Emergency Rotation

So finally, i am at my ER rotation. ive always dreaded this rotation but in the same time, needed to try it out ASAP because a huge life decision will be made based on this rotation.
ive always struggled between choosing medicine or psychiatry and one of the things i really loved about medicine was emergency and the fact that you get to really be the hero and save lives literally !
but the shifts system is a killer .. knowing that all days are the same and u get no weekend or whatsoever coz you only work 15 days out of 30 days but its spread all over and all these shifts that screw your system ...
so the average is 4 days a week which is not bad i guess but the working hours can be painful, atleast to me .. so here in my hospital, shifts are
7 am - 4pm:  i only have one of these thank god!! i cant imagine working at 7 am ! my brain would still be sleeping for heaven's sake
10 am - 7 pm: this is an OKAY shift .. so u get to sleep a lil and u get to go home early before the ER goes insane, its not so bad
2pm- 11pm: *pukes * i totally hate this shift ! like REALLY hate it. i got 5 shifts like that !! wai3 .. ur day is completely wasted .. no u dont get to sleep as much as u want coz u need to finish everything needs to be done before u go to work so i still need to get up early, workout and study .. i just hate it ..
5 pm - 1 am : beside the fact that ill be walking home late at night, i really think this is the best shift !! u sleep as much as u want, u study, u have fun, u relax then u go to work and come back and sleep .. 7asafa, i dont have many of it
11pm - 9 am: this is the shxt , lol excuse my language .. not because its overnight no, its because ull be the only doctor in the emergency department lol and past midnight is when all the weirdos arrive.. esp on weekends .. lol .. it gets FULL-MOON-MADNESS

beside the constant change in shifts, canadian emergencies are quite impressive .. the emergency doctor who is a medical/family doctor get to see medical cases, get to do minor surgical procedures like sutures and casts, gets to do some opthalmic eye examination and use those complex scopes , gets to play the ENT doctor, they are able to use ULTRASOUND . like today,  my attending was like, GO PUT A CAST ON THAT GUY ... i had a huge question mark ON MY FACE .. and then i told him ive never done that before, he was like okay, go examine that's guy eyes and i was like okay, so i got him in a room and brought the opthalmoscope and guess what?  I DIDNT EVEN KNOW HOW TO TURN IT ON !! 7aseet my doctor was going to yedfni lol ..

i feel bad, i really feel bad ... but im not THAT bad tara.. i had a 100kg obese lady who kept farting the whole time while i was interviewing her .. awal mara, qelt 7ram, '3azat o ba6nha ye3wrha and she didnt say anything so i was like wa3lia esta7at .. 5min later, she farted again .. and  was like NOW SHE WILL APOLOGISE but she didnt, she kept playing ma3zofteha .. wa k2na el3aid .. it was hilarious and i wanted to crack up and laugh but i couldn't .. but then it stopped being funny when it started to stink lol and i couldnt leave the room .. omg it was bad ... it was really bad ... but i did manage to stay professional by not laughing lol or crying out of pain

yeah, i really need to get over my graduation year trauma .. i have been severely traumatised by my final medical school year that i stopped taking my job seriously, im still stuck in that belief that im still a student .. i dont even study anymore. studying makes me extremely anxious .. this is bad .. im coming off as a slacker, an idiot or some one who is not taking her job seriously ..
i can still feel it, the fear of failure that i had during that year , the hate i hate towards my seniors and i just got repulsed by anything that has to do with medicine. if it wasnt for my 7th year bad experience, id have still been a medical doctor. i chose psychiatry coz i was that traumatised by medicine ..
i really need to get over this .. this is extremely bad .. its not because of the bad impression that im showing others, no, its because this is not me . ive always been passionate about learning.. ive always loved finding answers to my questions.. this slacker is not me .. this slacker wont make a difference in this world .. this slacker wont win a noble prize ..

so part of my wake up call is to find that knowledgeable scholar in me and bring her back. its time to learn. ive worked so hard to be a doctor, its time to BE ONE.

why leaving is that hard

So this is where my journey ends.. When i first arrived in kuwait for my vacation, i was home sick for toronto and i never expected myself to break down like this.
Ive been pretty emotional and tearful in the past few days prior to me leaving to toronto. Ive been having so many regrets regarding not spending enough time with my family and fears about losing them.

When i firat arrived to kuwait at the beginning of october, my dad told me that one of my aunt"s was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer but she was pretty stable and asymptomatic and within one month, ive been informed that her condition has deteriorated so badly and that she has less than 6 months to live. Being a doctor, i know what pancreatic cancer is and i knew that she wasnt going to be cured but just realizing that she wont be here next time i come for a visit has struck me with fear.. Within one month, she recieved a diagnosis of death and within 6 months, she will no longer be here.. Realizing how things can change so quickly !! I realized that it could be anyone else, it could be my dad, my mum, my grandmother, any of my siblings b3id elshar inshallah.

