NZ quake: Malaysians tell their story

From: http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Malaysia/Story/A1Story20100905-235608.html

It was the 25th of Ramadhan, my husband had gone to work for his early morning shift. I stayed up that night to do some work following a meeting with my supervisor the evening before. After eating some food for sahur, I was just about to sleep at around 4:30am. Not long after that I heard a loud rumbling noise and suddenly the house was moving violently and a lot of things fall down. I immediately shouted to wake up my daughter and grabbed her. The electricity was cut and we were in darkness.The quake lasted for about 1 minute. In the darkness, I managed to find the house key and immediately opened both doors in view of emergency escape. Few minutes later there was another strong aftershock. I called my husband who was at work, alhamdulillah he was safe, barely missed a cabinet falling over him. Worrying of another large quake, his colleague advised us to hide under a strong table or to go to a doorway if there is another one. A few minutes later, one of our neighbour knocked on our door to find out about us. They offered us candles and advice to store lots of water. They warned us that there will be many aftershocks that could last for a few days.
True to their word, there were more than 30 aftershocks up till now, some was as high as 5.1 Richter scale. Our electricity was restored at around 10am, and we immediately called our family home to inform them of our safety. My neighbour’s chimney collapsed, creating a large hole in their house. According to him, luckily there is a big tree preventing the chimney from falling on our house. We were shocked to see the extent of damage to buildings especially in the central city area. Alhamdulillah, all of our Malaysian friends were safe, some with more damage to their houses and belongings. This traumatic experience still lingered in our mind, reminding us how fragile our life is and remembering Allah’s greatness.From, Dr Azrina Md Ralib & Norhasanin Ahmad University of Otago

13th AACA: A trip to remember

13th AACA Conference: A Trip to Remember
Dr Azrina Md Ralib (IIUM) - Recipient of the JSA-JFSA-WFSA-Baxter Scholarship

I was fortunate indeed to have had the chance to attend the 13th AACA conference in Fukouka, Japan, from 31st May to 6th June 2010. Winning the scholarship sponsored by the JSA-JFSAWFSA- Baxter for young promising anaesthesiologists from developing countries opened opportunities for me to explore Japan and to get acquainted with people from various countries.

My long and arduous trip started on a rainy and cold winter day in Christchurch, New Zealand. I have been in Kiwi land for the past six months for my PhD degree in acute kidney injury (AKI) in the ICU. The chance to get away from my normal routine work and endless literature reviews and to be back to the world of anaesthesiology really gave me fresh new energy. I boarded the Singapore Airline flight, which is my preferred airline for its excellent service. This gave me the chance to meet with other delegates from Malaysia. After a nine hour flight from Christchurch, a six hour transit in Singapore and another six hour flight to Fukuoka, I finally touched down in Japan. At the airport, whilst looking for a taxi, I met Prof Datin Dr Norsidah and Datin Dr Sivasakthi who were staying at the same hotel. Little did I know, they would become my “partner in crime” exploring the city of Fukouka.

Fukuoka is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyushu. On arrival at our hotel, we were disappointed to be told that we could not check-in before 3.00 pm. To buy time, we decided to explore the city of Fukuoka. Even though I was very tired from the 22 hours journey, the exploration turned out to be an interesting event. We managed to visit the Fukuoka Tower, Fukuoka City Museum, Momochi seaside, Fukuoka Dome and the Robo-square. We also managed to visit the Ohori Park and Fukuoka Castle Ruin on our way back to the hotel. Eventually at 3.00 pm sharp, we were allowed to checkin to our rooms. We attended the opening ceremony and welcome cocktails later in the evening.

The conference started bright and early the next day, with the nice summer breeze of Fukuoka. The first plenary session by Dr Jonathan Moss turned out to be an eye opener for us. The moral is to have the inquisitive mind in our daily clinical work which could lead to a breakthrough in medicine that could improve the quality of life of so many patients, albeit a long and dedicated research effort. A simple research question led Dr Jonathan Moss and his team to a 20-year project, resulting in the development of a much needed antagonist of morphine's peripheral side effects, N-methylnaltrexone (MNTX). Apparently, the drug has been recently approved for clinical usage in Malaysia as well as in other countries.

There were three symposia which ran concurrently covering most of the anaesthetic topics ranging from pain medicine, ICU, cardiac anaesthesia etc. I attended a few symposia that were different and unique such as Manpower in Anaesthesia, Innovations in Anaesthesia and Anaesthesia Education and Simulation amongst other things. During the coffee break, we had a chance to visit the excellent poster presentations, where four out of twenty were from Malaysia. Congratulations to all!

