Pausing for a breather. Then, moving on.

Returning to this blog after quite a pause. It has been a hectic month, what with planning for a vacation back in India in mid-February. I write this while counting down the hours left for my flight to India via Frankfurt on Lufthansa this time ... I hope to be amidst the living sometime in the early hours of the 17th  ... in Mumbai. 

Work-wise, a few great things happened, and a few things went wrong too. On the wrong side first: I participated in a course that goes beyond life-saving resuscitation of a newborn to learn advanced resuscitation techniques. For this course, I went to Manchester in end-January. The course turned out to be a little tough. However, it did help me to understand a lot of things and will make my treatment and management skills more accurate, specific and well-rounded. 

I went back to my educational supervisor and explained what had happened. I then offered to not be a full-rota registrar that I was slated to become from the 7th of the coming month. This is what then transpired. My supervisor had a lengthy chat with the departmental head and they agreed that it might be a good idea to let me work as a registrar on every occasion except on night calls since that is when there is no support for a registrar and they are pretty much alone with no consultant to cover.

However, here, then, follows the good news. Over the last fortnight, I have been closely scrutinised by the paediatric nurses and the consultants, and they must have felt that I am otherwise quite capable - so they put me back on the night as a registrar in the last two days. I performed quite well, and therefore, am hopeful that I may continue to be on a full rota once the 7th of March comes around. 

In other news, I did perform a few extra practical procedures on neonates and have now gained much more confidence that I can perform well even with this precious category of patients. 

Moving away from the professional to the more personal stuff: in preparation for the vacation that starts tonight, I have been on a buying spree on Amazon as well as offline to meet the demands of my women. I have ended up buying so much stuff! This includes frozen fruit, novelties, items specifically requested by my daughters, and so on. Valentine's day went by yesterday, and this, I believe, will be the best way to fill their hearts with my love for them!

And with these hopeful words, I will end this post. I hope you found it interesting. Thanks. 

Deaths and Life

Life and death are illusions. We are in a constant state of transformation.     

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Mexican Film Director, 1963- )

Life and Death

Life and death come in a never-ending cycle. After my mother passed away in September last year, I have had some time to think about mortality. I have a notion that the Supreme Being does not want me to witness the death of my loved ones. When my dad passed away in October 2012, I was in Saudi Arabia. I was to appear for the first of the three exams that would lead to my British qualification of MRCPCH. This exam was at Jeddah on the 8th of October. My dad passed away on the 6th. It was ultimate sadness for me to stay back for the exam and THEN travel to India to meet my family and console them/be consoled by them. 

When my mom (Shirin S Savliwala) passed away, I was in the U.K. Her death probably took away the torture she was undergoing for the past month and a half as she had a severe deterioration in August. Fortunately, it may be supposed, I was able to go to meet her for a few days that time; however, when her end came, I could not be there in time for her last rites. 

When I did visit India in mid-September, she had been buried for over 10 days. Even so, I was able to visit her grave and pay my last respects to her. She has left behind over 45 years of memories for me. She married my father when my biological mom passed away in 1971 of breast cancer. She was the real mom to me, although she wasn't my birth mom, as she reared me right from my primary school years to where I am today. May her soul rest in peace.

When you talk of death, can birth or life be far behind? The miracle of life is all around us. I have a small succulent plant that I purchased from a local store a few months ago. It hardly needs watering. I noticed, around mid-October, that it had sprung a whole new stem from the top of it. Now, several new leaves have risen in a rosette around this new stem.

Babies are born at the hospital where I work with near-clockwork regularity. Thousands of babies are born everywhere in the world, with a near 350,000 born globally in a 24-hour interval. Add to this the number of other life forms and we are talking of millions of new organisms, plants and animals every single day of our life. And then, I think: Hmm. So, regardless of lives lost, the planet keeps forming new life at a pace faster than it extinguishes its previous citizens. 

That is the hope that keeps us going. 

What do you think about this issue? Do you think death is a limitation on our race or a kind of selection that makes the species stronger? Do reply in the comments section.

May I also ask you to visit the blog of one of my very good friends who stays at Houston, Texas. Please read her blog HERE. 

Ten plus days in my new abode - and now, I am connected!

The connection I chose is the one from sky.com. I purchased the internet broadband, the TV and the landline all from them. They were to come to my place on the 23rd to install the internet, but I was compelled to cancel that date as I went urgently to India on the previous morning. I had to re-schedule it - and the earliest reschedule date they gave me was the 6th of September. In between, they sent an engineer to install the TV set-top box - on the 29th of August. Hence, by that evening, Sky TV channels started beaming into my house. I was, after a long gap of over 22 months, finally able to view Indian channels on Sky. Thus, I was now able to choose between over 20 Indian channels, many of them in HD, such as Sony, Sony Sab, Sony Max, Times Now,  Aaj Tak, News 18, Star, Rishtey, etc. etc. Within the last 10 days, I have weaned off British TV and am engrossed in watching Indian TV. 

