The Doctor with the White Steth

Everyone has his own love story Your partner should be a blessing Love can be taken away at any time If you are not grateful.  It requires effort to blossom. It requires compromise but not on your basic values. Love does not always end up in marriage. However, no marriage can survive without love.  Sometimes, your love needs help from family, friends and sometimes strangers. Love is not about playing mind games.  All good things come to an end eventually.  I just wanted to share this. Maybe I will add some other points later. Just a little about my personal life, I was in a long distance relationship for 3 years. I, eventually, ended things. It was probably one of the hardest decisions of mine. I have hope! I have faith! I have zero regrets! 

I was reading some of the older posts. I have grown a lot but still a kid when it comes to certain things. I have decided to be more open about things. I find this place a safe place to vent out my feelings and emotions. Therefore, some of the post will not make sense to a lot of people but it is just a medium for me to express some of my crazy thoughts, dreams and emotions. I have always struggled with my feelings and emotions. Honestly, I have buried myself in work so I do not have free time to think about the heavy stuff! Working in the ICU helps me concentrate on making life and death decisions rather than thinking about my problems and feelings. Still struggling though! Let me tell you what happened to me yesterday!  I was on call in the ICU overnight I went to grab a Kit Kat from the vending machine. I went there and got it. When I opened the wrap, it was melted. I was so heart broken. I really wanted one! I could have really used it since I was struggling with so many ...

Guys I have a good and a bad news. I have been appointed as the new chief resident of Providence Hospital, Washington DC for the year 2017-2018. This was pretty shocking!! I was not expecting this like I was not expecting my mom to get really sick! I do not know whether to be happy about my chief residency or sad for my mom. Every day I think about her and the consequences of her diagnosis. I do not know how she will fight the cancer alone. I am thousands of miles away from her. She is in Pakistan and I am in DC! Hopefully things will work out! 

Coming back again after almost a year. Residency has been tough. 2nd year is tougher than intern year. A lot of stuff have happened. Between my personal life to professional, my professional life has been more steady. Al though some days like yesterday, I came home after finishing 24hr ICU call on Sunday. I was exhausted! I started my day with a sign out from the other senior. I spent time rounding with my Program Director till 4 pm. In between, I admitted a Jehovah's Witness who was bleeding to death. Then at night, I ended up seeing a stupid consult and admitted another patient at 0300. I slept for an hour between 0500 and 0600. I get paged 45 mins before the end of my shift for two admissions by the ER physician. Seriously I was pissed off and told her politely that I can do one and I won't be able to admit two since my shift is ending at 0745. Then I spent the next 4 hours signing out to the intensivist and the ICU senior resident. After 11 am, I was finishing up my two H ...

I finally graduated to 2nd year of my IM residency. My first rotation was night float. Night float is hard and it really tests you. As a night float resident, you are just working, sleeping and eating! The cases which you see as a night float resident in a community hospital varies widely. Now I am more comfortable admitting a drunk alcoholic patient than admitting someone for the CCU team. Our Hospital is not equipped to handle urgent cardiac cath. So, we have to decide about possible transfer to a hospital which can tackle Coronary cath. We admit a lot of NSTEMI and Arrhythmias. There is a cardiologist on call every night but he is at HOME and resting. It's hard to reach them and as a resident you can only pray for the patient in some situations. So, whenever I am admitting any patient for CCU for gray zone troponin or non-specific EKG changes, I give the patient Aspirin, Ticagrelor and Full dose anti-coagulation. I can not take the risk. I call the attending and he normally ag...

It has been nearly 9 months since I started my internship. When I started my internship, I was full of energy and I could do anything. Now It seems like that It is taking a huge toll on me. I feel exhausted both physically and mentally. I am glad that the vacations came on time. I have been back home in Pakistan and enjoying the company of my parents. They always teach me about life which I can not learn from other people. I can share with them a lot of stuff. Hopefully by the end of my vacations, I will share some stuff which I will acquire from them.  For now, lets talk about the Medical Floor. The hardest part of the IM rotations are the floors. During 4-5 months consecutively on floors. I learned that you can not control everything. Your job as an intern should be to learn but it is so different out there in the real world. Your learning should be done by the attending and the senior residents; more so by the senior resident. Some days I got really sick of the fact that a...

