After 3 months and over 50 blogs, I'm looking forward to returning and developing this blog in 2007. What can be achieved? Having cut down on the personal blogs, I think I will continue down the same theme of a mixture of current affairs, politcal and religious blogs. January will be the last month where I'll be able to post a blog every day so I'm really going to be on everyone's case to post some blogs! If everyone contributes, it can be possible to achieve a blog a day. During A&E I'm going to be working crazy hours, a complete contrast to the sedate lifestyle I lead at present, so blogging will be extremely difficult.
Having got some Guest Bloggers, I would like the idea to continue and that means for you people actually doing some work! You all have the time, and it's only laziness that is getting in the way! Hopefully with a broad range of opinions the diversity of this blog has the potential to be vast. Already some of the topics covered by the Guest Bloggers has been broad with many responses, not least the Bolly-wood you get over it blog which holds the record of 11 comments. If I manage to get 10 people or so, all it needs is one blog every two weeks on any topic you want, and with further advertising and word of mouth, this blog can get bigger and better.
Well I'll leave it there as I'm about to finish my surgery and then have to rush home to start packing. I leave in the early hours of tomorrow morning for India and hope to leave a blog while I'm out there. I've been to India many times, my last visit was in 2003, so expecting more of the same in Hyderabad, but this time I'll also be visiting my wife's family in Aligarh which will be a new experience. Meanwhile, Happy New Year to all, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate the birth of Jesus and Eid Mubarak in advance to all the people who are fortunate enough to be going on Hajj this year.
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
How to sleep less AND have more energy
Woke up to the predictable news of England's demise Down Under, another defeat to go 3-0 down with 2 to play means the Ashes have returned to Australia after being loaned to England for a mere 15 months. Poor performances and team selection meant the writing was on the wall from the beginning and at least we can all enjoy Christmas and New Year without worrying about the cricket!
Having kept this blog for three months now, one thing I've constantly moaned about is how tired I am. It's surprising I've maintained the blog for so long, considering how tired I get. Having to get up at 7am and getting to sleep late means that I'm tired most of the time, and by the time Thursday/Friday comes round I'm absolutely shattered. I came across an e-book awhile ago with the above title and having finally been awake enough to read it last week, I thought I'd attempt to summarise (70 pages worth) it in order to understand it and perhaps help others.
It's actually quite informative, a mixture of useful information and pop science used to backup the information which, with some additional background research by myself, is fairly accurate. First things first, it's not about the quantity of sleep, but the quality, sometimes good quality sleep means less hours not more. To obtain good quality sleep we need to understand the science of sleep.
Whilst awake our brain is active and alert, producing high brain wave activity. The opposite is true when we're asleep, with low brain wave activity. The change from high to low brain wave activity occurs in 5 stages as we fall asleep. Stage 1 occurs all the time, anytime when we're feeling drowsy or dozing off, we're entering stage 1 of sleep. You're probably experiencing it now as you read the blog, or perhaps when you reach the end of the blog. During this stage we experience slightly lower brain wave activity, our heart rate and respiration rate drops and our minds enter a state of relaxation which feels gooooooooooood. Stage 1 is the 'doorway' to sleep.
Stage 2 occurs when our brain experiences sleep spindles and K complexes which are sharp bursts of brain activities; an unusual phenomenon which some scientists feel is the brains attempt to turn itself off. During this time we may appear asleep but are instantly awakeable, without realising that we're falling asleep. Stages 3 & 4 are deep sleep, when our brain activity reaches its lowest point, delta waves and we are truly asleep. Our blood pressure, heart rate and respiration rate reach their lowest point and our blood vessels dilate to provide nourishment to our muscles.
Stage 5 is R.E.M. sleep, when our eyes move rapidly in all directions and is the phase when we experience dreams. During this phase, conversely, our brain wave activity increases and are identical to the activity we exhibit when we're wide awake. This perhaps explains why often our dreams seem so vivid and real, it's because our brain activity is similar to when we're awake.
Having explained the 5 stages of sleep, when we sleep, it occurs in cycles; we don't progress to stage 5 and remain there for the rest of the night, but progress to the stages continuously. That means we reach stage 5 and then go back to stage 2 after a certain time period and start again. When we sleep during the night, initially stages 3 & 4 take up a lot of time with a short stage 5 period. As the night progress, stages 3 & 4 shorten and stage 5 lengthens. Therefore the first few hours of sleep are taken up by deep sleep and as the time draws nearer to wake up, we spend longer periods in stage 5.
Deep sleep is arguably the most important phase of sleep and without it we experience many daytime impairments such as headaches, nausea, drowsiness and trouble concentrating, (pretty much me everyday). Therefore our body naturally tries to get as much deep sleep as possible, it is the stage least likely to be missed and hence our periods of deep sleep are longest in the beginning. When we experience irregular sleep, other stages of sleep are sacrificed to ensure we get adequate deep sleep.
Having explained the stages of sleep, one other factor remains before understanding how to obtain quality sleep and that is the sleep clock. The sleep clock controls how you sleep, how deep you sleep, when you sleep and how awake you feel during the day. It is outside stresses that we place on ourselves that throw our sleep clock off course which causes all the problems with energy and lack of sleep.
The sleep clock consists of a number of variables which tell the body when to feel tired and when to feel awake. It also controls how deep you sleep and how long you sleep. The most important part of the sleep clock is our body temperature rhythm (or circadian rhythm). Our body temperature rises and drops as the day progresses, the difference in body temperature is about 2 degrees Celsius. As the body temperature rises we feel more awake and as it drops we feel more lethargic and tired, a big cue to enter stage 1 sleep.
During any given day we experience a mid-afternoon temperature drop, which usually manifests in us feeling tired during the afternoon at some point and wanting to go to sleep which is normally impossible. Generally, our body temperature begins to rise in the early morning, drops in the afternoon and then rises again in the early evening, reaching its peak and often the time when we are most alert. Afterwards, body temperature drops and reaches its lowest point around 4am. If our body temperature is too flat throughout the day then we'll have difficulty in experiencing deep sleep.
It is because of our body temperature that we feel tired around the same time every day and how some people manage to wake up at the same time every day as the body temperature rises in the morning. The body temperature cycle is what causes jet lag. If we travel through several time zones, our body temperature is still following the pattern it did before which is why we feel tired and awake at the wrong times. This often takes time to adjust and hence the lag. Optimising our body temperature will ensure we get proper sleep and hence good energy levels whilst we're awake.
Another part of the sleep clock which is important is our exposure to natural sunlight. Exposure to high levels of sunlight delays the temperature drop, letting us stay awake and alert for longer. Poor exposure to sunlight promotes quick temperature drops and makes us feel sleepy and tired. Constant poor exposure contributes to a flat temperature level throughout the day meaning difficulty in getting to sleep and entering deep sleep. Exposure to sunlight is the main way our body adjusts our temperature rhythm.
One more contributory factor to our sleep clock is exercise. Exercise increases our body temperature, creating a higher 'peak' point of body temperature. Exercise not only delays the body temperature drop at the end of the day, thus allowing us to stay awake and alert for longer, but also make the temperature drop at the end of the day more drastic, promoting much deeper sleep. Hence it is useful to exercise in the early evening, it will give a push to stay awake and then help to get to sleep as the temperature drops.
Therefore, our quality of sleep is determined by our sleep clock which is related to our body temperature rhythm. This depends on a) the exposure of sunlight we experience each day and b) the level of exercise we undertake. To get better sleep we need more exposure to sunlight and more exercise, rather obvious if you think about it! Exposure to sunlight is quite difficult to achieve, especially in the UK and especially in the winter months, so my best option is exercise. However, I seem to be stuck in a vicious circle, I don't get enough sleep, therefore I feel tired throughout the day and by the time I get home in the evening I'm feeling too tired to do anything. Now, armed with all the information I've explained above, what can I do to change the situation?
Optimising the sleep cycle is key. Waking up at the right stage in the sleep cycle is vital. Sometimes I've woken up feeling wide awake and refreshed, but the majority of the time I wake up feeling tired and lethargic which takes ages to wear off. This is because most of the time my alarm at 7am is interrupting my sleep cycle at an inappropriate stage. Therefore my sleep cycle has to be adjusted to ensure that at 7am I am in stage 5 and my brain is already active in the R.E.M. stage and when I wake up I'll feel less tired.
In order to achieve that, I have to ensure my body temperature rhythm is in sync with the sleep cycle, my body temperature must be dropping when I get to sleep. For this to happen, first I have to get out of what is likely a flat temperature rhythm and then I need to ensure that the drop occurs at the right time in the night. Getting out of the flat rhythm seems to be possible by exercise and exposure to sunlight. Exposure to sunlight is difficult unless I invest in an artificial sunlight generator, therefore exercise is the main option.
Once my body temperature rhythm is in sync with my sleep cycle, it's a case of trial and error. At the moment waking up at 7am is simply painful. Therefore I'll have to sleep slightly earlier or later and try to find the ideal sleeping time to ensure that by 7am I am in the R.E.M. stage which would mean waking up would become much easier.
However, there is one major downside to perfecting the sleep cycle and that is the weekend. Like most people the weekend provides me with the opportunity of having a lie in. This will only serve to throw my sleep cycle off course making it harder to re-establish on Sunday night. There is a way around this, by knowing my sleep cycle I can have a lie in as long as I work out how long I need to stay asleep for the an additional stage 5 and make sure I wake up then. That way my sleep cycle will stay intact and I can sleep for longer.
After all this you maybe extremely confused, in that case just remember the 5th stage of sleep is the best stage to wake up from, is is important to achieve awareness of when that stage occurs in the morning and that can be adjusted once we establish a body temperature rhythm and ensure that we have an appropriate temperature drop at a particular time in the evening to guarantee we get to sleep and start the cycle. Once that is achieved it is simply a case of trial and error: 20mins earlier or later, 40mins earlier or later to work out when best to sleep and thus wake up during stage 5 of sleep. Simple! I should delete the rest, this paragraph seems to explain it the best!
One last part before I finish, power-naps. These are both beneficial and harmful depending on how long they are. Coming back to the stages of sleep, stages 1 & 2 are the precursors to deep sleep. Therefore having a power-nap is only beneficial if it involves the first two stages of sleep. If they are too long, then we move into deep sleep which makes waking up more difficult and can often have us feeling worse than before. However, a 30-45min nap is ideal, ensuring we get some rest and prevents us moving into stages 3 & 4 so that when we wake up we feel refreshed. Again a bit of trial and error is involved to find our specific cut off point before we enter deep sleep and once achieved can be a powerful tool to energise us during the day.
So there you have it, my complicated summary of how to sleep less and have more energy. Hope some of it makes sense, if anything it's helped me understand a rather long book on the subject and know I can try to engage on the suggestions to see if it makes a difference. I could go into more detail, but I think I need a power-nap to energise, although I don't have the time!
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Having kept this blog for three months now, one thing I've constantly moaned about is how tired I am. It's surprising I've maintained the blog for so long, considering how tired I get. Having to get up at 7am and getting to sleep late means that I'm tired most of the time, and by the time Thursday/Friday comes round I'm absolutely shattered. I came across an e-book awhile ago with the above title and having finally been awake enough to read it last week, I thought I'd attempt to summarise (70 pages worth) it in order to understand it and perhaps help others.
It's actually quite informative, a mixture of useful information and pop science used to backup the information which, with some additional background research by myself, is fairly accurate. First things first, it's not about the quantity of sleep, but the quality, sometimes good quality sleep means less hours not more. To obtain good quality sleep we need to understand the science of sleep.
Whilst awake our brain is active and alert, producing high brain wave activity. The opposite is true when we're asleep, with low brain wave activity. The change from high to low brain wave activity occurs in 5 stages as we fall asleep. Stage 1 occurs all the time, anytime when we're feeling drowsy or dozing off, we're entering stage 1 of sleep. You're probably experiencing it now as you read the blog, or perhaps when you reach the end of the blog. During this stage we experience slightly lower brain wave activity, our heart rate and respiration rate drops and our minds enter a state of relaxation which feels gooooooooooood. Stage 1 is the 'doorway' to sleep.
Stage 2 occurs when our brain experiences sleep spindles and K complexes which are sharp bursts of brain activities; an unusual phenomenon which some scientists feel is the brains attempt to turn itself off. During this time we may appear asleep but are instantly awakeable, without realising that we're falling asleep. Stages 3 & 4 are deep sleep, when our brain activity reaches its lowest point, delta waves and we are truly asleep. Our blood pressure, heart rate and respiration rate reach their lowest point and our blood vessels dilate to provide nourishment to our muscles.
Stage 5 is R.E.M. sleep, when our eyes move rapidly in all directions and is the phase when we experience dreams. During this phase, conversely, our brain wave activity increases and are identical to the activity we exhibit when we're wide awake. This perhaps explains why often our dreams seem so vivid and real, it's because our brain activity is similar to when we're awake.
Having explained the 5 stages of sleep, when we sleep, it occurs in cycles; we don't progress to stage 5 and remain there for the rest of the night, but progress to the stages continuously. That means we reach stage 5 and then go back to stage 2 after a certain time period and start again. When we sleep during the night, initially stages 3 & 4 take up a lot of time with a short stage 5 period. As the night progress, stages 3 & 4 shorten and stage 5 lengthens. Therefore the first few hours of sleep are taken up by deep sleep and as the time draws nearer to wake up, we spend longer periods in stage 5.