The internet guys came on the appointed date - i.e. on the 6th. By 4:00 p.m., I got connected by wireless to the worldwide web! I am now able to keep both my mobile phone and my laptop connected simultaneously. This had hitherto been impossible to do when I was staying in the hospital quarters since they allowed only 1 device to be connected at one time. The speed of the connection is excellent as well, since I am now able to download at speeds of over 1.5mbps.

Internet connectivity also allows me to view "box sets" - entire series of shows, by downloading them to the set-top box and then viewing them at my own leisure. My set-top box can download three programs at a time for later viewing. And this is an amazing feature indeed if you cannot decide which shows to save for later and which to skip.

That's it for now. Do keep reading, sharing and commenting on my blog entries. Thank you.

What I did in the last 4 days:Multitasking, reading, studying, sleeping and working

Dear Reader,

I have an idea that the title is not very catching. It sounds oh so plebian. And yet. these last four days have been extraordinary for me. Several small snippets of things I did occurred to me after I had finished watching a movie on Amazon Prime, so I thought to myself: what better example of a life led with variety than writing this chronicle.

I finished 4 consecutive nights on the 7th of this month and was granted three full holidays thereafter. Thus begins my chronicle.

Tuesday, 8th March.

I slept for about three hours during the daytime and caught up on the rest of the sleep only after everything for the day was done. The other activities included reading a bit of the Wilbur Smith novel "Golden Lion", cooking some lamb curry without a recipe but with a ready-made curry powder that I had purchased from India, speaking to my children, watching a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory (currently, I am on season 6) and finally, going out for dinner with Luckey to Sapori, an Italian fine-dining restaurant on Clifton Street. (Read my blog entry HERE.)

What was unique today? My first meal at Sapori, of course. Also, my first attempt to use a ready-to-use preparation to make lamb curry. To be honest, the curry was very, very simple to prepare. All I had to do was add 400 g of washed and cleaned lamb pieces, the entire contents of the lamb curry masala and 350 ml of water into my pressure cooker and then cook them for about 15 minutes, of which the last 10 were after sealing the lid closed. That's it. Amazing, isn't it? Yet, the curry turned out quite delicious.

Wednesday, 9th March:

I woke up late, having completed the sleep deficiency of the previous 48 hours. Today, Mumbaikar Pediatricians Drs. Hemant and Archana Joshi paid a visit to the hospital. Dr. Hemant had been talking with me since a week and was very keen to visit the Paediatrics department with me with a view to understanding how NHS works. He is a very different kind of person. Not very humble by nature - he loves to keep talking about his achievements - and yet, very humble and eager to learn. He presents a visage of a man who is an eternal student. I filled him in on all kinds of information. We went everywhere: the outpatient clinic, the ward, the special care babies' unit, and the A & E. We met with and interviewed nurses, healthcare assistants, play workers, outreach nurses, speciality nurses, and so on. The doctors also met Dr. Rabin Mohanty, with whom they had a 10-minute long chat.

Afterward, we all went to Basrai's World Cuisines restaurant at Talbot Road (remember, I reviewed this excellent place on my other blog? Read that review HERE.) Hemant and Archana's company was excellent, and I believe this: they went back very happy with the way the visit went. Dr. Hemant described it as a very happy day in his life because he said he had learned so much.

In the evening, I stayed home, doing this and that. Nothing else to write about.

What was unique? Obviously, the visit by Drs. Joshi. I did miss a "Meet the Author" programme that had been organised at the hospital - they had invited Mr. Steve Watson, the author of "Before I go to sleep", a psychological thriller that has been made into a movie a year ago.

Thursday, 10th March:

You can say this was the most uneventful day from among the four days that I am writing about. And yet, small things did happen. I remained in my rooms the entire day. This, in itself, is unique. From the time I came to the U.K., I have always ventured out of the house on every free day, so this was highly unusual. Over the past 1 week, I kept trying to call locum agencies to help me find a locum for today and for the coming Sunday. No jobs materialised. I had enough food in the refrigerator, so I did not need to cook. I watched a French movie on Amazon Prime. This was with subtitles in English. It is based on a true story and is called KALINKA. In it, the father of a 14-year old who is found dead in suspicious circumstances keeps investigating the matter after he has been stonewalled by everyone for bureaucratic, political, and other reasons. He finally gets the culprit after 28 years! A must-see movie. for every movie aficionado.

What was unique? The fact that a move in a language I don't understand can prove to be so riveting.

Friday, 11th March:

I went back to work after my three-day gap. It was a six-hour cover duty where I was supposed to go and see newly-borns on the post-natal ward. Nothing exciting actually on the job. But that all changed after I returned home. Today, I saw, outside my window, what seemed to be a new species of bird. Two of them were pecking things off the grass. Their behaviour, though, was reminiscent of commonplace blackbirds. I rushed to watch them with my binoculars. I brought out my RSPB bird guide, and discovered that these were nothing but juvenile blackbirds. Totally unlike their parents, these juveniles were brown in colour and heavily striated on their ventral aspects, as well as lightly striated on their dorsum as well. In my excitement, I forgot to click any pictures.