So, I will be rotating with my Chief resident this month. I am extremely Happy about that. First, he is a really cool and funny guy. Secondly, He teaches. The other day he showed me how to work on the floors. He gave me couple of tips which I will share here. 1- Do three rounds. One before the actual rounds with the attending, second after the actual rounds, third round before you leave for home 2- On you sign out sheet, write everything. Develop a system. Write N for notes, L for labs reviewed, AM for AM labs ordered on the sign out sheet. Cross these things as you move forward. 3- Call your consults early. 4- Start from the top floor (or the floor with the sickest patient/intermediate care unit) 5- When you are on one floor, do everything for the patients on that floor. After you are done ordering stuff, talk to the nurse and the social worker for those patients. Start discharge planning early. 6- When you are on a floor and you receive a call or page from another floor,...

Hello Everyone!  So, I tried my best last year. I gathered 6 months of US clinical experience by volunteering at two different hospitals in the US last year. When the time came, one of the Hospitals offered me a job. I am very excited to start my residency in internal medicine. My dream finally came true. I do not have to pursue pathology or psychiatry. Thank you to the Almighty God who helped me immensely at every step of my journey. Who knew a person with an attempt in Clinical Skills exam can match in IM?  Strangers helped more than friends. Even my best friend could not help me get an interview at the Hospital he is working at.  But I think about people who claimed to be my friends and it hurts when they decided to help strangers over me. I am bitter but I have forgiven them. Now, I do not know how will I interact with them! How will I talk to them when I will see them next time? May Allah help me build a mighty heart when the time comes. These days, I am j...

The problem is that I really do not understand everything. Why would they think that a particular field is better for me when I clearly have no idea about it ? On the other hand, I have no idea about the other field. Then again, Beggars can't be chooser. I have the credentials which suits the less competitive field. And Am I willing to waste so many years trying to get into a field in which I have small experience. Should I blindly take the path which is easier than the other path? Then again, my own ego would never allow me to rest in peace, if I go into the less competitive field. My own ego would always push me to achieve a different goal. Or will I be satisfied with my life? Am I willing to go back to my homeland, and start everything from scratch. Why would God want me to take this journey? Should I go back without even trying to find the shore! So many questions! 

Long time since we talked...... So, I cleared my step 2 CK and CS exam. I scored 231 in CK. Al though not a great score to cover my CS attempt, but I am hopeful that I will match this year. I have applied in lots of programs. Hopefully someone somewhere may realize that we are more than just scores . Well, I started contacting a lot of my friends and colleagues to help me with an interview call. I am also seeking help from strangers. Al though, I find this practise futile and useless. And to be very honest, they are reluctant to help me because I do not have the credentials. It is neither their fault nor mine, I can understand how problematic it could be for them. Interestingly, one of my friends told me that you can email the program director and tell him that you are my class fellow and you have heard great things about the program. CS is an exam which is totally unpredictable. Anything can happen to anyone. I may not be the brightest student or I may not have best of luck with me...

I took NBME 2 Online and scored 225. My target was to score more than at least 235. Now I have decided to postpone my exam and take it on 25th April In Shaa Allah! Now I am gona complete uworld for the third time and try to remember stuff from it.  Hopefully I will be doing 100-200 Questions daily! Hoping to score great on step 2 CK ! 

Okay I am trying to sleep but I just quit trying and I had a mini toblerone. After 17 days, I will appear for my step 2 CK. Yes! I am pretty anxious about it and I am trying to become a morning person so that I can do okay on the test day. But it seems impossible. It is around 4;00am in the morning and I was trying to sleep. Tonight, the reason that I am more anxious is that I am going to take my NBME 2 online today. So, I'm pretty worried about my scores. Good scores will provide me with some kind of relief but I have decided to take the exam on April 17th no matter how well I do on the NBME. Inshaa Allah I will take it on 17th April. I don't want to delay it any further. It has been affecting my overall health and I have been sacrificing a lot on CK. I think ALLAH will help me achieve my purpose. I have full faith and confidence in GOD! For those people who are reading this, I want you guys to specially pray for me. I need your prayers and best wishes. I will try t update m...