Deep sleep is arguably the most important phase of sleep and without it we experience many daytime impairments such as headaches, nausea, drowsiness and trouble concentrating, (pretty much me everyday). Therefore our body naturally tries to get as much deep sleep as possible, it is the stage least likely to be missed and hence our periods of deep sleep are longest in the beginning. When we experience irregular sleep, other stages of sleep are sacrificed to ensure we get adequate deep sleep.
Having explained the stages of sleep, one other factor remains before understanding how to obtain quality sleep and that is the sleep clock. The sleep clock controls how you sleep, how deep you sleep, when you sleep and how awake you feel during the day. It is outside stresses that we place on ourselves that throw our sleep clock off course which causes all the problems with energy and lack of sleep.
The sleep clock consists of a number of variables which tell the body when to feel tired and when to feel awake. It also controls how deep you sleep and how long you sleep. The most important part of the sleep clock is our body temperature rhythm (or circadian rhythm). Our body temperature rises and drops as the day progresses, the difference in body temperature is about 2 degrees Celsius. As the body temperature rises we feel more awake and as it drops we feel more lethargic and tired, a big cue to enter stage 1 sleep.
During any given day we experience a mid-afternoon temperature drop, which usually manifests in us feeling tired during the afternoon at some point and wanting to go to sleep which is normally impossible. Generally, our body temperature begins to rise in the early morning, drops in the afternoon and then rises again in the early evening, reaching its peak and often the time when we are most alert. Afterwards, body temperature drops and reaches its lowest point around 4am. If our body temperature is too flat throughout the day then we'll have difficulty in experiencing deep sleep.
It is because of our body temperature that we feel tired around the same time every day and how some people manage to wake up at the same time every day as the body temperature rises in the morning. The body temperature cycle is what causes jet lag. If we travel through several time zones, our body temperature is still following the pattern it did before which is why we feel tired and awake at the wrong times. This often takes time to adjust and hence the lag. Optimising our body temperature will ensure we get proper sleep and hence good energy levels whilst we're awake.
Another part of the sleep clock which is important is our exposure to natural sunlight. Exposure to high levels of sunlight delays the temperature drop, letting us stay awake and alert for longer. Poor exposure to sunlight promotes quick temperature drops and makes us feel sleepy and tired. Constant poor exposure contributes to a flat temperature level throughout the day meaning difficulty in getting to sleep and entering deep sleep. Exposure to sunlight is the main way our body adjusts our temperature rhythm.
One more contributory factor to our sleep clock is exercise. Exercise increases our body temperature, creating a higher 'peak' point of body temperature. Exercise not only delays the body temperature drop at the end of the day, thus allowing us to stay awake and alert for longer, but also make the temperature drop at the end of the day more drastic, promoting much deeper sleep. Hence it is useful to exercise in the early evening, it will give a push to stay awake and then help to get to sleep as the temperature drops.
Therefore, our quality of sleep is determined by our sleep clock which is related to our body temperature rhythm. This depends on a) the exposure of sunlight we experience each day and b) the level of exercise we undertake. To get better sleep we need more exposure to sunlight and more exercise, rather obvious if you think about it! Exposure to sunlight is quite difficult to achieve, especially in the UK and especially in the winter months, so my best option is exercise. However, I seem to be stuck in a vicious circle, I don't get enough sleep, therefore I feel tired throughout the day and by the time I get home in the evening I'm feeling too tired to do anything. Now, armed with all the information I've explained above, what can I do to change the situation?
Optimising the sleep cycle is key. Waking up at the right stage in the sleep cycle is vital. Sometimes I've woken up feeling wide awake and refreshed, but the majority of the time I wake up feeling tired and lethargic which takes ages to wear off. This is because most of the time my alarm at 7am is interrupting my sleep cycle at an inappropriate stage. Therefore my sleep cycle has to be adjusted to ensure that at 7am I am in stage 5 and my brain is already active in the R.E.M. stage and when I wake up I'll feel less tired.
In order to achieve that, I have to ensure my body temperature rhythm is in sync with the sleep cycle, my body temperature must be dropping when I get to sleep. For this to happen, first I have to get out of what is likely a flat temperature rhythm and then I need to ensure that the drop occurs at the right time in the night. Getting out of the flat rhythm seems to be possible by exercise and exposure to sunlight. Exposure to sunlight is difficult unless I invest in an artificial sunlight generator, therefore exercise is the main option.
Once my body temperature rhythm is in sync with my sleep cycle, it's a case of trial and error. At the moment waking up at 7am is simply painful. Therefore I'll have to sleep slightly earlier or later and try to find the ideal sleeping time to ensure that by 7am I am in the R.E.M. stage which would mean waking up would become much easier.
However, there is one major downside to perfecting the sleep cycle and that is the weekend. Like most people the weekend provides me with the opportunity of having a lie in. This will only serve to throw my sleep cycle off course making it harder to re-establish on Sunday night. There is a way around this, by knowing my sleep cycle I can have a lie in as long as I work out how long I need to stay asleep for the an additional stage 5 and make sure I wake up then. That way my sleep cycle will stay intact and I can sleep for longer.
After all this you maybe extremely confused, in that case just remember the 5th stage of sleep is the best stage to wake up from, is is important to achieve awareness of when that stage occurs in the morning and that can be adjusted once we establish a body temperature rhythm and ensure that we have an appropriate temperature drop at a particular time in the evening to guarantee we get to sleep and start the cycle. Once that is achieved it is simply a case of trial and error: 20mins earlier or later, 40mins earlier or later to work out when best to sleep and thus wake up during stage 5 of sleep. Simple! I should delete the rest, this paragraph seems to explain it the best!
One last part before I finish, power-naps. These are both beneficial and harmful depending on how long they are. Coming back to the stages of sleep, stages 1 & 2 are the precursors to deep sleep. Therefore having a power-nap is only beneficial if it involves the first two stages of sleep. If they are too long, then we move into deep sleep which makes waking up more difficult and can often have us feeling worse than before. However, a 30-45min nap is ideal, ensuring we get some rest and prevents us moving into stages 3 & 4 so that when we wake up we feel refreshed. Again a bit of trial and error is involved to find our specific cut off point before we enter deep sleep and once achieved can be a powerful tool to energise us during the day.
So there you have it, my complicated summary of how to sleep less and have more energy. Hope some of it makes sense, if anything it's helped me understand a rather long book on the subject and know I can try to engage on the suggestions to see if it makes a difference. I could go into more detail, but I think I need a power-nap to energise, although I don't have the time!
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Friday, December 15, 2006
Business patients
Why oh why do I continue to have hope about the England cricket team? After the abject defeat in Adelaide to go 2-0 down, why should there be any hope of a comeback to retain the Ashes? Yesterday was a fine start yet again by England, but this morning when I woke up it was a familiar story, England all out for 215 runs, 29 less than Australia. Let's just get the defeat over and done with and kill all remaining hope.
Being Friday means I'm absolutely exhausted. I finally managed to read the e-book I mentioned in a previous blog and intended to summarise it today, but I'm so tired that I think I'll leave it to another day, probably Monday, should be suitably refreshed by then. I'm leaving for my third holiday of the year next Wednesday, this time to India to meet my grandparents. I'll also be visiting my wife's family in northern India which will inshallah provide me with the chance to visit the Taj Mahal.
It will be difficult to blog while I'm away, but I should have access to my email, so if some of you would like to blog then please email me and I will post the blogs whilst I'm away. Obviously being Christmas and New Year you're all going to be busy, so I doubt I'll get any blogs, but it's still polite to ask. Hopefully once I come back in the New Year, this blog will continue to develop during the last month of my job in the GP surgery before the dreaded A&E starts. When I start A&E it will be next to impossible to update this blog on a daily basis, I'll be lucky if I can post something once a week. You all will have to help and chip in with some blogs. At least this way this becomes a forum for everyone to air their thoughts on pretty much anything and surely you would be interested in that?
Moving on to today's blog, there is a certain type of patient who I like to call 'business patients'. These patients turn up, go through their problems and then expect very specific treatments for them. They are not willing to listen to any advice and often refuse to negotiate. They are often middle-class, white males, working in some sort of finance/marketing/business field, with high-pressure jobs. They treat their appointments with the doctor as a business meeting. In order for them to win, someone else has to lose and which equates to the doctor complying with their demands.
I've meet quite a few of these patients and they are all very similar. Part of my training requires me to video my consultations with patients (with their prior permission of course) which I can then review with my GP trainer and go through what went well and what I could improve. We viewed a consultation of mine with a 'business patient' and initially I couldn't work out why the consultation was going so poorly. I was doing all the usual things, asking the touchy-feely open ended questions and the guy was simply not cooperating.
Instead of focusing on what I was doing wrong we switched our attention to the patient. From his body language you could tell that he was not going to negotiate. He sat on the chair, legs crossed, arms folded and maintained that position throughout the consultation. He did not move from that position. Often patients interact, they move their hands etc whilst they try to explain their problems, but this guy only moved his hand once, to adjust his tie.
Having recently moved back to the area he came asking for more sleeping tablets which he had been taking at his previous surgery. The tablets he was taking had no effect on sleep whatsoever, but he was refusing to listen to my advice and insisted on the tablets. Eventually he got what he wanted. The tablets were pretty harmless, but he had developed a psychological addiction to them to help him sleep.
He left the consultation having 'won' the meeting with the doctor. However, in the long-term he will lose, because if he maintains that attitude, if more serious problems develop with his health and he refuses to listen to advice, things could get worse. Speaking to my GP trainer, he spoke about how difficult the 'business patients' are and often they'll only learn through their mistakes and there's not much we can do about it.
You may think in this case, I should've refused his request for sleeping tablets, but it's not as simple as that. He is psychologically addicted to the tablets and in order to stop taking them he would need some counseling to help him, but there is no way he would accept such a plan and so the best option was to continue with the tablets and hope that in his repeat visits eventually something will click and he will realise he should stop taking them. At the end of the day it has to come from the patient.
To finish off with, there was an interesting study done about the 'business patient' by a GP not so long ago. In most consultation rooms, the GP sits behind a desk with his/her computer and the patient sits to the side of the desk so that when they are conversing the GP can switch to the side and focus on the patient without there being a desk between them (at least that's how a good consulting room should be setup). One GP set up his room with a chair directly opposite the desk and one to the side of the desk, allowing patients to choose which chair to sit on. 80% of patients who sat on the chair opposite the desk where middle-aged, white males, mainly with high-profile, stressful jobs. They liked the security of having a desk between the doctor and the patient, more meeting-like. I thought that was quite interesting.
Well that pretty much ends my Friday blog which has officially become the medical profession blog! Boring for some I admit, but not many people tend to read the blog on Friday, so I guess it shouldn't be a problem. What type of patient are you?
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Being Friday means I'm absolutely exhausted. I finally managed to read the e-book I mentioned in a previous blog and intended to summarise it today, but I'm so tired that I think I'll leave it to another day, probably Monday, should be suitably refreshed by then. I'm leaving for my third holiday of the year next Wednesday, this time to India to meet my grandparents. I'll also be visiting my wife's family in northern India which will inshallah provide me with the chance to visit the Taj Mahal.
It will be difficult to blog while I'm away, but I should have access to my email, so if some of you would like to blog then please email me and I will post the blogs whilst I'm away. Obviously being Christmas and New Year you're all going to be busy, so I doubt I'll get any blogs, but it's still polite to ask. Hopefully once I come back in the New Year, this blog will continue to develop during the last month of my job in the GP surgery before the dreaded A&E starts. When I start A&E it will be next to impossible to update this blog on a daily basis, I'll be lucky if I can post something once a week. You all will have to help and chip in with some blogs. At least this way this becomes a forum for everyone to air their thoughts on pretty much anything and surely you would be interested in that?
Moving on to today's blog, there is a certain type of patient who I like to call 'business patients'. These patients turn up, go through their problems and then expect very specific treatments for them. They are not willing to listen to any advice and often refuse to negotiate. They are often middle-class, white males, working in some sort of finance/marketing/business field, with high-pressure jobs. They treat their appointments with the doctor as a business meeting. In order for them to win, someone else has to lose and which equates to the doctor complying with their demands.
I've meet quite a few of these patients and they are all very similar. Part of my training requires me to video my consultations with patients (with their prior permission of course) which I can then review with my GP trainer and go through what went well and what I could improve. We viewed a consultation of mine with a 'business patient' and initially I couldn't work out why the consultation was going so poorly. I was doing all the usual things, asking the touchy-feely open ended questions and the guy was simply not cooperating.
Instead of focusing on what I was doing wrong we switched our attention to the patient. From his body language you could tell that he was not going to negotiate. He sat on the chair, legs crossed, arms folded and maintained that position throughout the consultation. He did not move from that position. Often patients interact, they move their hands etc whilst they try to explain their problems, but this guy only moved his hand once, to adjust his tie.
Having recently moved back to the area he came asking for more sleeping tablets which he had been taking at his previous surgery. The tablets he was taking had no effect on sleep whatsoever, but he was refusing to listen to my advice and insisted on the tablets. Eventually he got what he wanted. The tablets were pretty harmless, but he had developed a psychological addiction to them to help him sleep.
He left the consultation having 'won' the meeting with the doctor. However, in the long-term he will lose, because if he maintains that attitude, if more serious problems develop with his health and he refuses to listen to advice, things could get worse. Speaking to my GP trainer, he spoke about how difficult the 'business patients' are and often they'll only learn through their mistakes and there's not much we can do about it.
