JuniorDr Blog

Its great ive found this site so i can moan and hopefully amuse you all. Il begin with my ASL (Age, sex, location). Yea right. :P

 But in short, im a Muslim female medic who has just begun her foundation training ; beginning with Vascular surgery.:)

 Im having a brill time, no jokes, med school was such a complete bore and am so glad to finally be doing something mildly related to medicine. Lets just hope this  joy lasts till the end of my year. I have to get up at awkward hours , but, im glad it finallyyyy gets me out of bed before mid day lol. My day usually begins at the crack of dawn and if im trying to pray Fajr in morning that would be near 5.00am.

 To be frank with you, surgery is the last thing i wanted to do on the earth as a med student, but now that ive been forced into a 8 month rotation ...

 You see the issue really lies in those half sleeved surgical scrubs that almost everyone walks very comfortable around in incl.  other muslim doctors..they laze around in them in the surgical mess, wear them on night shifts and on calls. They are as comfortable as night wear!

 Unfortunately as a muslim Female medic who observes Hijab i ammm determined not to bare any flesh unless its a diree emergency where im then religiously permitted to do so.

So now i am being constantly faced with the "technical" issue of what to wear  in surgery.. hmm....i thought today when my Fy2 suggested i come into theatre in the afternoon and assist as we had a full list.

Il be there as soon as ive done my jobs i said and had a coffee. I then went to the mess and sat there scheming how i would cover my arms as i had forgotten a top for underneath the scrubs. And even if i had managed to do that bit, how would i sucessfully get scrubbed in without showing my arms to any men before wearing the sterile gown. Asking the surgeons to allow me to scrub after them might make me look a little shifty.

Indeed, dilemas are many lol. Still happily determined to do both.

Result:

Went to surgery, asked the nurse to give me a surgeons gown. Now this is usually a battle and a half. She complained about the manager and the cost. I mentally begged God to make this less embarrasing for me. She finally handed me a gown. I quickly put it on, thinking , for future i could use just the sleeves and somehow just have to wear the sleeves under the scrubs. I looked around for a pair of sissors in the changing room. None found. 

Oh well i thought , taking this design a bit far! I looked like a space raider alien. But it looked cute. Blue is a pretty color. Now all i have to do is look for an orthapedic hat.

Now ive asked the staff to put one of those things in the female changing room but so far noone has bothered. Am tempted to make this an after hours mission of mine.

So walking into theater , everyone looks at me, a little shocked. Bless them. Im shocked too. But thats life for you. A nurse kindly asks me : are you cold? I say no i just need to cover my arms. Oh right she says.

My Reg calls me a space raidor. I laugh . No insults taken or meant. I state i need to cover my arms. Hes a joker generally. Nice guy.

Lucky for me everyone else is scrubbed in so the scrubbing area is free for me to take the gown off and scrub up without having to worry too much about having men walk in.

Lucky escape No 2.

Going to sew me a few long sleeved tops :P

Till the next time.

Peace :P