Later, I watched yet another thriller on Amazon Prime. This time, I searched for Before I go to sleep. And lo! It was there. Starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, this thriller is the same one I mentioned above in connection to the Meet the Author. The movie reminded me of Ghajini, in which the Bollywood star Aamir Khan plays the role of a man who lives only in the present and forgets everything after 15 minutes. Well, Nicole here plays a similar role, except that her memory lasts till she goes to sleep at night. Nobody can be trusted as she lives a fresh life every morning. Everyone is suspect: her husband, the doctor who keeps calling her every day and takes her to the hospital, her best friend ... no one. An amazing story indeed. Again, I strongly recommend it. 

In the evening, I prepared roast chicken in the oven for the first time! I used Chicken breast pieces, some mixed herbs to marinade, and sunflower oil to baste the chicken pieces. It turned out to be easier than I had thought, and with this, my confidence in making stuff in the oven has gone up a notch
. 
And that's about it for now. Eventful four days of my life. Thank you for reading. 

Update and more

Dear Readers,

I have been amiss in not posting anything on this blog since the past nearly one and a half months. I will offer no excuses for this, but I do wish to say this: I have missed you all as much as you have missed my posts - perhaps it is a greater loss for me. 

So, after the passing of the one-year milestone, my life in the hospital and in Blackpool went into a routine. Nothing exciting was happening and I was plodding on from day to day. I did locum duties about 6 days in all, and they were mostly in Bolton and at Bassetlaw. Of course, they helped me save more money and earned me a bit more of practical experience.

Back home in India, my family began gearing for my expected visit to Mumbai in the first week of January. This time, the primary reason for my Mumbai visit would be to attend the 40th reunion of my GS Medical College batch of '77. We would be going to Kashid and our stay would be at Prakruti Resorts. This is a large resort spread over a big area of 100 acres. There are indoor and outdoor activities here, including carrom, tennis, a swimming pool, a discotheque, and more. The rooms were decent, and in line with their 4-star rating. Nearly 60 out of our batch of 160 attended the get-together. We - i.e, my family and I travelled together. Inas and Hannah were initially apprehensive about what they would occupy their time with as they would be the only offspring to travel to this holiday. In the event. they were quite happy with the entire package. There was much they could do as a pair, and also, they played with the rest of the class when we had beach handball as a game. The food at the resort was really good, and they varied the menu at every meal so that I had a taste of many different kinds of foods and hence, enjoyed myself.

The reunion itself was remarkable. It was a memorable experience because we had all had different life jouirneys  but were now on a common platform with no differences of sex, social backgrounds, religious beliefs, financial standing or any other yardstick,

In addition, I had a good time with my family. I ate out with my daughters on a few occasions and with the whole family (i.e. including wife Nishrin) on a few more. It was all quite enjoyable. The outing with both daughters was in a mall, where I had food with them in Bombay Blue in a mall known as Phoenix Market City near Vikhroli. This was a lovely lunch with mostly a mix of Italian and Mexican food. 

With Hannah, I had a meal or two in more casual outlets when we went shopping together. With the family, I went to World Streat Foods at Nariman Point  unique experience.  This is a recently opened restaurant that brings world street foods to you in the ambience of a comfortable, indoor place. We really enjoyed this one. We had food from Sri Lanka, East Africa, the Americas and also stuff from other parts of the world. 

As I have posted on social media, I was able to help out some people with their life-problems. One of them was a mom with a child with a borderline delay of milestones. Another was an ex-patient of mine searching for advice on the choice of post-graduation in his chosen field. 

Finally, this short visit, I rejuvenated myself to return to the UK for some more serious work.

A Year in the U.K. - My personal life

I landed at Manchester airport on the evening of the 14th of November last year. The time was around 3:30 in the afternoon, but it looked as if it was nearly dusk in Mumbai around the same evening! It was drizzling and dark. I caught a train from the Manchester airport railway station and reached Poulton-le-Fylde station at about half past five. Outside, it was dark and dreary. It was raining. I caught a cab without a metre, and was dropped outside the A&E of the Blackpool Victoria Hospital, with the driver charging me a whopping 14 pounds! 

From that day, when I was hit by the British winter in full force, until today, as I write this, I have certainly come a long way. I have had some really unique experiences, and am in a life that is quite different from the one I lived in my two previous lives - in India, and in Saudi Arabia. This post is about how my life has changed in the past year.

