Returning favours

As medical students, you'd have countless encounters with cadavers in learning anatomy. be it handling prosections, wax specimens, or if you're lucky like us medics in Nottingham, you get to dissect the cadaver with your own bare hands. Ok slash that. Your own gloved hands. ;)

Your experiences would range from cleaning out the fat lobules on various fatty parts of the anatomy, or delicately demonstrate the various muscles, nerves and blood vessels, to scarping out substances from various orifices. All this done baring in mind that it must all be done professionally, in the name of education. It was weird and unsettling at first but as we get into the routine, it was pretty awesome actually; to be able to see touch and explore the organs Nature has cleverly created in all its glory.

You came out each week from the dissection room, with heads held up or low (depending on how the weekly spotter assessment went), not to mention, without failing, smelling like formaldehyde, a wee bit more knowledgeable, and most importantly; grandly more confident in using the scalpel, saws and drills to hopefully help you during the early years of practice later on.


For us in Nottingham this coming week would be the last week of dissection. Like completing a puzzle, organs will be put back into the bodies, dissection tables scrubbed clean and our white coats that we've donned for the last 12 months be passed down to the juniors. As a sign of respect, next week too, we would attend the funerals and say our thank yous personally to the family members of the kind hearted, once-alive bodies that have allowed us to learn many new, exciting things.

After this, we owe them the cadavers one; to be good anatomists and doctors, keep that in mind :)

InsyaAllah

twen-frickin'-ty

i turned 20 on the 14th. Alhamdulillah.
20
two-ooh
i had a wonderful time spending the weekend with Zul and the flatmates. I am so lucky to be blessed with such lovely ppl :) from the bottom of my heart, thanks lovelies.

on a more serious note, 20 it really is a quite scary age to be. you're no longer a teen. youre a -ty aged person now. no more excuse at the back of your head saying 'geez this is too serious a stuff, malas la nak pikir. no matter, i can do it later, ill put it down in my list of to dos b4 20' (okay i know most prolly i je have that kinda lists) but the point is, you're a grown up. And you have to grow up. (well not literally, i cant grow any up dah kot) You have to start taking responsibility and steer your life the way you want it to go. youve got to start thinking what am i gonna do with my life, in what way will i affect the ppl around me, what am i gonna give back to the world. You've get to get up and go. Time flies and the world isnt gonna wait for you. So we've gotto step up.

ps- had a chat with J about the 20hood and stuff and we realised that this decade is most prolly gonna have the most life altering events of our lives maybe. This decade we will make or break in medical school. thus getting a medical degree (insyaAllah) and become doctors! We would start practicing, we might get married and OMG we might even have our 1st children in this decade! Like, seriously!

Better never than late

I was running around the med school looking for my lost Uni Card today between lectures and i came in late for CLS lecture. Dah la lecturer tu Associate Dean of Med School, i pulak dah strategically put my bag n books dead in the middle of the crowded theatre, konon nak get a better view of the ever exciting Lecture pasal stroke.
The lecture was starting, everybody was concentrating. As soon as i entered through the back door je, Prof L from far down below stopped his lecture in the middle of his sentence and looked straight at me. The whole damn lecture went dead silent, and everybody turned their heads round to see what he was looking at. all 300 freaking pairs of eyes bored into my soul with grudging look as ive cause distruption to the lecture. (T_T) I had to climb down the stairs, asked 5 ppl at least to get up and make way for me so i could get to my seat. With all eyes on me, chewah, :D gosh i swear it was the longest 10 seconds in my life. Felt like i was a two headed monster or smthg!
Sorry Prof, Sorry guys!

This kinda love.

I saw an old couple today. They were walking in front of me towards the main entrance of the hospital. The lady wore a knee length brown hooded trench coat while the husband with greying hair wore a matching winter jacket. They walked really slowly. I noticed the lady has varicosed veins on her leg while the old man's foot was a bit edematous. I fastened my pace and walk beside them, not wanting to miss my letcure. Smiled a polite and embarrased smile, replied by their thin lips curved up.

They have their hands clasped to each others' while their other hands gripping tightly to walking sticks. Both wore a single Red Poppy on the chests and have that solemn, calm look on their faces, amongst all those busy medical students and other professionals.

They keep walking and walking, slowly, in the cold November rain, in each others hand. In my eyes, its like whatever the world throws at them, their love and care for each other could never waned. :)

I want this for you and me. I want this for all of us. :)