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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Bare below the elbow policy

I was in Dermatology Clinic with Prof G. My colleague and I arrived a few minutes early, so we filled in the time with small chat. He asked us about our SSCs, UKFPOs and etc. I was removing my wrist watch when he bombarded me with an unexpected question.

"Why are you not following the bare below the elbow policy?" I could feel his eyes burning through my unrolled long sleeved pink cardigan.

"Oh, I only rolled up my sleeve when I have to see a patient" I replied.

"Why are you not following the bare below the elbow policy?" He repeated the same question as if he did not hear my answer the first time. This time, he repeated it rather sternly.

"I couldn't bare my elbow because of my religion. That's why I only roll up my sleeves when I have to examine a patient," I explained.

"I don't care about your religion," He said nonchalantly. He continued looking at me disapprovingly. I felt challenged.

I was about to open my mouth to defend myself. I started saying, "But the other.." And I just stopped right there. I bit my tongue. Trying to refrain myself from saying things that I would regret later. Thankfully, I managed to keep my mouth shut just on time. I realized that if I continue to argue with him about this matter, the Professor would either chuck me out of his clinic or maybe would put me on his blacklist, if he has any. Acknowledging the fact that he is more superior to me, I finally surrender and rolled up my sleeves up to my elbow without uttering any word. I felt naked then.

The first few minutes after that incident passed by awkwardly. I was trying to calm myself and tried to plaster a smile on my face. I tried to act as if I was unperturbed by this even though deep inside, I was silently protesting.

I could not see how bare below the elbow policy can cut down infection. For those who are clueless about what I am rambling about, this policy was created just recently. All of the health professionals working in UK MUST not wear anything below the elbow. Watches, jeweleries and let alone long sleeves shirt is a BIG no-no. Apparently they allow transmission of infection from health professionals to patients to take place, hence this policy supposedly is able cut down the risk infection transmission to patients.

I've heard rumors implying that there is lack of evidence supporting this so-called fact. Yet, despite that, these people are still very much keen to stick with this policy.

At the end of the day, we are the one who are at loss. We, the Muslim women staffs. We are insisted to expose a part of ourselves which is NOT allowed to be shown to others except to certain people. We are forced to go against what was being told in the Quran ie to cover everything apart from face and hands. We are basically forced to do something that we do not wish to do. Now, wait a minute. I thought we are living in a country that emphasis the importance of human rights? So much of human rights, huh?

I still remember, in the very same clinic, a patient kept challenging Prof G about his management plan. After the patient left the clinic, he said to us "Now, that's someone with an unrealistic expectation. She keeps wanting to do things that I told her not to do. That's not good," And I don't know if it was just me being paranoid or if he actually did gave me a threatening glare when he said that.

All in all, it was a good clinic despite what happened. A lot of interesting cases. All of the patients presented with different problems which contributed to the variety of cases. Which is good. He did complimented me and my colleague at the end of the clinic though. Which is definitely good. Hehe.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Anger

Annoyed today, I was.

Angry. No. That will be underestimating my feelings this morning. I was fuming with rage.

I have tried to be rational but I failed.

Funny how a simple thing could annoy me this much.

But I am OK now.

Put this behind me. Let it go. The past doesn't matter. The future does.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Eid Eid Eid :)


Eid is almost coming to its end. Oh well, actually, it has long gone! Hehe. But to Malaysians, Eid is celebrated for a month. So technically for me, we still have a few more days of Eid left. :)

Alhamdulillah, to my surprise, this year's Eid celebration was far from boring. It is anything but boring! From my previous posts, anyone could easily detect the skeptiscm that I have on Eid celebration this year. They are all there whilst I was stuck here. Then, I could not help but imagining how horrifyingly dreary my Eid is going to be like. But, my oh my, was I wrong.

Starting from the first day of Eid, we have been blessed to be showered with abundant of open houses invitations. Eventhough there was not many of us back then, we still do enjoy ourselves. We did try to go to as many open houses as possible. And slowly, week by week, the number seemed to grow! More and more people joined us to go for open houses and the fun just keeps on snowballing.

And last week, we throw our own open house and our house was flooded with people! And the feeling of seeing people enjoying their food is just wonderful.

The juniors are all great. Every one of them. Never have I imagine to be in this place, being the only super senior amongst the many juniors. But, oh heck, seniority means nothing, doesn't it? Why create a barrier with others just because you are a couple of years older than them?

To my housemates, I love you girls. Hehe. And of course, to my ex-housemates, I still do love you girls! heheh. And Eica specially, thank you for keeping me sane when no one else is here to keep me company!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Who says life is easy?

Life is all about making the right choices, huh? Without realizing, we have been trained to make decision ever since we are little child.

To eat the candy or not to eat the candy?

To watch TV or to go to sleep?

To have the white handbag or the blue handbag? Haha. :P

These are the simple kind of choices that we have to make throughout our day, day in and day out. And normally we wade through them without much problem.

But, some decision are just so difficult to make. When the choice that you make determines your whole life ahead of you, you will start to realize that this ain't something to fiddle around about. Make the wrong decision, and you will see your whole life squashed right in front of you.

But, obviously, we human are no psychic. We do not know what is ahead of us. We do not know for sure what will happen if we do this, and not do that. We don't know what lies behind each of the different choices that we have in front of us. We can only assume what will happen, and even that is with extreme limitation. Who knows, in the future, Allah might give a twist in our life, and hence, things will not go as we thought it would be. Scary how unpredictable life is, isn't it?

So now here I am. Torn in between two. I have two roads ahead of me. Each with their own roses with thorns. Either way, it is not a win-win situation for me. Yet, I have to decide. So Allah, please guide me through this.

p/s: who says being an adult is fun?