From the hot, dry deserts of Saudi Arabia to the pleasant monsoon climes of India and then to the temperate Atlantic-weather of Blackpool has all been overwhelming, really, Within a few days of my arrival, I experienced cold winds on the Promenade while doing my first shopping for essentials. The next three months were all new territory for me. In December, I attended my very first Christmas party organised by the nurses of the Paediatric department. It was - kind of - exciting to be able to be in the company of so many people, most of whom I didn't even know. And then, to be asked to join them all in a dance. And to partake of a Christmas meal with prawn cocktail, a drink, a fish entree and then a sinful chocolate dessert. Quite a lot of fun.

The days I have walked 10000 steps ... ahh, wasn't that amazing. I took part in the 5K challenge (running 5 km) on behalf of the Blue Skies Fund (the in-hospital registered charity) - with just 30-40 other participants on a cold, wet morning. And the days I went around Blackpool, exploring its roads, the Promenade, its restaurants, and its unique flavour. Those linger on as really good memories. 

Then there are my peregrinations in and around Stanley Park, the urban park that acts as a nature reserve in addition to being a recreation park in Blackpool. It has football grounds, a cricket ground, gymnasia, children's outdoor activities and a large water body with avifauna all around the year. It allows adults to fish in these waters for fresh-water fish. The park affords the bird-watcher with ample opportunities to observe birds all around the year. This includes the water birds, of course, but also so many tree species, some of which I saw for the first time in my life. I have, of course, tried to document all the birds that I could with my Canon DSLR.

I then joined the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds and visited many bird parks and reserves around Blackpool. The most memorable one will be the Turbary Woods Birds of Prey and Owl sanctuary at Preston, but others also featured. 

My travels took me to the Peak District where I walked part of the famous Monsal trail, and to Cumbria and the Lake District, where I visited Windermere lake and town. I also saw a lot of Preston, Manchester, Liverpool, Buxton, Silverdale, Lancaster, and a few more towns near about me. My travel was limited, of course, by the fact that I own no car, and I get a few days of weekend leave to do my travelling. Be that as it may, I have travelled more in the last 1 year in the UK than I did in India over the previous 50+ years (I am, of course, talking of travel on foot, and only for leisure).

Next, on to my culinary adventures. Well, I have mostly persisted with Indian style cooking, but occasionally, I have tried English cooking, and it has nearly always turned into a less than satisfying experience. Eating out, on the other hand, has been very fulfilling. I have tried, for the first time in my life, authentic, low-price Greek, Italian, Jamaican and French food. And I have enjoyed every such encounter. The most memorable one for me will be eating at Nuncio in Blackpool, an Italian restaurant where they served me excellent seafood risotto. Another one to not forget would be the Greek food I had at Othello's in Blackpool.  Among Indian restaurants I visited, how can I not recall the food I had at Manchester at Chennai Dosa, or the one I had at Imli in Lytham? There are others too, but this blog post would run into several pages if I carried on.

Shopping is a treat in the U.K. There is something for every budget. There are numerous pound shops that deal in thousands of articles that sell for a pound. Then, there are mid-level places where you can find decent merchandise for a low price. You won't have to pay a king's ransom for shopping at such outlets. They include H & M, Primark, TK Maxx for clothes, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Lidl, ASDA and others for groceries, Boots for Pharmacy, the thousands of corner shops run by Asian guys that sell recharges, newspapers, daily provisions and so on.

The major difficulty I have had is in terms of finding regular company when I am not working. This is the price you pay when you decide to work in a foreign country without your family and friends. I have made a lot of casual friends, and tens of Facebook friends, but when it comes to real friends with whom you can spend an evening over dinner or invite to your place to have fun, I have had just a few of them. One of them, a certain Michael Siong, was a gem of a person. I miss him, as he moved on from Blackpool, first, to London, and now, he is in Scotland. 

And that's about it for this post. Do let me know your opinions on how you found it. Comment, if you wish, in the space below. Share it with your friends if you wish, Thank you so much.

Nearly half a year: what is life like in the UK?

In a week or so, I will have reached half a year of stay in the Kingdom. There will, of course, be the retrospection. However, if I were to sum up what I have done so far and where I am, I would say the following:

1. My financial position is worse off than when I was in the other Kingdom, namely the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Not only is my income reduced, a lot of my income gets cut in taxes. This was not the case with Saudi Arabia.
2. My professional knowledge is increasing by leaps and bounds. I am now getting more and more comfortable with handling complex patients, doing procedures, understanding how the world-famous NHS works, and so on.
3. I am still struggling with the finer nuances of the cultural gap between where I have been for the last 55+ years and where I am since the past five and a half months. While the people here are quite "advanced" and "liberated" in their thinking, there are serious issues of privacy and what may or may not be considered acceptable during social intercourse.
4. People are not what they always seem to be. You can have someone who shows you how nice they are on the outside but be very critical on the inside; conversely, you can have someone who looks unfriendly on the outside but is rooting for you on the inside.
5. There is no such thing as a British stiff upper lip. Every individual is different. There will be guys and gals who are open minded but close-hearted, and those who are open-hearted and welcoming. 
6. One can get genuinely hooked to British food, especially fish and chips.
7. The society here is highly multi-cultural. The Irish people head the non-UK pack, followed by Polish, other East-European countries, then Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians, Sudanese, Iraqis, Egyptians, Malaysians, Chinese, etc. 
8. As good food is easily available in stores as well as ordered from restaurants, the incentive to cook food in one's home is indeed limited.
9. It is very difficult to find non-porcine items in the menus of smaller eating establishments.
10. My adventures and hobbies are simply going up. I have visited nearly 7-8 different towns and parks and have experienced so many delightful things wherever I have gone. This has included visits to cities, bird parks, countryside, etc.
11. It is an expensive way of life. Make no mistake. There is a premium on everything here. It is hard to believe that while developing countries like India have abolished the TV and radio licence, people still have to pay the licence annually to simply watch the television - even if they want to see just the free channels (known here as Freeview).
12. Working with people from different cultures continues to broaden my mind. In Saudi Arabia, I worked mostly with Asians and Middle-Eastern people, plus a few from Africa and nurses from the Philippines. Here, we see people from all these places PLUS a lot of European people - from Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Russia, etc. These are people who have the freedom to work in the UK without a visa or other strict requirements as the UK, like them, is part of the Eurozone. 
13. Having one's own passport with one's own self and being able to book a ticket and fly wherever you want after getting one's leave sanctioned from work is the kind of freedom that I sorely missed when I was in the earlier Kingdom. If you are travelling to your home country, all you have to do is buy your flight ticket and fly once you have the necessary leave.
14. I still miss my family.
15. Almost 50-60% of people here are fitness conscious and wear a fitness gadget such as a pedometer or a fitness wrist-watch when they work. In spite of this, it is a shame that obesity is on the rise here. This may have something to do with the very unhealthy diets that Britishers have out here. They are hooked on fried potato chips and on sweets of all kinds from cakes, shortbreads and cookies to sweet biscuits, complex desserts and sweet drinks and ice creams.

This is all I have for you today. Do let me know what you think of this retrospective entry. Join in the conversation by:

• commenting on my post
• sharing it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or other social media
• Linking to my posts through your own blogs or writings. Let me know and I will link back to you.
• Entering your email ID in the "Follow" section so that you will be abreast of my most recent and new posts.

Thank you. 

Over 5000 views, and some news on what is happening here in the UK

At the time of writing, I have actually had over 5500 views on my four and a half-month-old blog. This is extremely heart-warming and I thank all my readers sincerely. I am aware that many of you are, in fact, following my writing since a long time - and some of you are likely to remain one of my regular readers, come what may. To all the new readers here, a big WELCOME. 

I have been struggling with the new kind of work in the UK. Having worked in Mumbai as a Paediatric consultant for over 2 decades, I left my practice to work as a Paediatrician in Saudi Arabia from November 2011 until September 2015. During those four years, I garnered a lot of support and encouragement from many of my friends and acquaintances as I set about gathering a new qualification: the Membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. I succeeded in my endeavour and was able to get my MRCPCH certificate during the first quarter of 2015.

One thing led to another. Eventually, exactly 4 years after I had left India to go to Saudi Arabia - viz. on the 16th of November 2015, I began a new chapter in my professional life by arriving in the U.K. to be part of the Paediatric team at the Blackpool Victoria Hospital in Blackpool.

It has now been over 4 1/2 months since I arrived here. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge. I have had my dark moments and my highs. What has kept me going is my continued enthusiasm to balance my work with enjoying life. Initially, I used to take my work lightly. Soon enough, I began to be censured by the higher-ups, who felt, and I would agree they were right, that I would need to be seen as much more serious about my responsibilities if I were to make anything out of my present job. I did exactly that, and today, I am happy to say, that I have travelled much more of the distance than where I was in mid-February 2016. Luckily, I even made time to go to India and met my family and relatives in what turned out to be my best 10 days of the last six months.

During December and January, I had already begun to travel short distances to see England. A visit to the Peak District and a walk down the Monsal Trail was a highlight of that time. In February and March, I continued my internal travels, visiting Manchester, and then, Liverpool city. Towards the latter half of March, I began to go on serious birding and photography trips, initially by myself, and later, in the company of an English birding and photography enthusiast, Mr Martin Lever. We went together to Stanley Park, and even the Rossall point to the north of where I live. The previous few weeks saw me make solo trips to the Lake District (Lake Windermere area) and to the RSPB Leighton Local Nature Reserve.  I saw many different birds,a few animals and a whole lot of naturally beautiful spots of the landscape.

In summary, it has been a mixed journey, but always with some positive outcomes. I am grateful for having got the opportunity to work in the NHS. I have not only learned so much, I have also made so many new friends, earned a modicum of respect from my colleagues, and had so much fun on weekends. 

What do you think?