On Day 2, we visited various temples and a shrine near the Gion area, and also the futuristic shopping mall and the Canal City with an amazing waterfront display.

My poster titled "Survey of Knowledge and Practice of Intraoperative Temperature Management" was presented on the fourth day of the conference. On the same day, there was apresentation ceremony for the winners of the JSA-JCSA-WFSA-Baxter Scholarship, where I had the chance to meet with the President, Secretary, and Chairman of Education Committee of the World Federation of the Society of Anaesthesiology (WFSA) and also the Chairman of the Conference, Professor Koji Sumikawa.

The congress banquet was held on the last night of the conference. Surprisingly, there was a variety of halal food prepared for us. It was indeed a lovely and memorable night to remember.

The conference ended on the morning of June the 5th. In the afternoon, I attended the Simulation in Anaesthesia Practice workshop facilitated by three facilitators from Singapore. Even though there were only four participants at the workshop, it was indeed very well delivered with lots of hands-on practice. It is my hope that I can use this training to further improve our highfidelity patients’ simulation (HPS) curriculum for medical undergraduates, and hopefully for future postgraduates later. The trip ended with Sayonara to the Japanese folks, and back to the freezing winter of Christchurch.

DR AZRINA MD RALIB
Christchurch School of Medicine,
University of Otago, 2 Riccarton Avenue,
PO Box 4345, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand

Update

It has been almost 3 months that I last updated this blog...I have seem to neglect it. So what has been happening in the past 3 months?
- Jalan2 to the amazing Lake Tekapo-Pukaki-Mount Cook:definitely my favourite place here in NZ...masyaAllah, the amazing beauty of Allah's creation-a must place to visit in NZ
- Jalan2 and berendam di Hanmer Springs Thermal Spa - what a bless!
- Ramadhan datang and pergi...am I better than before?
- Celebration of syawal yang tersangat meriahnya with aktiviti ziarah...i'm not that busy even in Malaysia (even in UK pun tak terasa sangat). This is despite gempa and more than 1000 aftershocks..
- Oh and almost forgot, Christchurch Earthquake....with all the 'dramas' here. Long story....my writing in the star online

What about my PhD....the main reason I am here...

- Underwent my PhD confirmation review meeting late July, alhamdulillah it went very well with very positive feedback...i am now a confirmed PhD candidate

- Presented at the research seminar meeting with another 2 PhD students who started around the same time with me...alhamdulillah again, it went well...my SV was very happy with my presentation!...positive remarks from the audience...entah apa2 yang i auta....tapi takpe depa kata nampak very confident, alhamdulillah.
- My supervisor has finally left to Sydney, but alhamdulillah we still managed to keep working via mail and skype
- ALhamdulillah I finally got a crack of this PhD thingy....manage to come up with some sort of novelty finding in some of the analysis and my SVs are happy with the result....(He sort of told me....see you are so worried about not finding something novel in your research, now you have come out with this...and it can fit nicely in one chapter of your thesis...). Of course, previously I was concern and I told him my concern...that's what supervisors are here for..
- For that, I have submitted an abstract to WCN. Hopefully I could go to Vancouver, Canada next April...insyaALlah
- Also preparing a manuscript for submission to journal...and this a huge headache. To date it has been almost 1 month I am revising this, version 3 just submitted to my co-supervisor. So far he's quite happy with the progress alhamdulillah...now awaiting for his 3rd feedback...and it need to go through my primary SV first (don't know which version before it can finally reached him!)
- My letter to editor questioning some issue in an article has been accepted for publication....
- 2 databases has been developed and I am superbusy with data collection. My eyes qot very tired in entering all the data, sometimes it makes me think whether it is all worth the effort...I am trained to be clinician, I spent 12 years in clinical field try to save live, and here I am sitting infront of computers entering these data...what am I doing here? need to remind myself the motto of our university "RESEARCH SAVES LIVES!!!!" Hubby advised me to always zikr to ALlah, hence now I am constantly zikr to ALlah whilst entering data....alhamdulillah it helps a lot.
- My main research is affected by strike...i am a bit worried, but not super worried as I still have tonns to do with other supplementary research. Anyway I can't do anything about it, only pray to ALlah that it can be completed in time...
- My husband is super busy with his food business...he he adik2 lapar, abang masak sedap, byk tempahan and kesian tgk dia keletihan...
- My mum is coming here on the 14th Nov for 3 months! YEAY....more aktiviti jalan2.

That's all I can write now...super tired this week working almost 9-10 hours per day (ye ke)...and looking forward to a good rest in this long weekend labour day...

pen off