The Kind of Day I Wish to Live All My Life

I spent the night at the clinic and woke up at 6 a.m. I woke up, washed my face and performed Subuh prayers. Later I boiled hot water and had my morning coffee overviewing the small lake by the clinic. The sun had began to rise and I enjoyed it listening to Sigur Ros on my phone while sipping one of the best Cambodian coffee. By 7 am our laboratory staff began sweeping the floor of the clinic. I cleaned and rearranged everything inside the clinic, and then went for a morning shower around 7.30. By the time I got out of the shower 2 patients were already at the waiting area. Lucky I slipped into my jeans and t-shirt in the toilet! I took off the towel from my neck and exchanged it with my stethoscope that has been hanging on the IV drip stand yesterday. It was last used on a student who came in the middle of the night. Now my stethoscope and I am ready to take on a new day. Our main doctor had to go to his university from morning till afternoon, hence I am the only doctor at the clinic. I had to depend the staff nurse to translate the patient’s history. I saw patients until 12pm, a total of 5 patients in the morning. One case of inguinal hernia, one case of UTI, a follow up for hypertension, a follow up for renal stone and a case highly suspicious of basal cell carcinoma, which I referred to a dermatologist for biopsy.

At noon one of the obstetric and gynaecology doctors we interviewed and selected to employ last week came to discuss on her contract. We discussed and concluded the contract, and hired her as part of HBB staffs. Later I had lunch at the clinic with all our staffs and stole a bit of time to read on microfinance and community based health insurance since I have a meeting with one of the microfinance institutions in the evening. I performed zuhur prayer before the meeting. The meeting started at 2 pm. We discussed to start a community based health insurance for the community around our clinic. I am sure that this project could benefit the community tremendously. The meeting ended around 3.30 pm. I made my way back to HBB clinic, arriving at 4 pm. I took a short 15 minutes nap and woke up refreshed, and performed Asar prayers.

After Asr prayers, I saw that our doctor has seen the last patient. We had our evening tea around 5 pm. By 6, all the staffs had gone back to their homes. I had nothing to do for the night so our male nurse invited me to follow him to take a walk by the junction of Phnom Penh’s 4 rivers. We took a bike there and walked along the river banks where there was stark contrast between the poor people in boat houses and the big hotels by the river. We went down to see the boat people and I decided to start a food package program for them the next time Malaysian volunteer comes.

We walked until Maghrib and performed prayers at a nearby mosque. Then we went for dinner by the roadside. We saw one HBB medical student volunteer was eating there alone. We joined him, and I had a good Pho noodle. After dinner we went to Costa Coffee by the Royal Palace. I had a long talk with our male nurse about the future of HBB. We went back to HBB clinic around 10.30 pm. I prepared my sleeping blanket on the floor of the clinic, performed Isya and went to sleep, ready to take on tomorrow