannot go away from Al Muwayh unless they arrange for a replacement for me, even if it is for half a day. This thought has kept me gloomy ... and brooding in temperament.

Only six days have passed since Dr. Yasser left, but it looks like a lot of time. I can honestly say that I have not once gone to my upstairs office in my capacity as the Patient Safety Director. I am able to co-ordinate the work of PS directorship from my O.P.D. office, and that is working out fine.

Since the last 2 1/2 days, my back has thrown a spasm, and although I have taken physiotherapy all the three days, I still find myself in a lot of pain. Today, I requested my Medical Director for a half-day off, and he was kind enough to grant it, so that I left the hospital at noon, and was not called for the afternoon shift. The rest that I got ... I lay supine on the floor for nearly 4 hours in the afternoon ... has helped, and the spasm seems to be less as I sit and write this post in the wee hours of the morning of Thursday. 

So, what else is new? Two of our ER nurses have also finished their final contracts and are in the exit process. They are both Filipinas - one is Sherell, the intelligent, good-looking, single and short-tempered (at times) woman, and the other is Mary Jean, the sauve, married, intelligent one who I got on the wrong side of a year or more ago, but with whom I made amends and a friendship that we both mutually respect. The attrition from the ER is rather rapid; last year, too, three of the ER nurses left us. This is easy to understand, as the prospects of nurses who have ER experience is good in other countries too, esp. Canada and the U.S. Among the rest of the staff, there is little to look forward to.

This is all I have to share with you.

P.S. I paid my fees for the final installment of MRCPCH examinations. Also, within a few days, I would be paying fees for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam that I propose to take in Mumbai in June 2014. I am also successfully going through my current two online courses: one is called Community Change in Public Health, and is run on Coursera. The other one is Engaging with India and is run on edX.org. Both have completed their first weeks and I am looking forward to the next one.

Kindly leave behind your comments. Thank you for visiting.