A Wild Jynx Appeared! Blastoise used Water Gun! No Effect!

Alhamdulillah it's over a year since I got married to the most amazing woman on the planet. So the other day I was reflecting on the pot (pun intended), where I usually get my most creative ideas and I remembered how in my childhood I had always imagined that finding a wife would be similar to choosing your first Pokemon. Yes I said it. Possibly the most sexist statement ever; degrading to women the world over- first there's the word 'choosing', then the perceived meanings of 'Gotta Catch 'em all', there being 151 to choose from (Pokemon became lame after 'Mewtwo Strikes Back'), how the Pokemon were 'repressed' in Pokeballs and how some brave Pokemon like Ash's Pikachu refused to be forced into that tiny shell of a ball, instead choosing to became more like friends to their 'masters' instead of mere fighting pets (possibly the earliest origins of the Pokemon Suffragette Movement). Hey, is that Germaine Greer knocking at my door?

Now hold up, hold up. Before you burn me at the stake, Double G, do take into account the fact that I was just around 9 years old then. I was caught up in the Pokemon craze and I drew the parallel out of pure innocence! Yes, you can blame society's brainwashing for creating an environment conducive to drawing such a parallel yada yada yada, but I'll leave all that bigger picture stuff to you. I'm just telling it as it was.

The idea of finding a wife (there, I said 'finding', not 'choosing') had always fascinated me since early childhood, well before Pokemon even came into existence. It was intriguing how there are about 3 billion women on the planet unrelated to me and therefore potentially marriage material and how (theoretically) i could end up spending my adult life with any one of them. It was like a raffle where the odds were really stacked against you (if you're really picky) or really going for you (if she has ovaries, it's a-go!).

Then when I found out about Pokemon, it all came together. That fascination that I got from going into the 'tall grass' in search of wild Pokemon loaded with a bunch of Pokeballs was identical to searching for my wife! Remember, I hadn't hit puberty yet so they both were equally appealing to me at the time. Not anymore, I assure you. 

The allegory doesn't stop there though. When you'd start the game on the Gameboy Colour, you'd leave your house and roam around for a while completely lost (the-too-shy-to-approach-the-ladies phase), then you'd accidentally stumble upon the 'tall grass' where the 'wild women/Pokemon' were (the-embarrassing-first-attempts-at-flirting phase). But before you could step into this 'hazardous' zone, the game would freeze and your mom/Professor Oak would rush to you and tell you it's not safe to wade into the big bad world of strange women/Pokemon without a weapon. Then you went to the lab and got your weapon/wife. If it was the Yellow version you played, you had no choice and got into an arranged marriage with Pikachu and you had to keep turning to her and see if she loved you yet (initially Pikachu would frown at you. At one point , in the game, Pikachu even fell in love with a Jigglypuff, that cheating %*#@$). If you were playing any of the other versions, you at least got to choose between 3- the fiery one, the wet blanket and the green hippy (Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur respectively). Once you chose (I invariably picked the fiery Charmander), only then could you start your journey of becoming a Pokemon master. As you'd journey further and your Pokemon grew, you'd need to earn badges/raises to earn her respect and hence obedience. The allegory stops here I think. Unless you're Mormon. Then the whole Pokemon world is just one big projection of Utah. Gotta catch 'em All!

Oh, one more allegory. You'd always go into the tall grass hoping against hope you'd catch an exotic Pokemon like a Rapidash but you'd always end up with a common stupid Pidgey (who however, if you cared for properly, would blossom into the awesome Pidgeot). Well, I know I caught a Rapidash. Regal, beautiful, fiery.

Cutest Pokemon (in descending order):

1. Jigglypuff (I could get lost in those eyes)

2. Mew

3. Pikachu

4. Ponyta

5. Butterfree

6. Charmander

7. Squirtle

8. Eevee

Most beautiful Pokemon (in descending order):

1. Rapidash

2. Ninetales

3. Flareon

4. Arcanine

5. Vaporeon

Ugliest Pokemon (In descending order):

1. Magikarp

2. Magikarp

3. Magikarp

4. Jynx

5. Abra

6. Muk

7. Porygon

Coolest Pokemon (in descending order):

1. Charizard (You know dat's right, eh boys?)

2. Scyther

3. Gyrados

4. Articuno

5. Zapdos (never really liked Moltres. Always thought she looked like a Fearow on fire. And with attacks like Drill Peck, you know Fearow is going to nag nag nag)

Now, how's THAT for objectifying women? Nothing objectifies like lists. Do comment below and tell me who your top ladies, err, I mean Pokemon are.