To view my photos, visit me on Facebook, go to the "Photos" link and explore my albums; alternatively, browse this blog. Thank you.

Back in the UK, the past 10 days

After arriving here in the U.K. I have immersed myself in work but have not lost any opportunity to relax and entertain. My readers who are also connected to me via Facebook may have seen my post related to my one day trip to Liverpool on last Saturday. I also went out to eat a solo dinner on the last Wednesday (at the Akash Indian restaurant) and a dinner with a friend on the following night - with Michael at Nunzio's (my second visit to this amazing Italian restaurant). 

In other news:

•  my work is getting better now that I am able to understand the system. 
• I ordered a "kettlebell" for working out from home. 
• I am missing the gymnasium on account of being busy until the late hours of every work day. 
• I am enjoying home-made chapatis for dinner. 
• I am still finding it difficult to cook food, and so, am eating the dal I had cooked on the last Wednesday. 
• Finding cooked food is not so difficult in the UK, and I usually end up stocking my small refrigerator with stuff bought from M & S, W H Smith, Sainsbury or similar outlet. 
• On last Sunday, I went on a cross-country walk inside Blackpool. This walk begins from a gate inside the hospital complex, cuts across the golf course next to the hospital, and keeps going towards Staining, a suburban area of Blackpool. During this trip, I caught some birds and landscapes on my Canon camera. The photos haven't exactly been award material, so I am going to post just a few here. 

A Blackbird

On a cross-country trail, a group of riders

Victoria Hospital, from the trail I was on.

The cold weather freezes the exhaust from a continental airliner.

Robin

A sea gull

A mallard drake

Change of blog name due to change of perception

After nearly two and a half months in this new country that has become my working nation, I am humbled in more ways than one. I thought I would be "flying high" in spite of being overworked and tired. Well, to be honest, I AM enjoying myself in my new role. However, I am firmly grounded in Blackpool, and certainly not flying high. Here are some reasons:

Firstly, some issues with my contractual arrangements with the administration of the Victoria Hospital at Blackpool have led to them appointing me as a day-time doctor with no emergency duties. This has freed me up from night and emergency duties, enabling me to be free on Saturdays and Sundays. However, this has also meant that I get paid only my standard salary, with no extra payment for doing calls and emergencies. This is a situation that has caused me some grief as well as some happiness. Let me explain how. The grief is naturally because it means that I will be saving less money for  the needs of my family, for my old age and to pursue my hobbies. The happiness lies in enabling me to be free to do things that others who have emergency duties etc. cannot because they are stretched to their limit. Also, when I first arrived here, I did not know how steep my learning curve would be in the NHS. Sadly, I realised this after some weeks. Although I have enough experience to manage routine stuff, my practice in India or in Saudi Arabia had not prepared me for the immense complexity of doing structured medical practice as it is done in the UK under the auspices of the NHS. Shared care between district hospitals and central hospitals is so deeply entrenched and so systematic here, that one feels overwhelmed. Also, the superior care that children receive here means that survival rates of children with chronic, complex disorders is very high, and understanding their management is really difficult. 

Sometimes, files of such children can be as thick as eight to ten inches! Going through such files has enabled me to understand how the system works ... and believe me, it does. That, alone, has been more educative than all the medical text books that I have read in the past three decades. 

In the balance, therefore, the experience has been very, very satisfying, and I have only now begun to enjoy doing what I am doing. 

The second reason has to do with the availability of so many new things around me. I have been shopping here and there, mostly online, and the range of stuff available here has been astonishing. Every business, whether it is a grocery store, a barber, an electronics outlet, or a restaurant, has a website with a lot of interactive capabilities. They will all have a twitter account, a facebook page, an online store, and so on. It is not merely a web-presence that they are seeking, but a full experience for the prospective customer. This, in itself, is so remarkable, because it does become difficult to resist buying something or the other on each of these sites. I have sometimes ended up adding stuff in my cart that I do not need, and it has taken me some resolve to cancel my purchase and exit. On some occasions, though, I have been unable to resist, and the end result is the growing inventory of things in my house, both in my clothes cupboard and in the kitchen, apart from electronic gadgets, utility items, books, and what not. 

In the balance, I am really enjoying myself, but I do need to balance my life with saving more money and spending less. 

And now, the final reason: finding friends and colleagues from so many different nationalities and walks of life. But more on this in my next entry. 

Do respond in the comments section with what you think of this entry. Thank you. If you are unable to comment, do write to me through the shared link on twitter or facebook, or email me on drtaher@gmail.com

A round-up of the past several days

I have been working hard the last week, and hence, have been unable to supply you, dear readers, with any fresh installments. That doesn't mean that I do not have anything to share ... in fact, a lot has been happening! 

At work, I am getting a little more comfortable with the things I do. 

At home, I am busy studying for the upcoming mandatory training course that I will be going for the coming new week. This is at Manchester, and I must clear this course with a certificate. It is called the Advanced Paediatric Life Support (APLS) course.  