You may think in this case, I should've refused his request for sleeping tablets, but it's not as simple as that. He is psychologically addicted to the tablets and in order to stop taking them he would need some counseling to help him, but there is no way he would accept such a plan and so the best option was to continue with the tablets and hope that in his repeat visits eventually something will click and he will realise he should stop taking them. At the end of the day it has to come from the patient.
To finish off with, there was an interesting study done about the 'business patient' by a GP not so long ago. In most consultation rooms, the GP sits behind a desk with his/her computer and the patient sits to the side of the desk so that when they are conversing the GP can switch to the side and focus on the patient without there being a desk between them (at least that's how a good consulting room should be setup). One GP set up his room with a chair directly opposite the desk and one to the side of the desk, allowing patients to choose which chair to sit on. 80% of patients who sat on the chair opposite the desk where middle-aged, white males, mainly with high-profile, stressful jobs. They liked the security of having a desk between the doctor and the patient, more meeting-like. I thought that was quite interesting.
Well that pretty much ends my Friday blog which has officially become the medical profession blog! Boring for some I admit, but not many people tend to read the blog on Friday, so I guess it shouldn't be a problem. What type of patient are you?
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Guest Blogger #5 - Holy (united) Spirit
Thank you very much for inviting me to contribute to this blog. I am utterly sick of the way recently that our government and indeed large swathes of the population of this nominally Christian country seem to think they can abuse and disrespect the Muslim population of this country, whether they are people who have recently come to live here or those whose families have lived here for years. In particular, as a practicing Christian I am always flabbergasted by other Christian’s fears that the country will be completely overrun with Islam. However, despite being a Christian I am not sure that would be such a disastrous thing.
One of the things that has always struck me on my travels to the Middle East is that some of the buildings in which I have felt a huge sense of presence in have been places like the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus. I am aware that there have been Christian associations with both these places over the years but still they feel very special in a tranquil and holy way. I have particularly fond memories of the Omayyad Mosque on one visit when a group of pilgrims arrived and sat down together to enjoy their picnic inside the mosque.
As someone who organises pilgrimages to the Holy Land, I get particularly irritated by people telling me that we should only be working with Christians locally: we work with a Palestinian hotel in East Jerusalem run by Muslims, an Israeli Arab bus company in Nazareth, a Palestinian Christian family in Jerusalem co-ordinate all the arrangements on our behalf and an Israeli owned hotel in the Galilee. We also work with professional Palestinian (usually Christian) tour guides. Quite a spread I would say! I find this conception to only work with Christians weird because, at the risk of sounding like a contributor to Grumpy Old Women, would you not only a pint of milk from your corner shop if it is owned by “card carrying” Christians? – quite a rarity in this country anyway.
I think that Christians everywhere should be mindful of Palestine at all times, not least because this is where Christ was born, lived, taught and died. So my final rant today is the unbelievable way that since the Palestinian Authority elections earlier this year, which Hamas won for largely economic reasons in a democratic election, “we” in the West don’t and won’t accept this result because it doesn’t suit. Unusually there has never even been a suggestion that the result was rigged – which is often the case when people don’t get the result they want. In fact by withdrawing essential aid, the economic situation has got so much worse that people are literally starving as well as being robbed of the dignity that as human beings we all deserve. Well, as one of the previous bloggers said, “This just won’t do”.
Rosevardi
Especially published for 'Doctor's Free Time'
One of the things that has always struck me on my travels to the Middle East is that some of the buildings in which I have felt a huge sense of presence in have been places like the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus. I am aware that there have been Christian associations with both these places over the years but still they feel very special in a tranquil and holy way. I have particularly fond memories of the Omayyad Mosque on one visit when a group of pilgrims arrived and sat down together to enjoy their picnic inside the mosque.
As someone who organises pilgrimages to the Holy Land, I get particularly irritated by people telling me that we should only be working with Christians locally: we work with a Palestinian hotel in East Jerusalem run by Muslims, an Israeli Arab bus company in Nazareth, a Palestinian Christian family in Jerusalem co-ordinate all the arrangements on our behalf and an Israeli owned hotel in the Galilee. We also work with professional Palestinian (usually Christian) tour guides. Quite a spread I would say! I find this conception to only work with Christians weird because, at the risk of sounding like a contributor to Grumpy Old Women, would you not only a pint of milk from your corner shop if it is owned by “card carrying” Christians? – quite a rarity in this country anyway.
I think that Christians everywhere should be mindful of Palestine at all times, not least because this is where Christ was born, lived, taught and died. So my final rant today is the unbelievable way that since the Palestinian Authority elections earlier this year, which Hamas won for largely economic reasons in a democratic election, “we” in the West don’t and won’t accept this result because it doesn’t suit. Unusually there has never even been a suggestion that the result was rigged – which is often the case when people don’t get the result they want. In fact by withdrawing essential aid, the economic situation has got so much worse that people are literally starving as well as being robbed of the dignity that as human beings we all deserve. Well, as one of the previous bloggers said, “This just won’t do”.
Rosevardi
Especially published for 'Doctor's Free Time'
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The 12th Imam
It finally happened. After declaring the flu season had started a few days ago, I was struck down myself over the weekend whilst visiting a friend in Burnley. Hazards of the job I suppose. Thankfully I have recovered and back to work today, which means back to the blogs. Apologies to all who have been waiting for my next post!
Over the past few days whilst publishing a variety of blogs from people which have proved to be very enjoyable, I've been working on a rather important blog for me, a blog about the 12th Imam. Many of the readers will know about the 12th Imam, he is arguably the most important figure alive for the Shia faith. However for many of us, he remains a distant figure in the background, currently in occultation, due to save the world at some point in the future. Personally, when I think of the 12th Imam, it's often based on that idea, he's in hiding and eventually when God decree's, he will reveal himself and restore order to the world and that's that. I never really focus on what to do in the meantime and I think the same applies for many of us.
Knowing very little besides the obvious about the 12th Imam, I felt it prudent to actually do some research and gain some knowledge about the most important figure for Shias. It's quite damning to think I know so little about someone so important. Having spent quite some time over the past few days doings some research, I thought it would be a good idea to type a blog about him, however, such is the vast amount of information I've uncovered, the blog is quite lengthy and will require some patience to get through. Before I continue though, I must apologise in advance if I make any errors or mistakes and hope you will be kind enough to point them out and correct them accordingly in the comments section.
Let's start with some basic history. The 12th Imam, Imam Muhammad Al-Mahdi (a.s.), is the direct descendant of the holy Prophet through his daughter Bibi Fatima (a.s.) and is a grandson of the 10th generation after the Prophet. Son to Imam Hasan Al-Askari (a.s.), he was born in the year 868 and his mother was Narjis, a Byzantine princess. During the time of his birth the Shias were under much oppression and in order to protect him, his birth was kept a secret until the assassination of his father on 27th January 874, and it was only during the funeral prayers of the 11th Imam did Imam Mahdi (a.s.) reveal himself as his successor, and at the age of 5 became the 12th and final Imam. Soon after the revelation of his existence he went into the first of his occultation’s - Ghaybat Al-Sughra - which lasted approximately 76yrs during which time he maintained contact with his followers through four appointed deputies, they represented him and acted as his agents between him and his followers. Shortly before the death of the 4th deputy, he announced that the minor occultation would end and he would move into the major occultation - Ghaybat Al-Kubra - which started on 10th Shawwal, 939, without any appointed deputies, and is continuing to this very day and if my calculations are correct he has lived for the last 1138 years.
Shia’s believe that the 12th Imam, direct descendent of the holy Prophet, is currently in hiding and will at some point in the future be revealed at the command of God to restore peace and justice to the entire world. A very simple statement, but with huge implications.
We believe that one man will restore order and spread the religion of Islam throughout the world. He will come with Prophet Isa (Jesus) by his side and together they will spread the religion of Islam leading up to the end of the world and the Day of Judgment. His existence confirms our belief in God; he is God’s living representative on Earth. He defines our purpose of living, without him the world could not exist because where would the literal proof of God be? This world cannot exist without proof of God and the 12th Imam is that proof.
If you have religious beliefs then it makes sense to believe in such a person. It doesn’t have to be the 12th Imam, but the idea that there is a hidden saviour who will come to save the world when it reaches its lowest point is an important belief in all religions. It is the Shias who are able to clearly define this person. No other school of thought, or in fact religion, is able to define this person with such clarity and often people struggle to understand not only his existence but also what it would mean if he did not exist.
He has gone into this major occultation at the command of God. He will remain in hiding until the time is right for him to reveal himself and establish peace and justice across the world. We believe that will only happen when the world reaches breaking point. There will come a point when all ideologies will fail, and when every leader or government will fail, making it clear that no one is capable of establishing justice in the world except for God's representative on this world; Imam Mahdi (a.s.). I personally think the world has already reached breaking point and often wonder that if it hasn't then how bad does it have to get?
Believing in the living Imam means a belief in the idea of absolute eradication of every kind of injustice and oppression by the Imam. It provides hope for us that there is a way out. The 12th Imam will appear owing no allegiance to anyone. He will eradicate all evils in a concrete form. Therefore, we are able to continue waiting for his reappearance and continue looking forward to the solace he will provide for the world. This link between us and the 12th Imam is only possible if he is alive and living, a contemporary personality.
Being a living person makes him much more identifiable as a concept. It has made the Imam a source of strength and consolation to every person suffering from deprivation and injustice, a person who shares our suffering and misery and is waiting to help the oppressed, waiting for God's command to save the world.
Leading on from this, a few issues are often raised when discussing the 12th Imam because of the very unique nature of his existence and principles. The main question is how someone can still be alive after so many years? For the 12th Imam to be alive, he must be over 1000yrs old, so how can this be possible. For those with belief in God it’s simple, the 12th Imam is not the first person to live that long in the history of mankind, the Quran states that “We (once) sent Noah to his people, and he tarried among them a thousand years less fifty: but the Deluge overwhelmed them while they (persisted in) sin” (Surah 29, Verse 14), Prophet Nuh lived to the age of 950yrs which enabled him to rebuild after the flood which wiped out the infidels. Allah also tells the story of the people of the cave: “So they stayed in their Cave three hundred years, and (some) add nine (more). Say: "Allah knows best how long they stayed: with Him is (the knowledge of) the secrets of the heavens and the earth.” (Surah 18, Verses 25-26) God has showed it is possible for man to live for long periods and there is no doubt therefore to the existence of the 12th Imam despite him being over 1000yrs old.
However, the longevity of the 12th Imam seems rather far-fetched for those who don’t believe in God and his Prophets. If we go back to the reason behind his major occultation it becomes possible to realise why the 12th Imam has to be so old. He will return to save the world (not just one town or city or country) from injustice and destruction. For such an event to take place and for the individual to succeed, he must have immense understanding of the situations of the world and that can only come about with experience of having lived through it. Only then can he put into action what he has learned throughout the course of history to establish peace. That experience will take time and the only way to have it is by actually living through the course of history.
As the revolution to be brought about by the 12th Imam is to be ideological and based on the message of Islam, the very nature of his mission requires him to be close to the early Islamic sources and to have a personality built independently of and detached from the influences of the culture he is destined to fight. Therefore, his personality must be fully-developed at the cultural stage, able to understand each and every culture that he will change and that can only be through having experienced each and every culture, again, through the course of history.
The existence of the 12th Imam and his role for mankind was mentioned during the time of the Prophet and is reported in both Sunni and Shia hadith. The Prophet has stated that the 12th Imam will belong to the Prophet's house, will be descended from his daughter, Bibi Fatima (a.s.) in the 10th generation. His arrival was mentioned by the 11 Imams that preceded him and therefore cannot be doubted as to its authenticity. It is only an expression of divine truth and the prophecy of 12 leaders from the family of the Prophet was subsequently fulfilled.
His actual existence and interactions with the public is proved by the accounts of his 4 deputies during the minor occultation. The 4 deputies although learned men, were providing answers and solutions far beyond their accepted capabilities, thus proving they were in contact with the Imam. Ghaybat Al-Sughra was the first stage of his Imamate, enacted to prepare his followers for the major occultation. During this time people communicated with him via his deputies and got used to the idea of an Imam in hiding, ready for the major occultation.
A further argument to ponder is with regard to how the Imam is going to achieve his objectives. It’s all good and well stating that he will reveal himself when the world is in its greatest need for a saviour and he will spread the religion of Islam, destroying the injustice and oppression throughout the world, but practically speaking, how will this be achieved?
Although information is scarce for the actual practical applications of the Imam’s mission, there is a precedent already set; the Holy Prophet, who brought about and spread the religion of Islam in a mere 19yrs of Prophethood. He spread a monotheistic religion in a region that was rife with idol worship with disgusting acts and morals. The Imam’s mission is similar, he will have to spread Islam across the world and no doubt it will be extremely resistant to such a change, but since his appearance has been forecast by the Prophet and taking into account what the Prophet managed to achieve, it explains why it will be possible for the Imam to succeed in his mission.
The Imam will reappear at a precise moment, the moment when the stage is set for his reappearance, when oppression and tyranny will be rampant and when mankind will have fallen into crime and immorality (more so than it has at present!) When this stage is reached, mankind will be psychologically ready, look forward to a saviour for its liberation. This will only happen when wickedness will reach its climax. The 12th Imam will liberate mankind from its misery and the stage will be set to bring about justice, peace and righteousness, and thus the Imam will be able to complete his mission.