Lessons from a Symposium

Today, I attended a workshop at my university (just so we're on the same page, I'm in medical school in Karachi, Pakistan) entitled “Pediatric Emergency Care in Developing World: Setting Priorities” and boy, was I inspired alhamdulillah. I ditched my day off from classes and went to uni to attend and it was totally worth it. I hope to infect you with the can-do spirit and excitement for the future I'm feeling right now through this article. It was organized by the Aman Foundation and Childlife Foundation (the former is an Ambulance service among other things and the latter a child health organization) in collaboration with certain doctors at the Aga Khan University (my institution), including the head of the Emergency Department, Dr. Junaid Razzak (also involved with Aman) and Paediatrician Dr. Naseeruddin Mahmood (also involved with Childlife) among others. Dr. S.V. Mahadevan from Stanford University was also present and was undoubtedly the star of the show (NOT because he's from Stanford. But with faculty like him, one can see why Stanford is among the premier institutions of higher learning in the US).

A little background on why I attended. I love Emergency Medicine and hope to specialize in it one day. Mainly because I don't have to do boring clinics, counsel patients about their lifestyles (most of my patients would present with more urgent problems such as with convulsions or strokes, so talking about their inappropriately large consumption of Jack Daniels isn't the best idea at the time). I don't like Paediatrics so I was there mainly for the Emergency part.

Also, I attend these conferences to remind my self of the 'bigger picture', i.e. the lofty goals I set for myself at the start of medical school; the ideals I had. I would serve people, improve the health status of our population, do research etc. But in the myriad of textbooks and all-nighters in university, one tends to forget these ideals. So these conferences help keep my morale up and remind me as to why I am in pursuing the noblest profession (I said noblest, not oldest OKAY?). Though it really feels weird when you're all pumped up after these symposiums, only to come home to study some obscure disease of the eye, something you'll probably never see, especially if you don't plan to go into eye. But I suppose our academia knows best, right?

Dr. Mahadevan talked about how his travels across the globe have taught him some interesting things. In Nepal, till 2009 there were no ambulances. Being a Sherpa nation, patients in need of urgent care were carted to hospitals on the Sherpa's backs. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge systematically killed all the intellectuals (doctors included) a few decades ago so the country went from a nation with a fairly well-developed medical system to one in the dark ages within a few months. The Cambodians had to start from scratch. Indeed the situation was so deplorable, doctors didn't even know how to use a stethoscope to hear the chest. Stanford helped train these doctors to recognize medical emergencies via video aids etc. But his crowning achievement (and possibly failure) is probably India. He helped train paramedics to international levels here via innovations like computer games (you are presented with a patient and given options, You choose a wrong option and your patient's health plummets. Do the opposite and it goes up). He trained these paramedics to be able to become instructors themselves. Sadly, after training, many of these paramedics left the country for greener pastures like Dubai defeating the purpose of the training (to boost India's Emergency Medical Services). But that didn't make him lose hope. The lesson he learnt was that he should place such teaching tools in place (e.g. video aids etc) that many people can use with minimum facilitation so as to mass-produce high quality paramedics.

Another thing I noticed about his program was that it catered to local needs, sensitivities etc. Instead of copy pasting diagrams from textbooks. They made new pictures where any humans were ethnically Indian and wrote textbooks that weren't wordy and hence easy for the paramedics' levels. This impressed me and got me thinking about how differently the West does things differently from us. We copy the West. They create. We think its sufficient to build a 4-walled clinic, staff it with a doctor and nurse and the country is saved. On the other hand, the West is professional; they research the area's needs and create programs tailor-made to suit these needs. Then they monitor the program they've set in place and change what's not working. The major problem is that we lack specialists. We don't have pediatric emergency medicine specialists among a million other things. The ones we have have crossed the Atlantic. In reference to my earlier example, we think a 4 walled structure can be a clinic. Slightly larger and it's a hospital. However, an architect specializing in hospitals would know the nuances of such a structure and would build it appropriately and efficiently.

Dr. Mahadevan then talked about how even his training at Stanford couldn't prepare him for somethings that he faced in India. In the States, a woman is usually in Hospital well before she is at the brink of giving birth. In India, they call the ambulance when the baby is tunneling it's way out of the uterus. So in the US, paramedics virtually never have to deliver babies. In India, 1/3rd of ambulance calls are births. In addition to this, snakebites and organophosphate poisoning is something he never comes across. Again, these are commonplace in India. This got me worrying. My life plan is to graduate from AKU, inshaAllah go abroad to specialize (since the training abroad is superior to ours) and come back to serve my people. Go ahead cynics, mock me. See if I save your sorry rear ends when you present to my ER with suicidal depression. Anyhoo, since I saw that my training abroad would not completely prepare me for the nature of medical emergencies I'd face in my country, I am beginning to debate whether going abroad is the best thing for my country. I talked to a Doctor who went abroad and came back and is now running a system of clinics in Karachi. He said that the main reason I should go abroad is to observe the systems in place in the west and to bring them back here. Any differences in your medical training will be made up when you come back inshaAllah. He cited his own example of how tuberculosis is an unknown entity in the west. So he didn't know how to treat it when he moved back. Over here, the disease is so common sadly, every general practitioner knows how to treat it. But he learnt when he came here and now he faces no problems. His experience in the States has helped him set up his chain of clinics. Another option for me is do my residency here and fellowship abroad. I suppose I should discuss this matter some more with doctors who have gone abroad and come back. And do istikhara of course.