Being abroad, away from family and friends could you put you in that risk, the risk of losing anyone and being left with regrets for not spending enough time with them.

My friends keep telling me that therez nothing i could do and the reason i am abroad is to make my dreams come true, little they knew that  i dont see my subspeciality as a dream and it is definitely not worth it but its a choice i made ans i have to stick to it. Dont get me wrong, i do like psychiatry and i have no regrets choosing it as career but its not worth the pain im feeling right now.

My friends and family dont really know what i really feel. I only post my happy moments/pictures. They have no idea how lonely it is there, how tough it is to go through this on my own. Toronto is one of the busiest  and fast growing in the world. It is full of immigrants and people seeking a chance to live. Everyone is working hard here and they have no interest in socializing so its hard to make friends here and most people are found in groups, like all asians, all indians, all arabs! Most of kuwaiti students are doctors like me and they are either too busy trying to survive the residency and the on calls or have their own family and satisfied with that as a social life .. everyone thinks of being abroad as a '' COOL '' thing, actually, i used to think the same way .. maybe it is a cool fun way if you are off as a student, as a bachelor student but definitely it is one of the most stressful experiences as a doctor/resident ..the way medicine is taught and practiced here in kuwait differs a lot from the way things are done in canada. i don't think they train us and prepare us for such responsibility here in kuwait. In canada, you feel as if the medical students are waaay better than you and can handle critical situations better than us residents/doctors. with this, comes great amount of stress, depression and low self esteem. you feel as if you wasted your life away during these past 7 yrs . add to that the long working hours in canada .. the average working hours for any profession is 8am till 5pm but for doctors it can get as hectic as 7am till 7pm .. during my consultation liaison rotation, there were days when i left the hospital around 8:30.. it can get really crazy!

so we got stressful job , no social life and then lack of support. the time difference between kuwait and canada is like 7-8hrs .. even in the lucky days when i leave work as early as 5pm, it will still be too late to call home coz that would be around midnight and most of the people would be asleep by then. you can try staying up late till midnight canada time but then that would be as early as 7 am in kuwait and the majority are busy getting ready to work or still sleeping .. this leaves you with nothing but the weekends to try to keep in touch with people back home.

i have no regrets coming here or doing that .. it wasn't my 1st choice but i know this is happening for a reason and i have a feeling that amazing things will happen in canada .. I'm just saying, its not as easy as it seems .. and I'm not as happy as i pretend. in a matter of fact, i don't dare to show my family and friends how fragile i am here .. in the past few days, i broke down a couple of times and i told a couple of friends about it, a lot of em were shocked and didn't know why i was crying. they thought things were perfect here and that i was having a blast ..

i think I've ranted enough …

just wanted to get these thoughts off my chest . and I'm beginning to get really sleepy right now .. i still have 2hrs before my next flight, I'm so drugging myself out and sleeping the whole flight ! its 14hrs25min flight and there is no way on earth that I'm going to stay awake all flight long.
sadly, im reaching toronto around 5pm so i can't just jump in bed, i got one day to fix my sleep which is impossible but one can only hope right? so ill probably go for some grocery shopping then deal with the piles n piles of mail that i know that they r waiting for me and i bet most of them are bills!


cant keep my eyes open anymore

sick

so i have finally gotten sick..
wow such a relief ..
lol no i'm not mad, i have a pretty good explanation for this ..
you see, one of my biggest concerns about going abroad and being on my own was getting sick .. i rarely get sick but when i do, i get sick so bad and ive always needed a little bit of pampering and nursing :P
no seriously, i was dreading getting sick here ..
and unfortunately, i did get sick .. i think i have the flu or something ... the weather has changed dramatically in the past few days .. it became cold all of a sudden ..
so yesterday, i had that nagging headache with this bad lethargy .. as if a truck drove over me .. i slept the whole day .. and i had that scratchy throat ..
but things were not as bad as i anticipated EL7AMDALLAH !! i managed to make me chicken soup from scratch :D .. and i did have couple of friends calling me and offering to come over to nurse me lol ..
im so glad that i got sick .. coz now i know that getting sick when ur on ur own isn't as bad as i thought .. i mean el7amdallah it was only the flu and nothing serious but still, im glad that i found out that i could take care of myself ..

