Camping in the Wards

Background:

I am a student of MBBS at Rawalpindi Medical College. A few months back, due to shortage of attendance in lectures, i was obliged to attend the wards for a week. It was on the 2nd day of that adventure that i was asked to write an essay on the advantages and disadvantages of attending the extra classes. It turned out pretty well. So, here i m posting it...

Camping in the Wards

Abdullah Bin Khurram

                While imagination is not bound by any limits, and aspirations reach beyond galaxies; while the world in turmoil irks me, and progress seems a faraway goal; while my plans surpass the heroes of the past, and my spirits reject the hurdles of the race; it is, nonetheless, the most difficult task in the world to get out of bed after a peaceful night’s sleep. As the sun shines into a bright ball of fire, devouring all the darkness of the heavens; as the birds sing the songs of praise, every teen and youth knows how hard it is not to sleep through the most beautiful part of the day. Routine it is for us to hear someone waking us, mom calling, alarm buzzing, even the fan coming to a standstill (WAPDA or dad) and us rolling over again just for a breath of life, a snooze that would provide us all the satiety of sleep that we couldn’t acquire over the whole 6 hours of night. Late forever, since my school days, and today till university, with all the scolding I can stand from parents and teachers alike, getting out of bed is one hell of a task. And where would this land me but a beautiful chance to camp in the summer, but in the wards and not in the woods.

                Just an extra week of hospitals seems not daunting, but a chance to meet those in distress, to hear their complaints of life, health and wealth, to share their feelings, and do our best to find for them a solution. A chance to help some more people, to realize how well you are off, how much the Almighty has bestowed from health upon us, how fine in proportion is man made that even the slightest disproportionality of the molecules or misalignment of the structures can disturb the whole being, and how much distress is caused by something that is taken for granted by the rest, makes you appreciate your Master and Creator more and more, never can we be thankful enough to Him. Still further, a chance to meet your peers, to acquire from them their experience, to be a validation to their dedication and learn from them in minutes what books can’t teach in hours and then be better in what life has chosen for us, for the betterment of the health of humanity.


            While this perspective seems quite opportunistically incinerating, such warm feelings can nevertheless reach our boiling points in the shining summer blaze especially if you have a low specific heat. While your colleagues (those that had the courage to leave their beds regularly) spend hours in their beds now, with some off to enjoy other aspects of the Creator’s arts in their natural habitats, and some off to spend rarely acquired time with their extended families, it does seem like the empty part of the glass that is half filled with water. While the general environment of the wards is of healthy learning and sick patients, there are those among the peers, especially those assigned to keep an eye on us, who award us with a lethal doses of statements that kill all the passion for studies and break all the barriers you might have made to block the thoughts of what your colleagues might be doing, like we are not aware enough by their facebook posts and their book-study progresses. And all the plans swim away in waves before your eyes that you would have done otherwise in your holidays, plans to study, plans for your passions, plans for your hobbies, plans for friends and family, and, last but not least, plans to make this world and the hereafter a better place for ourselves and all our brothers and sisters in humanity.

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