Egyptian Lessons

My Egyptian tutor sits over that chair, in the smoking room, taking a deep breath of his cigarette. He closes his eyes while he inhales it, his facial expression changes to something like being high. Then he starts talking. I learned 7 lessons in my previous week from him.

The eighth lesson, which I learned by myself is Egypt played a great role in sending scholars, and teaching other Arabs. This fact was not absent from my mind. Yet, I didn’t really feel it until I started training as an anesthetist last week. The only consultant there, who happened to be my tutor and supervisor, was Egyptian. To tell the truth, I’m amazed by his qualities and addiction to his work.

Due to Muhammad Ali Pasha, Egypt started huge steps toward good education system. After a hundred years, some of Arabic countries got rid of Ottoman impact and initiated some education trails. Still, Egypt is the leader in cultural and educational fields until it started to be Mubark Egypt.

What did Muhammad Ali Pasha do to improve education? He realized that learning, in academicals institute, is the only path to stand next to great nations. Therefore, he adopted the European model. He used advisors from France. Also, he sent many scholars to there, such as Rifa'a Al Tahtawi.

The 7 Lessons

1^st Lesson: Think, take one second reconsidering what you want to say, do, or write. That may prevent many bad consequences. Also, it saves many hours after thoughtless decisions.

2^nd lesson: Always remember your role in the big theater, life, is being a doctor. “God has chosen you to do so”.  So, play it perfectly, because once you disturb it, many other relating characters will be distracted. And be careful, you never know when you play the patient part. Be faithful now, so they will be faithful for you when you need them.

3^rd lesson: When a system is screwed up, despite the need of a tight one, many regulations to compensate appear. As a peer to peer relationship without any guide lines to follow, you need to find the way to apply your demand. That may be in the form of gentle asking, with little bit of fun and sense of humor. Otherwise, it would be arranged forcefully by screaming, shouting, and applying unchallengeable power. So, keep the tension on the right tune which guaranties your requests to be fulfilled.

4^th lesson: Anesthesia is about using all of your senses to direct you toward the benefit of the patient. You should observe with your eyes: the surgery field, the patient face, the chest movements, sweating, the numbers over the monitor, and every little change. You utilize every part of your conscious to save the patient and achieve the best result. “In the end, this is a music promo, and you are, the anesthetist, is the conductor, the maestro”. I could notice the doctors giving analgesic agents when there’s wounding, applying force, or puncturing the patient skin. Although, the patient is sleeping, this pain, which he/she possibly feels, may transfer into the form of a nightmare. In future, all the memories of my patients during the surgery must be sweetmares :)

5^th lesson: Modesty is most important theme of a human being. As human beings, doctors are trusted on the rest of humans’ lives. He was looking at a patient over the bed, while telling me this. The patient was disfigured with some mental challenges. He said: “after dealing with such patient, you have no right to think anything of yourself. We all are alike”.

6^th lesson: When you do a mistake, you must admit it. There’s a shortage of stuff in the department, and a lot of stress. I wanna explain the situation in a little bit of details. There’re 3 triangles in anesthesia: anesthetist agents; which inducts sleeping, muscles relaxant agents; which make muscles very paralyzed and weak, and the analgesics; the painkiller. We use opioids (i.e.: morphine) to ease the patients pain. Yet opioids suppress the breathing. In cesarean section to deliver a baby, one shall not give opioids for the sake of the patients breathing/respiratory function. Yet, given all the previous conditions in the department, a doctor gave opioids instants of muscle relaxant. He confesses all the excuses can’t justify his mistake. However, he admitted his mistake, informed other doctors to take what it needs to save the just born baby. My tutor told me that patient comes first, even when you do mistake, fatal one, you have to admit. Take the blame. It’s a mission of saving a human life not your ass.

Lastly 7^th lesson: “Saudi Arabia was just a desert, tent, and camel. Over one night all that has changed to well established and rich country. Nevertheless, people are not taking well care of their country. Why? What is the future of this place?” The answer could take another entry soon.

 In the end, I realized one important lesson after 6 years in medical school. I don’t study medicine to be a doctor, but to heal people. Anyway, most of you know that I rarely praise some body. Yet, I have nothing to say but thank you very much my wise teacher and doctor. 


P.S: please vote for the best lesson.