The email

TUESDAY, 3 JULY 2007

Halfway through the rounds, the three of us stood just outside the operating theatre, waiting for news, coordinating laboratory results with the provision of what was needed for the very sick woman inside.

As we waited I glanced at the front page of a folded newspaper lying on the desk, the grainy image of a man on the ground, the dark hair, the caption. The title said it all, the usual headline, a generalisation of a whole profession, and within the lines the generalisation of a country, a region and a religion.

As I raised my head, they averted their eyes a few seconds too late, and the silence was deafening.

I felt sorry for them, what do you say without saying the wrong thing?
How can you comment without putting your foot in, would she understand the shock, the horror? Did she feel victimised? Or was she possibly a sympathiser to their cause?

I turned the paper over making a remark about checking on the blood results and continued the rounds.

As I went through the emails at home, a message from a retired professor, a previous mentor, a message sent to three separate people, sharing a profession, sharing a nationality, an unprompted few lines that ended with: Regards to you and your families.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 06:42 6 COMMENTS
Yasmin (Blanche) said...
Hello 3eeraqi Medic,
U have such a special way in writing..
I think i know what u mean by yr lines..i think i noticed the same on tv channels..
No Comment .. is all what we acn say..
03 July 2007 07:30
Anonymous said...
It'll pass..
04 July 2007 03:59
3eeraqimedic said...
Yasmin
It is probably best to have no comment, but it is not easy.
Anon
Yes it will pass, but not before several rules are changed, and several people's livelihood are damaged, over the past few years the rules on allowing foreign doctors to work in the UK have changed several times making finding employment here more and more difficult, asylum is not granted, and those who are halfway through their training are struggling to proceed, this affects all non EU nationals, but now I predict an extra level of restrictions on us.
The media (and it is the media that drives opinion, and we all know who drives the media) is already full of calls to limit entry and training for Middle Eastern medics, but we all know that ultimately everyone else is forgotten, and only Iraqis will be remembered as the dangerous doctors as the saying goes we are the lowest wall!
04 July 2007 08:10
Yasmin (Blanche) said...