On the fitness front, I am progressing really well. So far, I have lost 4.8 kg since I came here to the UK in about 2 months. I have been training at the local gym, but several other factors have also contributed. I walk a lot - in fact, in the last 15 days, I have walked 120.5 km! I know this as I am using a Fitbit wrist-worn device to measure my footsteps. In addition, I am paying attention to my diet, and I am on a new anti-diabetic medicine that actually helps to not just control my diabetes, but also to lose weight. 

Have I been enjoying myself or not? Well, if you think I am not, you are mistaken. On the last Tuesday, the 19th of this month, some of my co-residents and one of the advanced neonatal nurse practitioners and I went to a posh restaurant in town known as Frank & Benny's. We had a marvellous, but expensive dinner. After this, we went to see a movie - The Revenant - starring Leonardo di Caprio - at a multiplex theatre just opposite the restaurant. The theatre is called the Odeon, and it has six screens. It was a lovely experience, and I can certainly say that every minute of the evening was fun. 

In other news, I also got myself a 32" flat-screen TV through Amazon. The hostel room that I live in already has a feed through an external antenna, and the accommodations-in-charge, Ms. Karen McKenna arranged for getting my TV all set-up to receive the signals of all the free channels that can be seen on the TV. I am really discovering a lot of the Kingdom through these shows - but I really love the itv channel for its variety of shows, and the BBC 2 channel for its news coverage of UK events. 

Am I cooking? My friends will remember how I used to make a lot of dishes when I was in Saudi Arabia. Alas, the lack of time, and the ready availability of food in the hospital restaurant as well as the various shops inside it have made me somewhat lazy. I now get ready-to-eat food many times. Especially enjoyable are the pre-cooked ready meals available at the Marks and Spencer's Food shop (M & S), They have foods from several countries of the world, including the many Asian countries, European ones, etc. This has led me to actually discover world cuisine, but the only grouse is that this is pre-packed food, not fresh. Even so, it is quite tasty. 

My own cooking has been simple, though I have made my own breakfast - poha, upma, omelette, boiled eggs, sandwiches, etc. For the main meals, I usually make dal, but I have made vegetables, fish, chicken and lamb as well. The thing is, British food is slowly growing on me, and I am beginning to enjoy its flavours. This means that I now add a little less chilli in my Indian food! 

The end of the month will see a change in the people I work with. Some will get transferred to other hospitals as they have completed their six-month rota in our hospital. Dr. Elisabeta Ene (Letty for short), Dr. Ahsan Ul Haq and Dr. Selma are all slated to leave, as are some of the house officers. It will be a big loss for me, as they have all been not just colleagues, but have also helped me out in adjusting to the British Healthcare system (the NHS). I am really going to miss them. 

And this ends my entry today. Do let me know how you found it. Thank you. 

The working week that went by

I have been really busy the last five days. As I write this on a Friday evening, I have little in the way of exciting news to share, and yet, there have been things that I feel I must share with you. It is nearing two months since I arrived in the UK. The first month was a month of getting used to the cold weather here, and also awaiting my first salary. In the second month, the salary, thankfully, did arrive, and liberated me to some extent, from living in abject penury the way I was doing earlier. I have been very fortunate to befriend a few people here, such as my immediate co-registrars Dr. Yogesh Kuba, Dr. Evelyn Chia, and Dr. Letty Ene. In addition, I am on good terms with all my house officers - esp. Drs. Chidi Ogiashe, Dr. Joe Stone, Dr. Akwiya, Dr. Fatima Hayat  and Dr. Yassir, among others. Among the consultants, I am still trying to find my way, as they are all extremely good teachers, but each is temperamentally a little different from the others. I have really enjoyed myself with most of them, but I feel that I do need to be a little more efficient if I have to win them over to my side.

The work has been very "different" from the way I used to work both in India and in Saudi Arabia. For one thing, Blackpool is a very busy hospital. It has over 780 beds. The Paediatric department has hundreds of out-patient visitors every month, and they are usually treated and sent back home. Only a small percent are admitted as in-patients. However, as out-patients, they stretch the resources a lot. Each patient needs to be seen by a nurse, then clerked by the house officer, then shown to the registrar or the consultant, then investigated as needed, re-evaluated by the nurses and the doctor before they go back home and so on. Each patient needs to be explained at each stage what is being done to them and then re-informed of the outcome of each of the interventions and/or the results of the blood tests or X-rays done on them. Once they have gone through all of those steps, one needs to write a prescription of the medicines they would need and then they are sent home. All this happens in an area of the ward that is known as the Children's Assessment Unit. In yet another section, the in-patients are being looked after. This is the Children's Ward and it has over 15 beds, and an Adolescent section, with over 7 beds. Next, there is a Neonatal section with a variable number of preterm and sick neonates (infants less than a month old) - usually 10-15 as well. Lastly, the House officers and sometimes the registrars have to "follow up" blood reports or other investigations done on the patients earlier that day. The list is provided to them at each 8 hourly hand over, and they must complete the pending tasks before the next handover is due.

