fasting and clinical years

Ramadhan this year is a bit different from previous year. My typical days would begin at 8 or 9 am and finished by 5 or 6pm. I usually go to the hospital one hour earlier. So, any tutorials that begins at 8am means that I go out from the house by 7am. Usually, I arrived home at 6 or 7pm and I will be fortunate if I am able to come home earlier.

Now, Maghrib is usually after 6pm and the day is getting longer now. Most of the time I arrived at home after 6pm and it means that I break my fast a bit later. Isha'a is now around 7.45pm and the mosque start 30 minutes late to give time for people to relax after Maghrib.

If I'm not too tired, I will try to study a bit after Taraweeh. Most often this is not the case though :). Therefore, my weekend is extremely precious for me as it is the only time for me to revise.

There are a lot to do in clinical years and I need to know few major diseases. There is also emotional component involved whenever you interview any patient with terminal illness. My current rotation introduces me to relatively high number of patients who are going to die within days or weeks. It is not an easy sight to deal with though.

busy week

This week is quite busy. Tutorials can start as early as 8am and finished by 5pm. Today is full with tutorials. From 9 am to 1 pm without any break. Then, 1pm to 4 pm. Unfortunately Fortunately, the tutorial at 3-4 pm is postponed to next week. So, next week, we will have 2 hours tutorial.

No wonder I am so tired. And tomorrow is another busy day. And I need to see few patients too. To be optimistic, this might be a good preparation for my future working hours back in Malaysia. Junior doctors at Malaysia are usually associated with working overtime with decent salary and it won't be any surprise to me if they make serious mistakes due to extreme fatigue.

Fasting and hadith

There are numerous false hadith on the benefit of fasting in the month of Ramadhan. We need to be cautious on this matter and prevent this from spreading further. I still remember that back at my hometown, the mosque used to put up notice on the benefit of performing Tarawih for each night in Ramadhan. As a small child, I used to believe this type of info since this notice is being put up by mosque committee, and hence this is supposed to be accurate. However, I eventually find out the truth and learn the reason behind this fault.

Muslim community in Malaysia, mainly Malay, practices Islam as part of the tradition and there are many instances whereby custom/tradition is mixed with religious teaching. Many, if not all, members of mosque committee were elderly people and they are not used to abrupt changes in their daily activities. Hence, any old custom is being passed from one generation to another without any second thought.

Besides that, it is difficult to find young people praying at the mosque. Perhaps they were too busy with their work to the extent that many mosques were only filled by the elderly.

We can easily point out other people mistakes but it is another matter to correct their mistakes. It takes courage, time and careful strategies to implement any changes in the community. I guess I'm still far from being able to change anything in the community. Perhaps time will tell whether there will be any improvement in our Muslim community in the future.

Interesting read: Soalnya di mana Ramadan kamu? [in Malay]

the fate of efx2

I have another blog at efx2 and I rarely updated this blog. I used this blog mainly to give comment at some of my friends who blog over there. Apparently the blog hosting server is facing severe problem right now. I am pasting the message from the blog developer, Keith, taken from King 0f Ankh

My blog script on EFx2.com was exploited and a phishing scam was put on the server through our site. Apparently this is the 3rd time this has happened in recent months. The problem is this is the first time I have heard about this. If Martin would have said something to be the first time I could have done something to prevent it from happening again.

So now since its the 3rd time in recent months it violates the main hosts TOS so that single server was canceled (he has a total of 4 servers with that hosting company) so he is trying to work with them to get it back.

I personally feel he is no longer going to host us though .. even though its not exactly our fault this happened. It is not something that was done intentionally.

This whole thing completely sucks and is the cherry on the top of my crap cake this past month ..

Because or script is exploitable and I don't have the time to redo it all over again I am going to try out Wordpress MU. Wordpress MU is a multiple user Wordpress script and is developed and tested by professional and will be the fastest way to get back up.

http://mu.wordpress.org/

Check out the FAQ there. It has all the features of EFx2 as well as some we never had. Some of the cool ones include multiple authors per blog and the ability to post from a 3rd party software. Almost all the wordpress plugins work for it as well as all the wordpress themes.

I will pass on any information I get to various bloggers so they can pass it on to everyone else. :D

Hopefully this will clarify what is happening with efx2 at the moment.

UPDATE 14/9/2007: Check efx2 Blogs for current update on the problem.

Ramadhan

It will come within few days. It is the time of the year where one should reflect how much he/she has improved since previous Ramadhan. I'm not saying that we should only reflect when Ramadhan is near. In fact, we should contemplate on our actions every day. What I meant was to use Ramadhan as a measure of our deeds within a year.

Abu Huraira reported: Verily the Messenger of Allaah (sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam) said: Five (daily) prayers and from one Friday prayer to the (next) Friday prayer, and from Ramadhan to Ramadhan are expiatious for the (sins) committed in between (their intervals) provided one shuns the major sins.

[Sahih Muslim, Book of Purification, Hadith no 450]

As I reflect back upon this year, I realised that there are too many mistakes that I've committed. I ought to improve and strive to conquer my own desire. Astaghfirullah.

O Allah, please help me to be sincere in practising Islam as it should be. O Allah, grant me strength and wisdom to stay in the path of truth. Amin.

Muslims by choice.

medical student

This should lighten up my feeling whenever confronted with difficulty of knowing why did I choose medicine as my future career :)

12 types of medical students.

Medical hierarchy

Created by Michelle Au.

cancer, blood and infectious

That is my current rotation. The proper medical name for my rotation is haematology, oncology, infectious disease and breast. It seems there are a lot of topic need to be covered in this block. However, the timetable is a bit relaxed compared to my previous rotation.

First impression, the block is interesting and the patient are a bit challenging. There are few patients in the ward and many of them are facing incurable disease and most of them will be going into palliative care. This is challenging because this is one of the field in medicine where there are not much that can be done to cure the disease.

Majority of the oncology patients will be treated for side effect of chemotherapy or radiation such as nausea and diarrhoea (loose bowel motion). Interviewing patients with incurable cancer who are going to die within few days, months or years is a thought-provoking experience. It reminds me of my own experience watching my relatives who have passed away. It will remind you the temporal nature of this life.