Imam Mahdi (a.s.) will represent the last in the series of fights between good and evil. He will provide the final act, final victory and after his success, the Day of Judgment will draw near. He will represent all the Prophets who have come before him with similar missions and establish Islam throughout the world.
All this has a very philosophical tone. To some it remains an extremely far-fetched concept and one that is understandably difficult to accept. However, if you have faith in God, regardless of what religion you may follow, the idea of a final saviour to rescue mankind before the end of the world makes sense.
For Shias, it is clear this saviour is the 12th Imam, no-one else. Only the direct descendant of the Prophet has the power to rescue the world, and we can only pray that God hastens his revelation to the world. However, in the meantime, it is no enough to accept his existence and continue our lives as normal. We must prepare for his arrival. Imagine his arrival and being invited to be involved in his revolution, imagine the privilege. We can’t simply state we accept the 12th Imam and then expect to be included in his revolution, only the true muslims of the world will be included and we have to make sure we are one of them.
This leads nicely to my next point, what are we meant to do whilst we wait for the revelation of the 12th Imam. Granted it may not happen in our lifetime, but even so, we have to be ready. This means following the principles of Islam, the rules and guidelines set by Allah in our day to day lives. This means becoming better Muslims, constantly striving to improve ourselves, as I have discussed in the past. It means attempting to establish Islamic practices and proving the excellence of Islam to the public, attracting their attention to true Islam.
I’ve often argued to myself that if the Imam will arrive when the world is in dire straights, then what’s the point in me doing anything, it’s going to happen anyway? However, that’s missing the point entirely. Yes the Imam will arrive when the world is in its greatest need but we have to do all we can to try and prevent such a situation because only then can we claim to be a true follower and God can recognise that despite our best efforts, the world is still in need of help.
It’s depressing to know that the Imam will only arrive at the point when the world has reached its lowest ebb and to many that point has already been reached. Muslims are being oppressed and killed across the globe and perhaps the arrival of the Imam is imminent (inshallah). Only Allah, in his infinite wisdom, knows the time of his arrival. We have to make sure we do all we can for ourselves and for Muslims across the globe, within our capabilities, to ensure that we are part of the revolution "So vie with one another in good works. Wheresoever ye may be, Allah will bring you all together." (Surah 2, Verse 148) The Quran also states "And if help comes (to thee) from thy Lord... they are sure to say "We have (always) been (Muslims) with you!" Does not Allah know best all that is in the hearts of all Creation?" (Surah 29, Verse 10), therefore, clearly any disbelievers will be appropriately dealt with regardless of their claims. If the Imam does not arrive during our lifetime, then on the Day of Judgment, inshallah we will be recognised as Muslims who made the effort and are rewarded accordingly.
If anything, the concept and principles of the 12th Imam is just another method of reminding us of our duties and responsibilities, another method to ensure we behave appropriately, act within the principles and guidelines of Islam and another means to get closer to Allah. People often accuse Shias of blind belief, how can a hidden Imam benefit us? Although it does seem difficult to believe that we can receive help from a hidden Imam, how come we can be so affected by Shaitain? He too is hidden and yet his influence on us is immense, the hidden Imam is the opposite and can be used as a constant source of inspiration.
Unfortunately, there is no direct mention of the 12th Imam in the Quran, being a book of principles means that specific people do not get mentioned, although the Prophet has made it clear in numerous hadith about the importance of the 12th Imam. What the Quran does refer to is the idea of a final victory and the hidden saviour:
Over the past few days whilst publishing a variety of blogs from people which have proved to be very enjoyable, I've been working on a rather important blog for me, a blog about the 12th Imam. Many of the readers will know about the 12th Imam, he is arguably the most important figure alive for the Shia faith. However for many of us, he remains a distant figure in the background, currently in occultation, due to save the world at some point in the future. Personally, when I think of the 12th Imam, it's often based on that idea, he's in hiding and eventually when God decree's, he will reveal himself and restore order to the world and that's that. I never really focus on what to do in the meantime and I think the same applies for many of us.
Knowing very little besides the obvious about the 12th Imam, I felt it prudent to actually do some research and gain some knowledge about the most important figure for Shias. It's quite damning to think I know so little about someone so important. Having spent quite some time over the past few days doings some research, I thought it would be a good idea to type a blog about him, however, such is the vast amount of information I've uncovered, the blog is quite lengthy and will require some patience to get through. Before I continue though, I must apologise in advance if I make any errors or mistakes and hope you will be kind enough to point them out and correct them accordingly in the comments section.
Let's start with some basic history. The 12th Imam, Imam Muhammad Al-Mahdi (a.s.), is the direct descendant of the holy Prophet through his daughter Bibi Fatima (a.s.) and is a grandson of the 10th generation after the Prophet. Son to Imam Hasan Al-Askari (a.s.), he was born in the year 868 and his mother was Narjis, a Byzantine princess. During the time of his birth the Shias were under much oppression and in order to protect him, his birth was kept a secret until the assassination of his father on 27th January 874, and it was only during the funeral prayers of the 11th Imam did Imam Mahdi (a.s.) reveal himself as his successor, and at the age of 5 became the 12th and final Imam. Soon after the revelation of his existence he went into the first of his occultation’s - Ghaybat Al-Sughra - which lasted approximately 76yrs during which time he maintained contact with his followers through four appointed deputies, they represented him and acted as his agents between him and his followers. Shortly before the death of the 4th deputy, he announced that the minor occultation would end and he would move into the major occultation - Ghaybat Al-Kubra - which started on 10th Shawwal, 939, without any appointed deputies, and is continuing to this very day and if my calculations are correct he has lived for the last 1138 years.
Shia’s believe that the 12th Imam, direct descendent of the holy Prophet, is currently in hiding and will at some point in the future be revealed at the command of God to restore peace and justice to the entire world. A very simple statement, but with huge implications.
We believe that one man will restore order and spread the religion of Islam throughout the world. He will come with Prophet Isa (Jesus) by his side and together they will spread the religion of Islam leading up to the end of the world and the Day of Judgment. His existence confirms our belief in God; he is God’s living representative on Earth. He defines our purpose of living, without him the world could not exist because where would the literal proof of God be? This world cannot exist without proof of God and the 12th Imam is that proof.
If you have religious beliefs then it makes sense to believe in such a person. It doesn’t have to be the 12th Imam, but the idea that there is a hidden saviour who will come to save the world when it reaches its lowest point is an important belief in all religions. It is the Shias who are able to clearly define this person. No other school of thought, or in fact religion, is able to define this person with such clarity and often people struggle to understand not only his existence but also what it would mean if he did not exist.
He has gone into this major occultation at the command of God. He will remain in hiding until the time is right for him to reveal himself and establish peace and justice across the world. We believe that will only happen when the world reaches breaking point. There will come a point when all ideologies will fail, and when every leader or government will fail, making it clear that no one is capable of establishing justice in the world except for God's representative on this world; Imam Mahdi (a.s.). I personally think the world has already reached breaking point and often wonder that if it hasn't then how bad does it have to get?
Believing in the living Imam means a belief in the idea of absolute eradication of every kind of injustice and oppression by the Imam. It provides hope for us that there is a way out. The 12th Imam will appear owing no allegiance to anyone. He will eradicate all evils in a concrete form. Therefore, we are able to continue waiting for his reappearance and continue looking forward to the solace he will provide for the world. This link between us and the 12th Imam is only possible if he is alive and living, a contemporary personality.
Being a living person makes him much more identifiable as a concept. It has made the Imam a source of strength and consolation to every person suffering from deprivation and injustice, a person who shares our suffering and misery and is waiting to help the oppressed, waiting for God's command to save the world.
Leading on from this, a few issues are often raised when discussing the 12th Imam because of the very unique nature of his existence and principles. The main question is how someone can still be alive after so many years? For the 12th Imam to be alive, he must be over 1000yrs old, so how can this be possible. For those with belief in God it’s simple, the 12th Imam is not the first person to live that long in the history of mankind, the Quran states that “We (once) sent Noah to his people, and he tarried among them a thousand years less fifty: but the Deluge overwhelmed them while they (persisted in) sin” (Surah 29, Verse 14), Prophet Nuh lived to the age of 950yrs which enabled him to rebuild after the flood which wiped out the infidels. Allah also tells the story of the people of the cave: “So they stayed in their Cave three hundred years, and (some) add nine (more). Say: "Allah knows best how long they stayed: with Him is (the knowledge of) the secrets of the heavens and the earth.” (Surah 18, Verses 25-26) God has showed it is possible for man to live for long periods and there is no doubt therefore to the existence of the 12th Imam despite him being over 1000yrs old.
However, the longevity of the 12th Imam seems rather far-fetched for those who don’t believe in God and his Prophets. If we go back to the reason behind his major occultation it becomes possible to realise why the 12th Imam has to be so old. He will return to save the world (not just one town or city or country) from injustice and destruction. For such an event to take place and for the individual to succeed, he must have immense understanding of the situations of the world and that can only come about with experience of having lived through it. Only then can he put into action what he has learned throughout the course of history to establish peace. That experience will take time and the only way to have it is by actually living through the course of history.
As the revolution to be brought about by the 12th Imam is to be ideological and based on the message of Islam, the very nature of his mission requires him to be close to the early Islamic sources and to have a personality built independently of and detached from the influences of the culture he is destined to fight. Therefore, his personality must be fully-developed at the cultural stage, able to understand each and every culture that he will change and that can only be through having experienced each and every culture, again, through the course of history.
The existence of the 12th Imam and his role for mankind was mentioned during the time of the Prophet and is reported in both Sunni and Shia hadith. The Prophet has stated that the 12th Imam will belong to the Prophet's house, will be descended from his daughter, Bibi Fatima (a.s.) in the 10th generation. His arrival was mentioned by the 11 Imams that preceded him and therefore cannot be doubted as to its authenticity. It is only an expression of divine truth and the prophecy of 12 leaders from the family of the Prophet was subsequently fulfilled.
His actual existence and interactions with the public is proved by the accounts of his 4 deputies during the minor occultation. The 4 deputies although learned men, were providing answers and solutions far beyond their accepted capabilities, thus proving they were in contact with the Imam. Ghaybat Al-Sughra was the first stage of his Imamate, enacted to prepare his followers for the major occultation. During this time people communicated with him via his deputies and got used to the idea of an Imam in hiding, ready for the major occultation.
A further argument to ponder is with regard to how the Imam is going to achieve his objectives. It’s all good and well stating that he will reveal himself when the world is in its greatest need for a saviour and he will spread the religion of Islam, destroying the injustice and oppression throughout the world, but practically speaking, how will this be achieved?
Although information is scarce for the actual practical applications of the Imam’s mission, there is a precedent already set; the Holy Prophet, who brought about and spread the religion of Islam in a mere 19yrs of Prophethood. He spread a monotheistic religion in a region that was rife with idol worship with disgusting acts and morals. The Imam’s mission is similar, he will have to spread Islam across the world and no doubt it will be extremely resistant to such a change, but since his appearance has been forecast by the Prophet and taking into account what the Prophet managed to achieve, it explains why it will be possible for the Imam to succeed in his mission.
The Imam will reappear at a precise moment, the moment when the stage is set for his reappearance, when oppression and tyranny will be rampant and when mankind will have fallen into crime and immorality (more so than it has at present!) When this stage is reached, mankind will be psychologically ready, look forward to a saviour for its liberation. This will only happen when wickedness will reach its climax. The 12th Imam will liberate mankind from its misery and the stage will be set to bring about justice, peace and righteousness, and thus the Imam will be able to complete his mission.
Imam Mahdi (a.s.) will represent the last in the series of fights between good and evil. He will provide the final act, final victory and after his success, the Day of Judgment will draw near. He will represent all the Prophets who have come before him with similar missions and establish Islam throughout the world.
All this has a very philosophical tone. To some it remains an extremely far-fetched concept and one that is understandably difficult to accept. However, if you have faith in God, regardless of what religion you may follow, the idea of a final saviour to rescue mankind before the end of the world makes sense.
For Shias, it is clear this saviour is the 12th Imam, no-one else. Only the direct descendant of the Prophet has the power to rescue the world, and we can only pray that God hastens his revelation to the world. However, in the meantime, it is no enough to accept his existence and continue our lives as normal. We must prepare for his arrival. Imagine his arrival and being invited to be involved in his revolution, imagine the privilege. We can’t simply state we accept the 12th Imam and then expect to be included in his revolution, only the true muslims of the world will be included and we have to make sure we are one of them.
This leads nicely to my next point, what are we meant to do whilst we wait for the revelation of the 12th Imam. Granted it may not happen in our lifetime, but even so, we have to be ready. This means following the principles of Islam, the rules and guidelines set by Allah in our day to day lives. This means becoming better Muslims, constantly striving to improve ourselves, as I have discussed in the past. It means attempting to establish Islamic practices and proving the excellence of Islam to the public, attracting their attention to true Islam.
I’ve often argued to myself that if the Imam will arrive when the world is in dire straights, then what’s the point in me doing anything, it’s going to happen anyway? However, that’s missing the point entirely. Yes the Imam will arrive when the world is in its greatest need but we have to do all we can to try and prevent such a situation because only then can we claim to be a true follower and God can recognise that despite our best efforts, the world is still in need of help.