OHH OHHH and i learnt other stuff too .. so ive always been a workaholic and a productive freak . i cant just sit still without doing anything .. i cant just have a lazy day .. even when i was sick before, i had to do something like read a book or watch some documentaries .. i cant just waste time in bed . this was very unacceptable and yesterday, i had the urge to grab a book or something .. and believe me, if i was doing this for fun, i would have let myself but i know that that urge to read or do something is out of my obsession of being productive rather than having fun .. so i stopped myself .. i was getting restless and the urge was getting stronger to do something but i kept stopping myself and did nothing but sleeping the day away ... and this is considered a big achievement for me lol .. yep .. doing nothing is not easy for me at all ..

and the other good thing that i learnt is, to give myself a break .. Canadians are workaholics and they never take days off .. coz that means less money .. thats why you rarely see people taking sick leaves and stuff and ive always had that feeling that if i take day off, ill give em the impression that im a weak person or something and since this is my first year, i cant afford giving my supervisors any bad impressions. there were days when i wasn't feeling well enough but i had to push myself because i thought, i should't ask for breaks .. but then a friend of mine told me '' YOUR HEALTH COMES FIRST, YOU COME FIRST, IF YOU ARE HUNGRY, YOU LEAVE YOUR PATIENTS AND GO EAT. IF YOU FEEL SICK, YOU EXCUSE YOURSELF '' .. ive always been hesitant to do such stuff .. there were days when i didnt have lunch coz i was busy with my patients , there were days when i missed my doctors appointments because i couldnt tell my supervisors that i need to leave for my appointment .. you cant blame me, doctors in kuwait have traumatized me lol .. they were so mean and rude and would never let us leave for lunch/appointments so im not used to asking for these .. but it seems people are more considerate in canada and i guess i gotta learn how to ask for my rights .. i mean, here you can just call and tell them you cant come coz you are sick and no one will ask you what kind of sickness you have because privacy is a big issue here !! but in kuwait, they demand you to bring a sick leave or tell them what u have and if they are not convinced, they will force you to come and work :s ...

the thing that im trying to say here that ive started to learn how to loosen up a bit .. and thats something that i really need ...

ramadan in north america

ive meant to update this long time ago .. and i know ive said that a thousand time but i really wanna update it more often, for my own sake :s it has been 3 months since ive arrived to canada and those 3 months passed by too quickly :S .. i still get home sick sometimes and i believe the reason is that i still dont have many friends .. the weekends are the toughest coz im either home all day long or out on my own and its really not fun being on your own .. ive always wanted to do this .. travel and live on my own .. but you know, its not as fun as you think it is .. especially if you are working and here in north america, people work ALOT !! things can get really stressful at a times and miserable if you lack support ... now ramadan was quite a challenge .. so in toronto, emsak is around 4:30 am and breaking fast is at 8:45 pm nowdays .. you go to work from 8-9 am till 5-7pm .. and people around you are eating and drinking .. thats not the worse part .. the worst part is, when you come home around 6-7, you're already exhausted and tired, you try to cook some fotor and then you break your fast at 9 and by 10pm, you cant keep your eyes open .. so its like the whole day is wasted because you're at work and even if you're home, you'll be too tired to do anything and at night, you're sleepy and actually you cant even stay up late because you got work the next day and there will be no coffee to help you stay awake .. do you get what im trying to say here?? ramadan in north america SUCKS est'3afer allah .. not only its draining me physically since ive been living on one meal .. but MENTALLY TOO .. i swear to god, everyday id be debating with myself if i should break my fast or not!! in my whole entire life, ive never wanted my period to come as bad as i want it to come right now .. i just cant take it anymore :( and what ye7er too is that there has been alot of holidays here and you'd want to use those holidays to go out, do stuff or even travel but you cant because you're fasting .. dont tell me to go out despite my fasting, its really hot and sunny + people are eating everywhere + alot of walking involved + im already as diadventage because i only eat one meal a day .. i tried waking up for so7or a couple of times, i either missed it coz im so exhausted and couldnt hear the alarm or id wake up only to realize that fotor is still ga3d 3ala chabdi :S i just cant wait till ramadan is over :( and thats so sad because i was lookng forward for ramadan :( the good thing about ramadan that it has forced me to cook everyday and be creative with it lol .. yeah that clashed with my dieting plans .. but who cares!! i only eat one meal a day .. i should eventually lose the weight .. i hope :S so yeah, ive been experimenting with different cuisines ..

we got some italian futor, some middle eastern futor .. tiramisu which i need to PERFECT because all tiramisu here has alcohol in it so the only tiramisu i'll be having is the home made ones :( ive actually eaten a few ones here without knowing that they had alcohol and gotta say, it does taste different ... NOT IN A GOOD WAY LOL .. wallah, chena fe dowa ka7a :S today, im steping up the game a bit and im having asian futor, the plan is to do some suhsi, baked spring rolls and dumplings .. now thats gonna be a challenge :S ill keep you updated :D