Lazy, Strategically

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe day began early, as they so often do now, with the sky still undecided between night and morning and the neighbourhood holding its breath. I stood at the door weighing my options and came to a decision that I would like to call strategic but which was, in all honesty, simply lazy. I booked a Grab to UMMC.

Anyone who has tried to find parking there at that hour will understand. It is less a search than a pilgrimage, circling the same rows in the hope that someone, somewhere, has had a change of heart and decided to leave. Sitting in the back seat, letting someone else worry about lanes and lights, felt like a small luxury. I watched the city wake up through the window and felt very little guilt about it.

The respite was brief. Before long I was heading back across town to SJMC, where the morning clinics and round were waiting with the patience of things that know you cannot avoid them. Two venues before mid-morning is a particular kind of geography. You spend the first hour in one place and the next three slightly catching your breath in another, as if part of you is still sitting in a car somewhere along the Federal Highway.

Lunch was with pharma, which is to say a meal accompanied by conversation of the professional sort, polite and purposeful. The food was good, the company pleasant, and I left knowing a little more than I did going in, which is about as much as one can ask of any lunch.

Then the afternoon clinic, and after that the rest of the day simply whizzed by. There are days that drag their feet and days that sprint, and today was firmly in the second camp. I looked up at one point expecting it to be mid-afternoon and found the light already softening, the hours having quietly slipped out while I was looking the other way.

The evening, though, had a different flavour. Tomorrow I pick up the car, and so tonight was given over to preparation: documents gathered, details checked, the small administrative rituals that come before something new. There is a curious anticipation to it. Not excitement exactly, more a sort of tidy readiness, like packing a bag the night before a trip.

It did not escape me that the day began with a decision not to drive and ends with the prospect of a new car. If there is irony in that, I am choosing to enjoy it. Perhaps the Grab this morning was a farewell of sorts, a last indulgence before parking becomes, once again, entirely my problem.

For now, the papers are in a neat pile by the door, the house is quiet, and the day that sprinted past is finally sitting down. Tomorrow will have its own pace. Tonight, I think, I am allowed to have mine.

Exams Ahoy!

A big week this for the MMed students in Internal Medicine. Those who were successful in their written paper will be sitting for their clinical this week. The Final Years also were involved. They defended their thesis this morning and all five of them from my program made it through. Alhamdulillah. Some of them came up with pretty dicey statements however during the presentation, but were able to defend them when pressed. Well done.

I was as usual heavily involved in the exams either coordinating, invigilating or examining. I can only be specific after the exams were completed however - it was Monday today. The big issue we had today was the shift of venue. Over the years, we used the Department Conference Room for the thesis presentation. However, there were construction going on, around the department and the noise level can at times drown the conversation. We thought it would not be fair to the candidate. Therefore, we moved the venue to the Faculty, in one of their makeshift room. The room was still under construction with the furnitures and fittings were still being installed but it got the job done.

Our external examiner is a gentleman from London. A very nice chap and has been here a few times in the past either visiting or examining. He was in general happy with the presentation, but made a comment which struck a chord with me. He made it clear that there are abundance of research to be made here, especially in Tropical Medicine, putting dengue as an obvious example. Made me blush, as at the moment, even to set aside time for myself during working hours were never easy, such was the demand of my job.

I took a few photographs with my phone during the day, which I will eventually post. The candidates will have more exams in the next few days, the important ones being the long and short cases on Wednesday and Thursday. Wishing them the best of luck