It’s depressing to know that the Imam will only arrive at the point when the world has reached its lowest ebb and to many that point has already been reached. Muslims are being oppressed and killed across the globe and perhaps the arrival of the Imam is imminent (inshallah). Only Allah, in his infinite wisdom, knows the time of his arrival. We have to make sure we do all we can for ourselves and for Muslims across the globe, within our capabilities, to ensure that we are part of the revolution "So vie with one another in good works. Wheresoever ye may be, Allah will bring you all together." (Surah 2, Verse 148) The Quran also states "And if help comes (to thee) from thy Lord... they are sure to say "We have (always) been (Muslims) with you!" Does not Allah know best all that is in the hearts of all Creation?" (Surah 29, Verse 10), therefore, clearly any disbelievers will be appropriately dealt with regardless of their claims. If the Imam does not arrive during our lifetime, then on the Day of Judgment, inshallah we will be recognised as Muslims who made the effort and are rewarded accordingly.
If anything, the concept and principles of the 12th Imam is just another method of reminding us of our duties and responsibilities, another method to ensure we behave appropriately, act within the principles and guidelines of Islam and another means to get closer to Allah. People often accuse Shias of blind belief, how can a hidden Imam benefit us? Although it does seem difficult to believe that we can receive help from a hidden Imam, how come we can be so affected by Shaitain? He too is hidden and yet his influence on us is immense, the hidden Imam is the opposite and can be used as a constant source of inspiration.
Unfortunately, there is no direct mention of the 12th Imam in the Quran, being a book of principles means that specific people do not get mentioned, although the Prophet has made it clear in numerous hadith about the importance of the 12th Imam. What the Quran does refer to is the idea of a final victory and the hidden saviour:
- "It is He who has sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over every other religion. However much the disbelievers may dislike it" (Surah 9, Verse 33)
- "And verily We have written in the Psalms, after the Reminder: My righteous slaves will inherit the earth" (Surah 21, Verse 105)
- "...The earth belongs to Him and He has made it the heritage of whichever of His servants He chooses. The Final Victory is for the pious." (Surah 7, Verse 128)
- "It is He who has sent His Apostle with Guidance and the Religion of Truth that he may proclaim it over all religions..." (Surah 61, Verse 9)
- "If (such) were Our Will, We could send down to them from the sky a Sign to which they would bend their necks in humility." (Surah 26, Verse 4)
- "Is not He (best) who answered the wronged one when he cried unto Him and removed the evil, and hath made you viceroys (inheritors) of the earth?" (Surah 27, Verse 62)
- "Their intention is to put out the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light however much the disbelievers are averse." (Surah 61, Verse 8)
- "Know ye (all) that Allah giveth life to the earth after its death!" (Surah 57, Verse 17)
- "Say (O Muhammad, unto mankind): No reward do I ask of you for this (Quran) nor am I a pretender. This is no less than a Message to (all) the Worlds. And ye shall certainly know the truth of it (all) after a while." (Surah 38, Verses 86-88)
- "Soon We shall show them Our Signs on the horizons and within themselves until it will be manifest unto them that it is the Truth..." (Surah 41, Verse 53)
So there you have it, an attempt to explain the 12th Imam. I think I’ve got bogged down with quite a bit of information, but hopefully some of it makes sense and you’ll be able to take something away from it. For non-muslims, hopefully the concept is more understandable and for Muslims, (Shias and Sunnis) the explanation provides a better understanding as to who the 12th Imam is and what he represents. For Shias who already acknowledge the 12th Imam, perhaps this blog will increase our awareness about him and hence lead us to become better Muslims as we continue to improve our faith.
Thanks for getting through this blog and I look forward to your comments.
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Friday, December 08, 2006
Plan B
Low and behold you are reading the 50th post of this blog. Way back in September when I started the blog I never thought it would've lasted this long, and now I'm trying to find a way to keep it going after starting A&E in February. That's where the Guest Bloggers come in; you guys will have to blog more regularly! Half a century of blogs, sounds good doesn't it?
The blog that I keep going on about will inshallah be ready for Monday, so I guess the 50th blog, being a Friday, will unfortunately be a bit of a damp squib, yet more stuff about my work. As I've mentioned in the past the majority of my work in my GP surgery is pretty mundane. However, what never ceases to amaze me is the number of people who come with weird and wonderful symptoms and most of the time I have no clue what is going on, and that's because often nothing is going on.
Often these patients arrive with expectations of what they want from me. They want specific investigations or treatments. The problem lies in having to explain why I don't know what is wrong or what are the possible explanations for the problem. I call this Plan B. Plan A is the tried and tested path for all the usual conditions, a cough, cold, sore throat, headache etc. Plan B is employed when I don't know what is going on.
The list for Plan B is pretty extensive. You could almost call it Plan B-N. After Plan A has failed or is not suitable the range of possible treatments incorporated into Plan B include: arrange some investigations (including blood tests and X-rays), different medication (often painkillers), second opinions, alternative medicine (acupuncture, homeopathy), specialist referral and the best of all, do nothing.
Having these back-ups has proved to be vital when dealing with the weird and wonderful. For example, I saw a middle-aged lady with leg pain. Started at random, worse in the mornings and unable to walk on her left leg when it occurs. Being the classic Anglo-Saxon, she arrived having taken no painkillers for the pain and wanted something done. After examining her leg I couldn't find any cause for her pain, so obviously prescribed a course of painkillers (Plan A) and asked her to return if there's no improvement.
I saw her yesterday, with no change in her condition. The pain was still occurring at random and she still had difficulty walking. I still couldn't find any cause of her pain. This is when Plan B kicked in; I went through all the possibilities in my head and after discussion with the patient eventually settled on some investigations, an x-ray of the leg and some blood tests. Chances are I may never find the cause of her pain but at least it keeps the patient satisfied that something is being done.
The problem comes with getting too immersed into Plan B. Sometimes there's a limit as to how far you can go. It's no longer about what you could do, but what you should do. Therefore when all reasonable avenues have been explored there's no point to go further, sometimes a cause just won't be found. Medicine is not an exact science. When that happens, it's important to realise that and learn to let go. There is the risk that as doctors we feel the need to treat, treat, treat, eventually taking over the actual need of the patient. It becomes a case of serving the need of the doctor to treat the patient and not the other way around. It can become dangerous because it leads to unrealistic expectations from the patients.
So there you have it, my little spiel about Plan B. Often doctors don't have a clue and have many methods as backups to make sure something is done and they're not caught out! The next time you visit your GP with something unusual or random, please bear in mind that the doctor might not know any more than you and sometimes the cause may never be found at all!
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
The blog that I keep going on about will inshallah be ready for Monday, so I guess the 50th blog, being a Friday, will unfortunately be a bit of a damp squib, yet more stuff about my work. As I've mentioned in the past the majority of my work in my GP surgery is pretty mundane. However, what never ceases to amaze me is the number of people who come with weird and wonderful symptoms and most of the time I have no clue what is going on, and that's because often nothing is going on.
Often these patients arrive with expectations of what they want from me. They want specific investigations or treatments. The problem lies in having to explain why I don't know what is wrong or what are the possible explanations for the problem. I call this Plan B. Plan A is the tried and tested path for all the usual conditions, a cough, cold, sore throat, headache etc. Plan B is employed when I don't know what is going on.
The list for Plan B is pretty extensive. You could almost call it Plan B-N. After Plan A has failed or is not suitable the range of possible treatments incorporated into Plan B include: arrange some investigations (including blood tests and X-rays), different medication (often painkillers), second opinions, alternative medicine (acupuncture, homeopathy), specialist referral and the best of all, do nothing.
Having these back-ups has proved to be vital when dealing with the weird and wonderful. For example, I saw a middle-aged lady with leg pain. Started at random, worse in the mornings and unable to walk on her left leg when it occurs. Being the classic Anglo-Saxon, she arrived having taken no painkillers for the pain and wanted something done. After examining her leg I couldn't find any cause for her pain, so obviously prescribed a course of painkillers (Plan A) and asked her to return if there's no improvement.
I saw her yesterday, with no change in her condition. The pain was still occurring at random and she still had difficulty walking. I still couldn't find any cause of her pain. This is when Plan B kicked in; I went through all the possibilities in my head and after discussion with the patient eventually settled on some investigations, an x-ray of the leg and some blood tests. Chances are I may never find the cause of her pain but at least it keeps the patient satisfied that something is being done.
The problem comes with getting too immersed into Plan B. Sometimes there's a limit as to how far you can go. It's no longer about what you could do, but what you should do. Therefore when all reasonable avenues have been explored there's no point to go further, sometimes a cause just won't be found. Medicine is not an exact science. When that happens, it's important to realise that and learn to let go. There is the risk that as doctors we feel the need to treat, treat, treat, eventually taking over the actual need of the patient. It becomes a case of serving the need of the doctor to treat the patient and not the other way around. It can become dangerous because it leads to unrealistic expectations from the patients.
So there you have it, my little spiel about Plan B. Often doctors don't have a clue and have many methods as backups to make sure something is done and they're not caught out! The next time you visit your GP with something unusual or random, please bear in mind that the doctor might not know any more than you and sometimes the cause may never be found at all!
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Thursday, December 07, 2006
An Islamic Christian
I think you'll agree that the last two guest blogs have been extremely insightful and interesting reads. Hopefully it's the first of many from the people who have already contributed to this blog. I think I can say that this blog has officially taken off, receiving quite a few hits on a daily basis and hopefully that shall continue. I haven't quite finished the blog that I've been preparing over the past few days, so I hope to publish that next week, and besides, more people read the blog at the beginning of the week, so it's probably better that I delay it until then.
In the meantime, what do I discuss? After reading the last two highly topical blogs I feel as if I have a lot to live up to. Reflecting on the last two blogs, I wanted to mention a few points. It will always astound me that so-called Muslims can accuse other Muslims of being non-Muslims. I know I can be judgmental from time to time, but that is surely taking it one step (or even more) too far.
For example, the condemnation of Shias in Saudi Arabia is shocking, Wahabi's run the show and the power they wield is extremely worrying. The grandsons of the Prophet are buried in Medina and not a soul is allowed to get anywhere near the graves, these were great people in the history of Islam and yet their graves are mere blocks of stone surrounded by security gates. From the death of the Prophet the followers of his true successor Imam Ali (a.s.) have been condemned, punished, silenced and killed and it continues to this very day. People often label Shias as being over-emotional, always upset and crying, but with such a cruel history and continuing atrocities occurring to Shias across the globe, how can we be anything but?
I don't want to get to bogged down by this because I can feel myself getting irritated, but it all boils down to one point: how can the holy Prophet spread the religion of Islam, across a region that was stuck in deep polytheistic rituals, in a mere 19 years and then just leave it to his followers to continue the process? It just doesn't make any sense. A man who taught people an entire new way of life, passed away when the religion was still in its infancy and did not appoint a successor to continue the message? Any logical person, Muslim or non-Muslim, cannot possibly believe that to be the case.
It would be a gross failure of his Prophethood if he didn't ensure the safeguard of his religion after his death. He appointed Imam Ali (a.s.) as his successor, a fact recognised by both Shia and Sunnis and yet it is not followed either through stubbornness or ignorance and instead people act out against Shias simply for following Imam Ali (a.s.) and the 12 Imams. There is much to say on the subject and countless books have been written about it, but I just wanted to state the one point that defines the whole issue.
Moving on, an with yesterday's blog in mind, there are many similarities between Christianity and Islam. Christianity in its original form is identical to Islam. Isa (Jesus) was a great Prophet of God, who attempted to spread the religion of Christianity. After his demise, the Bible and the ideals of the religion became altered by numerous people to make it more suited to them. In its original form Christianity held the same values as Islam. Had there been no alterations, no adjustments, there would be no need for Islam, Christianity was Islam.
After the changes made by man to the Christian faith, Allah sent down his last Prophet, Muhammad, to spread Islam across the world. This time he ensured that the Quran would not be changed by man and hence Islam has remained the same since its revelation. That maybe hard to believe in light of all the news about fundamentalism and terrorism across the globe allegedly linked to Islam, but Islam does not allow many of the atrocities that take place today and the people who try to claim that it is in the name of God will be punished accordingly. George Bernard Shaw famously once stated that "Islam is the best religion and Muslims are the worst followers" and I think that applies quite fittingly to such terrible acts.
Islam upholds many of the Christian beliefs. It states that Isa was a great Prophet of Allah, a miracle as he was the son of Virgin Mary. The Quran states that Mary was blessed with Isa as miracle of God for the people of Israel: "I am only a messenger from thy Lord, (to announce) to thee the gift of a holy son. She (Mary) said: "How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?" Thy Lord said, 'that is easy for Me: and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign unto men and a Mercy from Us: It is a matter (so) decreed." (Surah 19, Verses 19-21). When people questioned the birth, Isa himself spoke as a baby in his mother's arms: "I am indeed a servant of Allah: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet" (Surah 19, Verse 30). Islam also states, similar to Christianity, that Prophet Isa was blessed with miracles to help his followers: "I have come to you, with a Sign from your Lord, in that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by Allah's leave: And I heal those born blind, and the lepers, and I quicken the dead, by Allah's leave" (Surah 3, Verse 49).
Where Islam draws the line is in the status of Prophet Isa, he was a great Prophet, but NOT the son of God. "It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! When He determines a matter, He only says to it, "Be", and it is." (Surah 19, Verse 35). Following on from this, he was not crucified at the cross either. "And (the unbelievers) plotted and planned, and Allah too planned, and the best of planners is Allah. Behold! Allah said: "O Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee (of the falsehoods) of those who blaspheme; I will make those who follow thee superior to those who reject faith, to the Day of Resurrection..." (Surah 3, Verse 54-55). Thus we believe that someone was miraculously made to look like Isa and crucified in his place and Isa was taken up to the heavens. A miraculous life from start to finish.
