"ORaric" Disappointment

One would think the era of discrimination based on the color of skin has vanished from the surface of earth but to my shocking surprise, today, I realized I was wrong. I attended a laparoscopy surgery where the room was divided by one black team and white team. Once in, I was astonished to see incomprehensible favorism towards my black partner by the black anesthesiologist. I thought to myself, well maybe she attended a previous surgery with this team and they know her very well. Throughout the surgery though, the general surgeon was mainly addressing me and another resident who was assisting in the surgery. Oh I gotta stress out the fact that the general surgeon was white. He hardly ever looked at the side of my partner. The OB/GYN performing the surgery was an Asian guy with dark skin... Even though he’s the doctor I am attending, and the surgery is his…he wasn’t quite given a chance to utter a word as the general surgeon was doing all the talk as if he was leading. So surgery was done and my partner and I reported back to the OBGYN’s office, and before we left he stopped us to ask if we noticed the discrimination between white and black in the OR! My eyes just bugged out as I was thinking it was all in my head at some point…but it really was not!!!! Never thought such backward way of thinking exists among the highly educated people! What a disappointment! I thought to myself why the hell is he putting up with this as he is one the finest surgeons with a lot of experience...but I realized once you live through daily discrimination throughout your life, your skin become thicker to any stones thrown at you. This fine doctor had long stories about his struggles back in UK, even though he was raised there...but his skin color was more of a burden to him in life yet he resisted and kept on going his way and claiming more success in his field.

Never thought British people could be awafully racist by dividing people according to their color and race! The funny part, to the white general surgeon I was white...maybe he didn't pick out my accent..but to OB/GYN I was a foreigner: A Moroccan..he thought he could share his struggles in life with and spare me some advices.

Weird & Random Invitation

Well I received a total weird random wedding reception invitation from my uncle's ex-wife. What a joke!

A Change I didn't witness

So I don't know what got me click on Moroccan news media this morning to get a scoop of some Moroccan flavor of news..unexpectedly and surprisingly, the first video I click on, which is an interview with a political figure in Morocco happened to be my father's best friend (or maybe used to be). Last I can remember he was no where near becoming a prominent political figure in the country...so how the hell he climbed the ladder?! and when this happened? Last I can remember of him is being part of diwane of a particular department in the country...well that happened because our political party (well my parents') won the elections and took over some departments...and oh boy life started changing from then. It was one of those magical days, where I truly witness the uneducated, and the poor rise and shine and become some political figure...and of course take advantage of the country resources, build villas here and there, pay cash for kids tuition in France or US...it was the same period of time, my father gave up his political activities for unknown reasons (or at least to us) and decided to keep living a normal life while we were all watching everyone we know climbing the ladder in society through active political involvement.
So back to the story, this old friend of my father didn't even get his high school diploma...so how the heck he got elected on the first place?! Knowing him that well, and knowing where he came from and what he has done...makes me want to vomit. So the interview went on mentioning how of a great politician he is not mentioning any of the highlight of his frauds: such as stealing lands from government, building villas using the government's money, and so on and so forth. I can go on endlessly.
I guess I just wanted to vent off how corrupted the government is in Morocco!!!!

Denial

Perhaps the hardest thing for any health care provider to deal with is accepting health complications of himself or his family or any loved one for that matter. Denial depresses the heck out of ya and torments you psychologically and emotionally. Doctors are good at preaching and giving patients hopes whenever they get slammed with poor prognosis for whatever condition they have, yet when they themselves walk though the shoes of sickness, they lose hope in the world and hardly ever seen any light by the end of tunnel. I am not sure why though but it's true that they can't handle the distress and they suddenly lose control of the steering wheels. Irony of life!

Ramadan Welcome!

Today is first day of Ramadan. My excitment for this month is endless especially this year, actually this moment. I wanted to fly home yesterday since I was in a "effy" mood, and quite nostalgic to be with family but some unprofessional illerate spanish manager on duty didn't allow me to be on board because I had a doctor note with me stating stating that I was sick and needed to get where I wanted to get ASAP. There wasn't a medical emergency really. I just needed to be on the first flight leaving and the airlines wouldn't have allowed me to do so at the last minute unless I had some medical reason. When I got them the medical reason the big fat lie turned out to be a nightmare. I was almost treated like a criminal by the agent as if I had some disease of unknown reason and i was a threat to everybody. I have never cursed or used an F word in my entire life until yesterday. I just wanted to smack the hell out of her. I am like seriously your must be effing smoking weed if you think i am a threat. I am medical student and I know better. I was just too angry to deal with her ignorance. Sure the company is hearing from me when I get back

Free Time and My Tiny Mini Depression

Free time depresses the heck out of me because I don't know what to do with as I have never had this privilege of having free time in life. My routine has been the same for years and years...and it can't get any better...always running to my classes 5 min before the classes start with a cup of coffee or cup of fruits in my hand (I don't know why my husband insists about those fruits)! I started writing a collective book with two of my friends, and even though it was my idea, guess whose part is unfinished? MINE! My thoughts are all shattered, and if I were to make some efforts and pick them up...ahhhh it gets painful for me to organize them in my head as this one is getting bigger and bigger!

Free time depresses me big time, and I end up bothering my husband and depressing him as well. So today I took the pledge of studying 13 hrs straight with short breaks for lunch and prayer time! Let's fight this mini-depression! Freaking board exams are around the corner!