That's not all. We have Paediatric clinics, where one registrar has to go every day to assist one of the consultants. We have a delivery suite where newborns are churned out of their mothers' wombs either naturally, or actively through a Caeserean section. And that finishes the various active areas involving paediatric department duties. When one is in the ward, it is a very busy duty, and I have frequently been unable to find any time for lunch in between. When I am in the Neonatal unit, it's the same. The only way I can feed myself is if I carry my lunch with me, and so far, I have been able to do it very rarely, as there is no time in the mornings to make myself a lunch box! Thus, quite often, I go to the hospital's own restaurant and buy stuff and eat it there before returning to the ward to continue where I left off.

In the evenings, I go to the gym or go for a walk, depending on whether my gym trainer has fixed a session with me or not. Generally, I walk to the gym which is about 1.5 km away, and return walking as well. This enables me to do the gym workouts AND walk about 3 km each day. After I return from the gym, I usually go to the Costa Coffee outlet in the hospital and have a Cappucino and sit in the lobby to read my Whatsapp messages and play a bit of my mobile phone games. By the time I return to my room, which is at about half past eight or even nine p.m., I am tired and simply heat some food for dinner and have it while watching some TV series videos or a movie on my laptop.

That sums up the things I did this week. What is planned for the weekend? Well, I would go to the gym on Saturday, and work in the ward on Sunday ... and that's where I will be ... so, if you are reading this before the weekend runs out, expect to see me on the blog only after 2-4 days at best. Thanks for reading and for your comments, which I will look forward to.

Sharing lots of news

Since I last wrote a post on the 27th of November, a lot of water has flown under the bridge. My appointment became formal from the 1st of December, and hopefully, my first salary should come in a few days before Christmas. That is one good news. The next one is that I have completed my health assessment and I should start my routine duties from the 15th of this month. That will definitely help me to start working with real patients, hands on. The third good news is that I have registered myself with the NHS (National Health Service) for my own health, and was able to get my medicines free of cost for the next entire month. This means that I will no longer have to lug a huge stock of medicines with me from India. 

I have also occupied myself with attending interesting talks. Yesterday, I went all the way to London, to the HQ of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to hear the Annual Christmas Lecture by  Sir Micheal Marmot from the London College Hospital's Epidemiology Department. His talk was on "The Health Gap: Addressing inequalities in the delivery of Health care, and the Importance of Community Health care". It was a brilliant lecture indeed. However, more than the lecture, I enjoyed my one-afternoon trip to London very much. I met one Dr. Pradeep Sahare of Nagpur, who works as a Community Pediatrician in the UK. During my return journey, I met with and befriended a British woman, a struggling actor by profession, one Ms. Julie H.. as we were sitting across from each other on the long journey back from London. She turned out to be a very jovial and interesting woman indeed. As we parted at Warrington, a few stops before my own destination at Preston (where I would change to another train to take me back to my home town), we exchanged our contacts and promised to be in touch. You could say she is my first British acquaintance outside the setting of the Hospital.

Today, I attended one more interesting talk. It was a half-day workshop on Being Resilient. It was conducted by one Ms. Bec Howard, a life-style coach, and it was just super! The main message of the entire 3+ hours of learning was to dig in there, despite the ups and downs of life around you, and to retain your fresh attitude and persist in doing the right thing so as to emerge a winner and a leader that others around you can look up to. 

I am also due to appear for an interview before the Job centre in Preston in connection with my enrollment for a National Insurance number. This interview is scheduled for later this month. 

I am actually beginning to like my accommodation inside the hospital. I have made myself home here, and have organised my two rooms and the available storage in the kitchen to reflect my own needs. As I share the flat with another doctor (an Iraqui resident in Medicine), I have to respect his needs and space as well. On the whole, though, he and I live in quite different ways. He does not cook much, and gets all his food from the shops outside - but mostly from within the hospital, where we have two big brand shops, viz. M & S and W H Smith. Whereas I, with my genuine liking of cooking and self-cooked food, have expanded my larder by making lots of purchases from different places, supermarkets, malls and so on within Blackpool and from Preston, and even Manchester. I have all my needs met insofar as my kitchen is concerned. 

My family has couriered a lot of additional stuff, though, and pretty soon, when these things arrive, I will have no difficulty in living normally. 

Finally, My gymming and exercising has taken off in a good way. I am maintaining a record of the activities I do, with dates, calories burned (wherever I know it) and so on. It's too early to feel and weigh any different, but I am sure results will come soon. I am hoping to lose at least 3 kg by the year end. Let us see what happens.

Thank you for reading this entry and for your enthusiasm and for the encouragement you give me. I hope you are enjoying reading my blog entries as much as I am enjoying writing them.