There are many more similarities between the two faiths, much more than what is portrayed in the media today. By focusing on the similarities, perhaps a better understanding can be achieved, but that would mean less condemnation of Muslims and no-one wants that now do they?! As Dissident Voice stated in yesterday's blog, Muslims have lived in the West for many years, way before all the current tensions became so prominent and there was no problem then, so why such a problem now?
We haven't helped ourselves with such a laid back and apathetic attitude towards all the criticism being aimed at Muslims across UK and indirectly we have contributed to our own downfall. That can all change. Although we may not unite in faith (due to the different schools of thought), but we can unite in action against the condemnation. It doesn't call for drastic action, but simply methods such as collectively criticising certain reports that are published, criticising public figures when they attack Muslim principles, voting against certain policies and politicians and so on and so forth.
If somehow we can collectively highlight the major deficiencies in certain reports and attitudes against Muslims, perhaps things can change and people will realise that we're not all fundamental, face covering bombers! Yet again, maybe I'm being to idealistic, but I may as well type about it as I have done in the past. Maybe with more readers, others can have similar feelings and opinions and we can act together, who knows. I am being vague I know, but sometimes the tasks just seem too huge to face. We have to change and then hope that collectively, it can make a difference.
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
In the meantime, what do I discuss? After reading the last two highly topical blogs I feel as if I have a lot to live up to. Reflecting on the last two blogs, I wanted to mention a few points. It will always astound me that so-called Muslims can accuse other Muslims of being non-Muslims. I know I can be judgmental from time to time, but that is surely taking it one step (or even more) too far.
For example, the condemnation of Shias in Saudi Arabia is shocking, Wahabi's run the show and the power they wield is extremely worrying. The grandsons of the Prophet are buried in Medina and not a soul is allowed to get anywhere near the graves, these were great people in the history of Islam and yet their graves are mere blocks of stone surrounded by security gates. From the death of the Prophet the followers of his true successor Imam Ali (a.s.) have been condemned, punished, silenced and killed and it continues to this very day. People often label Shias as being over-emotional, always upset and crying, but with such a cruel history and continuing atrocities occurring to Shias across the globe, how can we be anything but?
I don't want to get to bogged down by this because I can feel myself getting irritated, but it all boils down to one point: how can the holy Prophet spread the religion of Islam, across a region that was stuck in deep polytheistic rituals, in a mere 19 years and then just leave it to his followers to continue the process? It just doesn't make any sense. A man who taught people an entire new way of life, passed away when the religion was still in its infancy and did not appoint a successor to continue the message? Any logical person, Muslim or non-Muslim, cannot possibly believe that to be the case.
It would be a gross failure of his Prophethood if he didn't ensure the safeguard of his religion after his death. He appointed Imam Ali (a.s.) as his successor, a fact recognised by both Shia and Sunnis and yet it is not followed either through stubbornness or ignorance and instead people act out against Shias simply for following Imam Ali (a.s.) and the 12 Imams. There is much to say on the subject and countless books have been written about it, but I just wanted to state the one point that defines the whole issue.
Moving on, an with yesterday's blog in mind, there are many similarities between Christianity and Islam. Christianity in its original form is identical to Islam. Isa (Jesus) was a great Prophet of God, who attempted to spread the religion of Christianity. After his demise, the Bible and the ideals of the religion became altered by numerous people to make it more suited to them. In its original form Christianity held the same values as Islam. Had there been no alterations, no adjustments, there would be no need for Islam, Christianity was Islam.
After the changes made by man to the Christian faith, Allah sent down his last Prophet, Muhammad, to spread Islam across the world. This time he ensured that the Quran would not be changed by man and hence Islam has remained the same since its revelation. That maybe hard to believe in light of all the news about fundamentalism and terrorism across the globe allegedly linked to Islam, but Islam does not allow many of the atrocities that take place today and the people who try to claim that it is in the name of God will be punished accordingly. George Bernard Shaw famously once stated that "Islam is the best religion and Muslims are the worst followers" and I think that applies quite fittingly to such terrible acts.
Islam upholds many of the Christian beliefs. It states that Isa was a great Prophet of Allah, a miracle as he was the son of Virgin Mary. The Quran states that Mary was blessed with Isa as miracle of God for the people of Israel: "I am only a messenger from thy Lord, (to announce) to thee the gift of a holy son. She (Mary) said: "How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?" Thy Lord said, 'that is easy for Me: and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign unto men and a Mercy from Us: It is a matter (so) decreed." (Surah 19, Verses 19-21). When people questioned the birth, Isa himself spoke as a baby in his mother's arms: "I am indeed a servant of Allah: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet" (Surah 19, Verse 30). Islam also states, similar to Christianity, that Prophet Isa was blessed with miracles to help his followers: "I have come to you, with a Sign from your Lord, in that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by Allah's leave: And I heal those born blind, and the lepers, and I quicken the dead, by Allah's leave" (Surah 3, Verse 49).
Where Islam draws the line is in the status of Prophet Isa, he was a great Prophet, but NOT the son of God. "It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! When He determines a matter, He only says to it, "Be", and it is." (Surah 19, Verse 35). Following on from this, he was not crucified at the cross either. "And (the unbelievers) plotted and planned, and Allah too planned, and the best of planners is Allah. Behold! Allah said: "O Jesus! I will take thee and raise thee to Myself and clear thee (of the falsehoods) of those who blaspheme; I will make those who follow thee superior to those who reject faith, to the Day of Resurrection..." (Surah 3, Verse 54-55). Thus we believe that someone was miraculously made to look like Isa and crucified in his place and Isa was taken up to the heavens. A miraculous life from start to finish.
There are many more similarities between the two faiths, much more than what is portrayed in the media today. By focusing on the similarities, perhaps a better understanding can be achieved, but that would mean less condemnation of Muslims and no-one wants that now do they?! As Dissident Voice stated in yesterday's blog, Muslims have lived in the West for many years, way before all the current tensions became so prominent and there was no problem then, so why such a problem now?
We haven't helped ourselves with such a laid back and apathetic attitude towards all the criticism being aimed at Muslims across UK and indirectly we have contributed to our own downfall. That can all change. Although we may not unite in faith (due to the different schools of thought), but we can unite in action against the condemnation. It doesn't call for drastic action, but simply methods such as collectively criticising certain reports that are published, criticising public figures when they attack Muslim principles, voting against certain policies and politicians and so on and so forth.
If somehow we can collectively highlight the major deficiencies in certain reports and attitudes against Muslims, perhaps things can change and people will realise that we're not all fundamental, face covering bombers! Yet again, maybe I'm being to idealistic, but I may as well type about it as I have done in the past. Maybe with more readers, others can have similar feelings and opinions and we can act together, who knows. I am being vague I know, but sometimes the tasks just seem too huge to face. We have to change and then hope that collectively, it can make a difference.
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Guest Blogger #4 - United We (should) Stand
When is the Christian community going to come to the aid of Muslims, in this country and around the world?
Superficially, there are signs of an alliance between to two great faiths. Last Friday, a group called the Christian Muslim Forum - apparently set up this year with the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury - was reported to have written to local councils warning that banning reference to Christmas lights would result in a backlash against Muslims. This is a noble and very real point, and it is a glaring fact that many Muslims – who themselves abhor the quiet abolition of multi-culturalism and tolerance for religion that is sneaking across Britain – are the last people to want to see Christmas celebrations replaced with inane phrases such as "Winterval”.
However, apart from the concern for Muslims safety, the question of “winter lights” is a silly red herring, a cartoon issue for the right-wing press. More seriously, Pope Benedict last week made the first Papal visit to Turkey in a self-proclaimed attempt to restore Christian-Muslim relations after his misguided and inflammatory remarks about Islam in September. This, too, should be welcomed. However, nice pictures of the Pope smiling in a Mosque hide what is the biggest problem facing the world today: religious hatred fuelling a “clash of fundamentalisms” that so neatly links George W Bush with Osama bin Laden. It is since bin Laden’s September 11th attacks that Muslims everywhere have gradually found themselves under attack, not just by fanatical liberal atheist-fundamentalists such as the controversialist writer Christopher Hitchens, and Salman Rushdie; but also by so-called Christians such as those on the American right. And – beneath the rhetoric - blood continues to flow across Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.
Here in Britain meanwhile, Muslims are under siege like never before, a worry that seems to have so far passed the Christian faith by. Labour – Labour! - politicians lead the way in abolishing the suddenly-unfashionable concept of multi-culturalism, after Jack Straw gratuitously raised the issue of the veil out of a clear blue sky.
Arguably, this is in order to create a narrative about “Muslim extremism” which deflects away from – and seeks to justify – the wars on Muslim countries abroad. I suspect that – whether or not he sanctioned the comments directly - it suits Tony Blair quite well to have a debate rage over the veil, instead of the rights and wrongs of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq, especially when the former sub-consciously and outrageously helps to justify the latter, if you see what I mean: this isn’t an illegal invasion and occupation, the line goes, but “the first war of the 21st Century”; the opening shots of a huge worldwide clash of civilizations, where Muslims, we are told, are on the wrong side of the argument. Above all it aids and abets the lie that attacks, like those here on July 7th, are not because of foreign policy, but because there is something about Muslims or Islam that – as the Pope implied – is about violence.
One of many points forgotten amid the anti-Islam frenzy – and the nasty sections of the media who fuel it - is the fact that “homegrown” Muslims have lived happily in Britain for decades; there was no 7-7 before Iraq. Yet, the latest desire on behalf of the Government, which has taken them a bit of time to get round to, is to make out that Islam is at odds with the West’s culture, so that it is seen as acceptable to go to war. Well, this won’t do. As a Christian believer, I am appalled at the way in which Muslims are being left out to dry in this country. Not just because the Christian view-point should be one of assistance to those in need but also because, quite simply, there are so many similarities between the faiths.
I speak as a supreme ignoramus. For up until a few years ago, when Stevenage Man (who has since become the single biggest influence on my outlook on politics and, to an extent life) told me that Islam reveres Jesus Christ and believes in the Virgin Birth – which many Christians no longer do – I had no idea of the closeness of the religions.
Yet the fundamental values, around which Christianity and Islam revolve, are to put it mildly, similar: selflessness, generosity, help for others, value for life and love of fellow human beings. It is therefore high time the Christian church – which, for better or worse, remains the official established faith of this country – stopped crossing the road and avoiding the victims, and instead came to the assistance of a group of persecuted, decent and innocent people with whom all Christians should empathize.
Rowan Williams is by all accounts an incredibly intelligent – and spiritual - man. He is also doing infinitely more for cross-faith relations than his right-wing predecessor, George Carey. But – in the current climate – he needs to lead. And what better area for a good man like Dr Williams to plunge into than Islam, a religion that is being used as an excuse for what amounts to sheer racism in this country today.
Instead of allowing himself to be bogged down with the inanity of the homosexual argument that dominates (and ultimately threatens to finish off) the church, Dr Williams should force the church to take a step back and get some perspective about what matters. He should make a speech highlighting the similarities between Islam and Christianity, and why the latter needs to defend the former.
This would anyway be necessary amid the secular fundamentalism blanketing the country in which we all live. But it is made vital by the literally life-threatening threat hanging over Muslims abroad and at home. I sense that Christians are making a big mistake in not properly supporting Islam. After all it was Christ who said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And when it is now open season on religion, with hatred swirling particularly closely around Islam, it really is a case of: United we stand, divided we fall.
Dissident Voice
Especially published for 'Doctor's Free Time'
Superficially, there are signs of an alliance between to two great faiths. Last Friday, a group called the Christian Muslim Forum - apparently set up this year with the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury - was reported to have written to local councils warning that banning reference to Christmas lights would result in a backlash against Muslims. This is a noble and very real point, and it is a glaring fact that many Muslims – who themselves abhor the quiet abolition of multi-culturalism and tolerance for religion that is sneaking across Britain – are the last people to want to see Christmas celebrations replaced with inane phrases such as "Winterval”.
However, apart from the concern for Muslims safety, the question of “winter lights” is a silly red herring, a cartoon issue for the right-wing press. More seriously, Pope Benedict last week made the first Papal visit to Turkey in a self-proclaimed attempt to restore Christian-Muslim relations after his misguided and inflammatory remarks about Islam in September. This, too, should be welcomed. However, nice pictures of the Pope smiling in a Mosque hide what is the biggest problem facing the world today: religious hatred fuelling a “clash of fundamentalisms” that so neatly links George W Bush with Osama bin Laden. It is since bin Laden’s September 11th attacks that Muslims everywhere have gradually found themselves under attack, not just by fanatical liberal atheist-fundamentalists such as the controversialist writer Christopher Hitchens, and Salman Rushdie; but also by so-called Christians such as those on the American right. And – beneath the rhetoric - blood continues to flow across Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.
Here in Britain meanwhile, Muslims are under siege like never before, a worry that seems to have so far passed the Christian faith by. Labour – Labour! - politicians lead the way in abolishing the suddenly-unfashionable concept of multi-culturalism, after Jack Straw gratuitously raised the issue of the veil out of a clear blue sky.