Even in the sea of lost desires and dreams, I am holding onto faith and God. All I can do is to spread Goodness and Kindness around. It actually helps to cope with the enormous challenges I face every day. And Kindness is contagious. Al though I am doing it for selfish reasons but I am happy that It is making me happy!

 I am living with very small no. of certainties. I am lost. I am fighting for every day and hoping that my next day will be better than my previous day. Every day is the same. A big Constant!

This post is for the anonymous person who posted a comment on one of the post I made 6 months back. I may have a clue who you are! Thank you for your honest feedback . I have deleted that post . That is a small step in making amends. It is extremely important for you to know that I respect you and I should not have written those words. And I think you were right back then and I realized my mistake at the moment you commented on it. I am not proud of it but I was way too worried about hurting people. My apologies!!! I hope you read this and I pray that you forgive me!

I feel like talking to you guys today. I think it has been a long time since I actually talked to you. My goals are changing and I have been thinking about life more seriously. My goals have the capacity to drive me mad. My goals have the capacity to destroy my personal life. At times, I doubt that my goals will not make me happy in the end. Money and Desire will not serve me well in the end. It will be a storm of agony and pain because the real world is a scary place. Today I saw a movie called Flipped. It is a movie about two teenagers. It just simply made me sad. Is my professional life making it harder for me to actually sacrifice a lot of my desires? Are my goals really worth losing my family and friends? At this point of my life, I am standing no where. I have the whole sea in front of me. I took up a path and a really difficult one. I am in the middle of no where now. I can not go back.. Every day I wake up in the morning and think about the future. Then I distract myself wit...

What a poor state of health in our Pakistan!!  We need to spend a lot more on health. In 2010, the infant(child younger than 1 year) is 70 according to UNICEF and 77 in Punjab according to the Punjab Health Department. There are only 37,272 for a population of above 81 Million with 70 percent living in the rural areas. We don't even have a current data on Health. Many doctors are migrating to other countries because of the poor working environment in the hospitals. Nobody seems to care about the health in this province. The journalists are busy in calling doctors as robbers and thieves. The Govt. has decided to use all of its strength to crack down on the doctors demanding their rights. The situation is getting worse and worse. The health department of Punjab is being run by politicians rather than professionals. What is happening here?! Can we not renovate Mayo and Ganga Raam instead of building bridges for Lahore?! A point to ponder! Following the sources of this information. Do...

Ramadan comes to an end. 30 days of muslim fasting ends with celebratory day. "Eid ul Fitr". I think I will miss Ramadan and fasting. Well I have done some reading on MSNBC blogs and read anti-muslim comments.I read those comments and I was amazed at the people writing those comments. They were quoting Quran out of context. Some even called Quran boring(not that I have problem with what he feels. But Dude dont expect nude pictures in the Holy Book). One person called Pakistanis, Arabs and Camel Jockey(although there are few deserts in Pakistan but we are not an Arab country). Then another Indian guy proposed that Muslims should live in Pakistan and Hindus should live in India(I do believe that some individuals have border line personality disorder and see everything in black and white). Then there is another guy who says that Muhammad PBUH attacked Meccan Army of 300 in the Battle of the Badar( that is not even historically correct). Then comes the Atheist and he says, ...

I don't want to waste my time arguing with someone who is so full of hate on religious matters on Facebook, Twitter and other websites. It is just time consuming and eventually everyone is hiding behind their computers screen saying horrific things about religion in general and Islam in particular. There are a common misunderstandings about Islam in many people. I would try to address few in simple Q and A type format on this post. I am doing this because I hope somebody would click this and I will be able to at least fulfill my duty to spread some of the facts about Islam during Ramadan.. Who is ALLAH?  Allah is not a Moon God. Allah is an Arabic word used for the God(the force controlling this universe). According to Islam, He is the God of Adam, Noah, Moses, Jesus , Muhammad and other Prophets (Peace be Upon them) Who is Jesus?  He is the Prophet of God Al mighty. If a Muslim does not believe in Jesus, he is not a Muslim. Al though Muslims do not consider him the So...

I wish I would have something nicer to write here.