Afghanistan

So I watched a documentary about this young girl named Islam describing her miserable life with her abusive husband and how she was married to him at a very young age...basically she was sold to him. To put an end to her miserable life, Islam poured diesel fuel over her body. A very heartaching story. Although this happened long time ago, I just felt the need to write about it because for almost a year now I have been heavily exposed to the Afghani culture and Afghan people since my very close friend happened to be an Afghani...she is the star of my group. She did PA school before but decided to join medical school as soon as she graduated. Every time I study with her, she just fascinates me with her knowledge in medicine and criticial thinking of putting things together. I always try to imagine what if my friend was living back in Afghanistan under Taliban ruling, will she ever be given the privilege to be the smart person she is now. Will she even be studying medicine? What would her life be like? I just think it's quite sad that a lot of potentials gets wasted in war or has been wasted during war especially under Taliban ruling.

FB insanity!

So what is it with people and facebook these days? Some are reporting every its and bits of their life step by step as if the entire world cares about them. I had this friend and her husband update their page at least once a day, exchanging love messages, husband posting pictures of his wife every time she eats an icecream then weighs herself, or ends up going to the gym, and some other silly STUPID pics where he says " look at my beautiful wife" Ok !! we get it! your wife is cute and you look just like a giant old bald beast next to her. Good news, I don't have to read their comments because they blocked me after I said enough is enough and suggested that it'd be easier to videtape themselves instead so we can get a more detailed scoop:) Was I mean? Totally!!! was I rude? Definitely!!! Do I regret it?! HECK NO!!!

Now I have another interesting friend who was diagnosed with something in her brain (can't remember for my life because every time I talk to her she tells me some new diagnosis). So this friend every time she takes a shot, she reports how many she did take, and if she feels any pain afterwards, and all the drama with her medical status updates. She seems more of a histrionic type of personaly with some bipolar disorder.

I totally understand the need of sharing some info with friends, but there is only much you can share people!!!!

Dear Friend. Sorry I forgot You Are (or were) My Friend

I received an email from an old friend, apologizing for not being a great friend to me while I was always good to her...Apology was mainly because she forgot to congratulate me on my wedding. Jeez totally forgot she never congratulated me...heck I even forgot that she never responded to my wedding invitation. In my head, I just assumed she was somewhere in some part of the world and she couldn't squeeze me in her schedule. But then again, true friends are there for you to share the greatest moments of your life with you...and the bad ones. My friend was very sincere in her apology and she ended her email by expressing the need to stay in touch with me. Jeez once again, I just sent her an email checking up on her few months ago, but then I couldn't remember if she ever responded. How could I be so dumb?!
I felt crappy after I finished reading her email. Though she was sweet and sincere, and I hold nothing against her even though she couldn't make it to my wedding...it's just that I realized that I am so naive in my friendships...I give my 100 % to my friends and I get nothing in return..most cases. and the people I don't expect anything from them, they were always the ones to be there for me in time of need or even share the happiest moments of my life like graduation ceremonies,engagement, and wedding. I just realized I have bad luck in this field...some don't deserve my friendship at all.
My birthday was few months ago...and I got surprise birthday cakes from random people I didn't even expect them to know my birthday....but as far as the people that I thought were truly my friends, they were so busy with their lives to the point of forgetting to wish me just a fake happy birthday.
Before my birthday was a friend's birthday...I spent literally 3 weeks organizing it...well it was a suprise party and I made sure she gets pampered the WEEK of her birthday and not just the day of her birthday...this friend happened to move out of the area...and someone so naive like me would expect her to at least give me a phone call to wish me a happy birthday...but instead sent me FB message: happy birthday dear friend. I felt she wasn't sincere in her wishes...and I didn't expect her to spend a penny on me but I was just hoping she would show some sincerity especially that I spent GOOD MONEY on her birthday....

Moral of the story...choose your friends carefully.

Gotta Be Selfish

It's one of those days...didn't know what to do with my time the entire day! Been devouring chocolate like there is no tomorrow for the past days, waking up every morning with a bad stomachache promising myself it'd be the last day to put myself through this pain...yet I find myself doing it over and over again as if eating chocolate would eliminate all of my stress. This is really pathetic...I can't wait for the sun to rise to lock myself in the library and be selfish! Why do I need to care about the world?! right?! I shouldn't give a rabbit about who is alive and who is dying! God, how I feel stupid for caring so much for sacrificing my time, energy and feelings to lift them up when they are desperately in need for someone to listen to on the expense of priorities. Jeez I want to cry and kill someone now!

I had a meeting with the dean yesterday, and stupid me broke into tears as always. This god damn med school made me cry rivers! I feel like I am in the military and not med school... one valuable advice he gave me : " you know how the horse sees? He doesn't have peripheral vision, he can see straight only, and that's how you should start seeing things...straight and focused and forget about everything else. be selfish". No wonder I get effed all the time !

Boy boy, how I am emotionally drained! There is so much on my plate and so many expectations, and balancing between this career and personal life has been a challenge. I just want to be anti-social, and focus on my well being and carry a healthy lifestyle! Screw the rest of the world and F* what people would think of me...I was always perceived as arrogant anyway! it's not like going to change anything this time!