Arguably, this is in order to create a narrative about “Muslim extremism” which deflects away from – and seeks to justify – the wars on Muslim countries abroad. I suspect that – whether or not he sanctioned the comments directly - it suits Tony Blair quite well to have a debate rage over the veil, instead of the rights and wrongs of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq, especially when the former sub-consciously and outrageously helps to justify the latter, if you see what I mean: this isn’t an illegal invasion and occupation, the line goes, but “the first war of the 21st Century”; the opening shots of a huge worldwide clash of civilizations, where Muslims, we are told, are on the wrong side of the argument. Above all it aids and abets the lie that attacks, like those here on July 7th, are not because of foreign policy, but because there is something about Muslims or Islam that – as the Pope implied – is about violence.
One of many points forgotten amid the anti-Islam frenzy – and the nasty sections of the media who fuel it - is the fact that “homegrown” Muslims have lived happily in Britain for decades; there was no 7-7 before Iraq. Yet, the latest desire on behalf of the Government, which has taken them a bit of time to get round to, is to make out that Islam is at odds with the West’s culture, so that it is seen as acceptable to go to war. Well, this won’t do. As a Christian believer, I am appalled at the way in which Muslims are being left out to dry in this country. Not just because the Christian view-point should be one of assistance to those in need but also because, quite simply, there are so many similarities between the faiths.
I speak as a supreme ignoramus. For up until a few years ago, when Stevenage Man (who has since become the single biggest influence on my outlook on politics and, to an extent life) told me that Islam reveres Jesus Christ and believes in the Virgin Birth – which many Christians no longer do – I had no idea of the closeness of the religions.
Yet the fundamental values, around which Christianity and Islam revolve, are to put it mildly, similar: selflessness, generosity, help for others, value for life and love of fellow human beings. It is therefore high time the Christian church – which, for better or worse, remains the official established faith of this country – stopped crossing the road and avoiding the victims, and instead came to the assistance of a group of persecuted, decent and innocent people with whom all Christians should empathize.
Rowan Williams is by all accounts an incredibly intelligent – and spiritual - man. He is also doing infinitely more for cross-faith relations than his right-wing predecessor, George Carey. But – in the current climate – he needs to lead. And what better area for a good man like Dr Williams to plunge into than Islam, a religion that is being used as an excuse for what amounts to sheer racism in this country today.
Instead of allowing himself to be bogged down with the inanity of the homosexual argument that dominates (and ultimately threatens to finish off) the church, Dr Williams should force the church to take a step back and get some perspective about what matters. He should make a speech highlighting the similarities between Islam and Christianity, and why the latter needs to defend the former.
This would anyway be necessary amid the secular fundamentalism blanketing the country in which we all live. But it is made vital by the literally life-threatening threat hanging over Muslims abroad and at home. I sense that Christians are making a big mistake in not properly supporting Islam. After all it was Christ who said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And when it is now open season on religion, with hatred swirling particularly closely around Islam, it really is a case of: United we stand, divided we fall.
Dissident Voice
Especially published for 'Doctor's Free Time'
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Guest Blogger #3 - When people meet Shias: A personal account
Finding out that I am Shia has always brought about mixed responses from other Muslims. These sorts of reactions have mainly been negative. I’ve also had positive reactions (which are only when another Shia finds out that I am Shia!) and then you also get people that don’t really care.
The reactions can vary from subtly raising the eyebrow to full blown comments in which people have no respect or understanding to what I believe, let alone caring if they hurt my feelings by what they say. I can come up with a number of times where these things have happened and when I think about it I always wish I had handled those situations better than I actually did.
A few years ago, I wouldn’t have wanted to tell anyone that I'm Shia, not because I’m not proud of what I believe or because I think I’m wrong, mainly because I always used to get the funny looks and then: “you guys beat yourself, that’s haraam!!!”. It went to the extent that once someone even imitated Tarzan hitting his chest and laughing, saying that Shia’s do the same. If people at school would confront me I’m embarrassed to say I would have no answer for them because of the lack of knowledge I had at that time.
For someone that would only read Islamic books at home, had never really attended a Sunday school and mainly learned about Islamic history in Muharram through majalis, I really had limited knowledge, especially when questions were thrown at me about being Shia.
I always knew that whatever we believed in, whatever we did, seemed right to me, but explaining it to another 14 year old who doesn’t really know much about Islam themselves, doesn’t really care and just wants to have a reason to argue, well, it just seemed pointless. No matter how I would justify myself at that age... it would always end up at “well Shia’s beat themselves and that’s haraam – end of.”
I used to think that it’s only in your teens, when other teenagers would pick on this topic, but since I’ve been in university, I can safely say it’s not only teenagers. I’ve been told a lot of things that Shia Muslims apparently “do”. The things people have said include:
The reactions can vary from subtly raising the eyebrow to full blown comments in which people have no respect or understanding to what I believe, let alone caring if they hurt my feelings by what they say. I can come up with a number of times where these things have happened and when I think about it I always wish I had handled those situations better than I actually did.
A few years ago, I wouldn’t have wanted to tell anyone that I'm Shia, not because I’m not proud of what I believe or because I think I’m wrong, mainly because I always used to get the funny looks and then: “you guys beat yourself, that’s haraam!!!”. It went to the extent that once someone even imitated Tarzan hitting his chest and laughing, saying that Shia’s do the same. If people at school would confront me I’m embarrassed to say I would have no answer for them because of the lack of knowledge I had at that time.
For someone that would only read Islamic books at home, had never really attended a Sunday school and mainly learned about Islamic history in Muharram through majalis, I really had limited knowledge, especially when questions were thrown at me about being Shia.
I always knew that whatever we believed in, whatever we did, seemed right to me, but explaining it to another 14 year old who doesn’t really know much about Islam themselves, doesn’t really care and just wants to have a reason to argue, well, it just seemed pointless. No matter how I would justify myself at that age... it would always end up at “well Shia’s beat themselves and that’s haraam – end of.”
I used to think that it’s only in your teens, when other teenagers would pick on this topic, but since I’ve been in university, I can safely say it’s not only teenagers. I’ve been told a lot of things that Shia Muslims apparently “do”. The things people have said include:
- We beat ourselves
- We pray to a stone (the sajdagah)
- We believe Imam Ali (a.s.) should have been the Prophet
- We have a different Quran to the rest of the Muslims
- And the list can go on...
Right now though, I want to tell you one account of how someone reacted when they found out that I’m a Shia. This account is about a “friend” that used to study at uni with me. Firstly, I’ll describe this friend of mine. At the time, she was a very good friend who would do anything for a mate. She was also a very strong Sunni Muslim, leaning towards the Wahabi side. She was very judgmental, formed strong opinions of others and extremely blunt.
It was my first year and we were in the middle of the month of Ramadhan. The time was close to opening our fast, and everyone was just waiting around for the sunset time. I can’t exactly remember how, but somehow we got on to the topic of Sunni and Shia’s, and I must have casually mentioned that I am a Shia. Suddenly out of the blue, my so-called friend exclaimed “OH MY GOD, YOU'RE SHIA??????”
The way she screamed it out and looked at me, totally shocked me. I replied saying, what’s the big deal? But in my head I was completely and utterly taken aback due to the way she unexpectedly came out with it. She was so shocked; I honestly don’t know what was running through her mind. She then said, “Oh my God, I can’t believe it, why didn’t you tell me before?” I mean, the way she was looking at me after that was like I was some sort of freak and she needed to get away.
I then said to her, you seem to have some sort of problem, do you want to tell me what it is? She then composed herself and was like, “no, no, nothing it’s all cool” and conveniently excused herself saying she had to get home quickly.
Now that was bad enough as it was, but the next day was worse. She probably had time to think about it all and then get back to me. In her most polite and non-committal voice she says to me, “I don’t consider Shia’s to be Muslims, you lot don’t even give any credit to our Prophet and you lot think that Imam Ali should’ve been prophet instead. So I basically think Shia's are not Muslim.”
You can normally tell when people start getting funny when they find out something that they don’t like, but saying it straight to your face knowing that your not going to like it – well that’s just mean. I cleared up her misconception and then told her how rude I think she was, saying to another Muslim that they’re not Muslim. I told her it wasn’t for her to judge whether someone is a Muslim or not and that’s up to Allah (s.w.t) to decide.
The funny thing was that she was totally shocked that I got upset about it and had no clue that whatever she had said to me and how she reacted had actually affected me in such a way. She later apologised and apparently “regretted” reacting the way she did. In fact, I feel she felt more embarrassment than regret because I had to tell her that she had offended me and she couldn’t figure it out for herself – some friend! Since then, I’ve had a lot of clashes with her and now I don’t even speak to her.
People come with different personalities, different ways to react and confront people. I always found it hard to confront people in the past, but now I’m glad to say that after reading more and gaining more knowledge, I feel much more confident in answering people. I always knew what I believed in but explaining it to others was difficult; which I have now overcome. There'll always be people who no matter what you say will not change their opinion but for others, explaining my point of view might make a difference. But, after all is said and done, there's only so much you can do. Any other accounts from people would be extremely welcome in the comments section.
Miss G2S
Especially published for 'Doctor's Free Time'
Monday, December 04, 2006
Guess who's back? II
Two guest blogs, 15 comments and counting! After working on this blog for almost 3 months, people are more interested in what the Guest Bloggers had to say. In the words of... me, "what a travesty!" Looking on the bright side, in the space of 3 days the hit counter went from 850 to 1050, quite remarkable.
Although I have a few more Guest Bloggers lined up this week, I felt it necessary to type again, before people completely forget about me! I think in future a good system would be for a couple of Guest Blogs per week, so again, if you would like to type a blog then let me know in the comment sections, otherwise no doubt I'll be nagging everyone to type something anyway!
Since my last blog last Wednesday I've been working on a very important blog which hopefully will be ready to publish later this week. In the meantime, I thought I'd have a rant about a few new stories that I wanted to type about last week, before giving you all the pleasure of reading the Guest Bloggers from tomorrow.
Not much has happened but there were a couple of stories I wanted to comment on. The first was the report on the court case of Sanjay Dutt, who was found guilty of possessing illegal firearms, but cleared of conspiracy in the 1993 Mumbai bomb attacks. A verdict was finally passed on an offence that took place over 13yrs ago! Only in India could a public figure get such leniency and I expect the punishment to be equally lenient, probably a fine and community service. Earlier this year another Bollywood actor, Salman Khan, was found guilty of poaching deer and sentenced to one year in prison. There is no chance that Khan will ever see the inside of a prison cell. Incidentally he is still awaiting a court case with regard to a hit and run incident in 2003 when a homeless person was killed. It wouldn't surprise me if the charge would be less than that of the deer case.
The next story was about the recent report on GP salaries rising to £106,000 annually on average, with the government coming in for criticism for such a sharp pay rise. The figure is quite a rise from only 3yrs ago when it stood at £77,000. This news bodes well for me in the future provided it remains the same, but is it actually fair? Now obviously I'm not about to complain about receiving such a pay, and in fact it's the main reason why I decided to become a GP, but having worked in hospitals I'm not sure it's a fair reflection of the amount of work done by GPs.
First of all, GP contracts were given a significant boost in 2003 because of the sheer lack of numbers. In an effort to drive more medics towards general practice the government issued a lucrative contract for the most productive GPs. The salary is mainly based on Quality and Outcome Framework points (QOF points), with each point worth a certain amount of money and the more points reached, the more money paid to the GP practice. The government predicted that 70% of targets would be met and accounted accordingly. However, 90% of targets were met which meant a gross over spend on GP salaries.
People argue that the government increased the pay for targets that should've already been met by GP practices and whilst that is true, there was no incentive to maintain those targets. A practice that was very diligent ran diabetes checks, asthma checks, cholesterol checks etc would be paid the same as a practice that did none of those things, so what was the point? This way, practices that did such activities would receive more money and hence encourage other practices to follow suit. Allied to that the removal of out-of-hours care, including nights and weekends and suddenly the job became extremely attractive. The overspend is a result of GPs meeting their targets extremely efficiently and hence as a result the contract has been modified to include harder targets in issues such as mental health, but no doubt they will be met without too much difficulty.
Therefore, a GP works less, has less responsibility and is now focused on meeting QOF points to receive more money than ever before. You could argue that it's no longer about treating the patient, but purely target-orientated. A GP once joked to me that his practice system is setup in such away that constant reminders are flashed up on the screen to include certain tasks such as smoking status, blood pressure checks etc just in order to meet targets, even if it has nothing to do with the actual problem of the patient. So instead of focusing on the needs of the patient, GPs are worrying about meeting targets. Does that improve healthcare?
As for hospital doctors, hour remain ridiculous and working conditions remain poor and the pay stays the same. A consultant once told me that if you want to make money in medicine become a GP or a private surgeon and he's right. GPs get paid much more than their hospital consultant counterparts who arguably work harder and more difficult and specialist conditions. They have the avenue of private work to make money, but in the NHS, GPs lead the way. Being as impartial as possible, I would argue that GPs deserve their pay rise, but not at the cost of hospital doctors.
At the end of the day it's all about swings and roundabouts. There was a shortage of GPs so the government splashed some cash to attract more doctors to general practice. Now competition is extremely fierce just to get on the GP training scheme with multiple steps just to get to the interview stage. I had to do 4 essays in timed conditions, never thought my English GCSE would ever come in handy again, but it did! With such an increase in interest in general practice, eventually hospital care will suffer and therefore more emphasis will be placed back into hospitals by increasing their pay and improving working conditions and by increasing the responsibilities of GPs to help patients avoid hospital admissions as much as possible.
After boring you with all that and before finishing with something light-hearted, I thought it pertinent to mention the report that Kofi Annan (the outgoing UN leader) recently spoke of the ongoing unrest in Iraq and how the situation is now worse than civil war and the Saddam Hussein regime. Does that need anymore explanation? The very purpose of the invasion was to free the Iraqi people and bring democracy to the country and 3yrs after Bush declared "Mission Accomplished," it's damning to know that the situation for the Iraqi people has only worsened.
Alongside that story is the issue of a continuing nuclear deterrent for the UK. By developing our nuclear defence further and ensuring we have the capacity to engage in nuclear warfare surely that is only sending the wrong signals to countries such as North Korea and Iran. Whilst we maintain our nuclear missiles to act as a deterrent, Tony Blair is effectively stating that it is necessary to have a deterrent and therefore when other countries are trying to do the same, then why such condemnation? North Korea maybe more likely to actually launch a nuclear weapon but that is besides that point. Whilst it sees countries like the UK and USA flaunt the nuclear Non-proliferation treaty to which they are signed upto, they will continue to do the same. Hypocrisy rules!
That's my blog for today, probably much more boring than the Guest Bloggers last week, but don't worry, they'll be returning tomorrow. I finish with a couple of amusing clips from YouTube that I found over the weekend...
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Although I have a few more Guest Bloggers lined up this week, I felt it necessary to type again, before people completely forget about me! I think in future a good system would be for a couple of Guest Blogs per week, so again, if you would like to type a blog then let me know in the comment sections, otherwise no doubt I'll be nagging everyone to type something anyway!
Since my last blog last Wednesday I've been working on a very important blog which hopefully will be ready to publish later this week. In the meantime, I thought I'd have a rant about a few new stories that I wanted to type about last week, before giving you all the pleasure of reading the Guest Bloggers from tomorrow.
Not much has happened but there were a couple of stories I wanted to comment on. The first was the report on the court case of Sanjay Dutt, who was found guilty of possessing illegal firearms, but cleared of conspiracy in the 1993 Mumbai bomb attacks. A verdict was finally passed on an offence that took place over 13yrs ago! Only in India could a public figure get such leniency and I expect the punishment to be equally lenient, probably a fine and community service. Earlier this year another Bollywood actor, Salman Khan, was found guilty of poaching deer and sentenced to one year in prison. There is no chance that Khan will ever see the inside of a prison cell. Incidentally he is still awaiting a court case with regard to a hit and run incident in 2003 when a homeless person was killed. It wouldn't surprise me if the charge would be less than that of the deer case.
The next story was about the recent report on GP salaries rising to £106,000 annually on average, with the government coming in for criticism for such a sharp pay rise. The figure is quite a rise from only 3yrs ago when it stood at £77,000. This news bodes well for me in the future provided it remains the same, but is it actually fair? Now obviously I'm not about to complain about receiving such a pay, and in fact it's the main reason why I decided to become a GP, but having worked in hospitals I'm not sure it's a fair reflection of the amount of work done by GPs.
First of all, GP contracts were given a significant boost in 2003 because of the sheer lack of numbers. In an effort to drive more medics towards general practice the government issued a lucrative contract for the most productive GPs. The salary is mainly based on Quality and Outcome Framework points (QOF points), with each point worth a certain amount of money and the more points reached, the more money paid to the GP practice. The government predicted that 70% of targets would be met and accounted accordingly. However, 90% of targets were met which meant a gross over spend on GP salaries.
People argue that the government increased the pay for targets that should've already been met by GP practices and whilst that is true, there was no incentive to maintain those targets. A practice that was very diligent ran diabetes checks, asthma checks, cholesterol checks etc would be paid the same as a practice that did none of those things, so what was the point? This way, practices that did such activities would receive more money and hence encourage other practices to follow suit. Allied to that the removal of out-of-hours care, including nights and weekends and suddenly the job became extremely attractive. The overspend is a result of GPs meeting their targets extremely efficiently and hence as a result the contract has been modified to include harder targets in issues such as mental health, but no doubt they will be met without too much difficulty.
Therefore, a GP works less, has less responsibility and is now focused on meeting QOF points to receive more money than ever before. You could argue that it's no longer about treating the patient, but purely target-orientated. A GP once joked to me that his practice system is setup in such away that constant reminders are flashed up on the screen to include certain tasks such as smoking status, blood pressure checks etc just in order to meet targets, even if it has nothing to do with the actual problem of the patient. So instead of focusing on the needs of the patient, GPs are worrying about meeting targets. Does that improve healthcare?
As for hospital doctors, hour remain ridiculous and working conditions remain poor and the pay stays the same. A consultant once told me that if you want to make money in medicine become a GP or a private surgeon and he's right. GPs get paid much more than their hospital consultant counterparts who arguably work harder and more difficult and specialist conditions. They have the avenue of private work to make money, but in the NHS, GPs lead the way. Being as impartial as possible, I would argue that GPs deserve their pay rise, but not at the cost of hospital doctors.
At the end of the day it's all about swings and roundabouts. There was a shortage of GPs so the government splashed some cash to attract more doctors to general practice. Now competition is extremely fierce just to get on the GP training scheme with multiple steps just to get to the interview stage. I had to do 4 essays in timed conditions, never thought my English GCSE would ever come in handy again, but it did! With such an increase in interest in general practice, eventually hospital care will suffer and therefore more emphasis will be placed back into hospitals by increasing their pay and improving working conditions and by increasing the responsibilities of GPs to help patients avoid hospital admissions as much as possible.
After boring you with all that and before finishing with something light-hearted, I thought it pertinent to mention the report that Kofi Annan (the outgoing UN leader) recently spoke of the ongoing unrest in Iraq and how the situation is now worse than civil war and the Saddam Hussein regime. Does that need anymore explanation? The very purpose of the invasion was to free the Iraqi people and bring democracy to the country and 3yrs after Bush declared "Mission Accomplished," it's damning to know that the situation for the Iraqi people has only worsened.
Alongside that story is the issue of a continuing nuclear deterrent for the UK. By developing our nuclear defence further and ensuring we have the capacity to engage in nuclear warfare surely that is only sending the wrong signals to countries such as North Korea and Iran. Whilst we maintain our nuclear missiles to act as a deterrent, Tony Blair is effectively stating that it is necessary to have a deterrent and therefore when other countries are trying to do the same, then why such condemnation? North Korea maybe more likely to actually launch a nuclear weapon but that is besides that point. Whilst it sees countries like the UK and USA flaunt the nuclear Non-proliferation treaty to which they are signed upto, they will continue to do the same. Hypocrisy rules!
That's my blog for today, probably much more boring than the Guest Bloggers last week, but don't worry, they'll be returning tomorrow. I finish with a couple of amusing clips from YouTube that I found over the weekend...
Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?
Friday, December 01, 2006
Guest Blogger #2 - Jughead's Double Digest
"Be the change that you want to see in the world"
Even before the advent of the wonderful film Lage Raho Munna Bhai, I was very impressed with certain quotations and sayings from Mohandas Gandhi. The above one is a particular favourite of mine and I feel that the older I get or the more advanced the world becomes this quote has more and more resonance with me.
I have begun to feel this way because as I see it the world is becoming increasingly barbaric and inhuman, and has appeared to have consolidated its position as a separate entity from its Creator very well. More and more people have less and less faith and this is what is inherently destroying any morality the world might once have had. If, for example every person practiced their religion; be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism; there wouldn't be any need for wars and mass murder. Religion has no place for excess greed or unnecessary violence and bloodshed. That is the beauty of the word 'Religion'. It doesn't matter which one: all religions revere the sanctity of human life and a person who wakes up one day and decides today is the day he will rape a little girl and then murder her should not just think he can do so without any consequences.
Of course there are other factors as to why the world is heading towards a state of immorality, illiteracy, poverty and violence - but I do feel lack of religion and faith is a big one. So back to Gandhi: his quote is very valid for me because it makes us realise that there is only so much we can do to save the world and that our foremost duty is to change ourselves and make sure that we do what God expects from us and also what we expect from ourselves. Following on from this comes our duty to inform and guide others, 'sharing the knowledge' is a duty for us as well. Let’s face it, the world is never likely to be a 'good' place where millions of different cultures peacefully co-exist and support each other. Greed will always be prevalent among human beings because it is human nature to desire more. Most of us limit that desire to things we can successfully achieve through our own means in a halal way. It is the few that will destroy anything in their path be it an innocent young child or a whole entire country which is (unfortunate) enough to have good oil links that are slowly but surely causing the moral decay that is infiltrating our world.
Having said this however, I don't feel that life in general or the world were ever designed to be great all the time. If life was always good and the world was rid of evil we doubtless wouldn't make so much of an effort to better ourselves for the next life. I know there has to be more than this. Thank God I have it easy in life compared to some people. Can the atheist not see that for someone who has spent their entire life in a war torn village in Africa; living amongst war and violence and surviving on one meal of stale bread and water a day that there must be more than this? Can the atheist not see that for a person who has spent their entire life blind, deaf and dumb and who therefore hasn't experienced the laughter of a child or the sight of a beautiful sunrise that there must be more than this? Surely these two human beings cannot have been created simply to go through pain and suffering in life without there being something else waiting for them in the next life. It just doesn't make sense.
Lately I've started to feel that life is all about perspective. If I'm angry I think about the person growing up in Africa and it helps to put my own anger into perspective. If I'm feeling upset or ungrateful about something I think about the person born without three of his major senses and again my situation immediately gets put into perspective. I sometimes see this as slightly wrong since their plight often ends up making me feels better! But I have a feeling Allah wants us to realise this so that we continue to be grateful for everything he has given us.
So there's my rant over with for today! Lest I leave you all with a somber start to the weekend Scottish Dentist advised me to ensure I leave the blog on a lighter hearted note.
Speaking of the blog, I have to say I am utterly impressed at 2YIIAM's recent efforts at blogging. I think he is a brilliant writer and has an educated and interesting point of view on a range of topics. I really enjoy reading the blogs and hope that he will somehow continue them through the tumultuous A & E! His persistent efforts at acquiring more and more religious knowledge are very commendable and not only that he is influencing the rest of us too.
I also hope Watford Man continues his input into the blogs. Seeing some of your stuff on here recently has reminded me of school and university days where you knew a lot more than most of my teachers and helped me immensely as a result!
I guess one of the really important things in life is having a good support network made up of friends and family. I am very fortunate in this regard and to be honest life would be a lot tougher without it. While the Scottish Dentist (hopefully soon to be Stevenage Dentist :-)) is my greatest friend and someone who I can count on no matter what, I am lucky enough to have several other important people in my life and a lot of them are in 2YYIAM's Bloggers World!
Have a good weekend everyone and here's a little joke to leave you all with...
The Old Monk
A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying copies, not the original books. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this.
He points out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies. The head monk says "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."
So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody has seen him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears a sobbing coming from the back of the cellar, and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks what's wrong.
Even before the advent of the wonderful film Lage Raho Munna Bhai, I was very impressed with certain quotations and sayings from Mohandas Gandhi. The above one is a particular favourite of mine and I feel that the older I get or the more advanced the world becomes this quote has more and more resonance with me.
I have begun to feel this way because as I see it the world is becoming increasingly barbaric and inhuman, and has appeared to have consolidated its position as a separate entity from its Creator very well. More and more people have less and less faith and this is what is inherently destroying any morality the world might once have had. If, for example every person practiced their religion; be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism; there wouldn't be any need for wars and mass murder. Religion has no place for excess greed or unnecessary violence and bloodshed. That is the beauty of the word 'Religion'. It doesn't matter which one: all religions revere the sanctity of human life and a person who wakes up one day and decides today is the day he will rape a little girl and then murder her should not just think he can do so without any consequences.
Of course there are other factors as to why the world is heading towards a state of immorality, illiteracy, poverty and violence - but I do feel lack of religion and faith is a big one. So back to Gandhi: his quote is very valid for me because it makes us realise that there is only so much we can do to save the world and that our foremost duty is to change ourselves and make sure that we do what God expects from us and also what we expect from ourselves. Following on from this comes our duty to inform and guide others, 'sharing the knowledge' is a duty for us as well. Let’s face it, the world is never likely to be a 'good' place where millions of different cultures peacefully co-exist and support each other. Greed will always be prevalent among human beings because it is human nature to desire more. Most of us limit that desire to things we can successfully achieve through our own means in a halal way. It is the few that will destroy anything in their path be it an innocent young child or a whole entire country which is (unfortunate) enough to have good oil links that are slowly but surely causing the moral decay that is infiltrating our world.
Having said this however, I don't feel that life in general or the world were ever designed to be great all the time. If life was always good and the world was rid of evil we doubtless wouldn't make so much of an effort to better ourselves for the next life. I know there has to be more than this. Thank God I have it easy in life compared to some people. Can the atheist not see that for someone who has spent their entire life in a war torn village in Africa; living amongst war and violence and surviving on one meal of stale bread and water a day that there must be more than this? Can the atheist not see that for a person who has spent their entire life blind, deaf and dumb and who therefore hasn't experienced the laughter of a child or the sight of a beautiful sunrise that there must be more than this? Surely these two human beings cannot have been created simply to go through pain and suffering in life without there being something else waiting for them in the next life. It just doesn't make sense.
Lately I've started to feel that life is all about perspective. If I'm angry I think about the person growing up in Africa and it helps to put my own anger into perspective. If I'm feeling upset or ungrateful about something I think about the person born without three of his major senses and again my situation immediately gets put into perspective. I sometimes see this as slightly wrong since their plight often ends up making me feels better! But I have a feeling Allah wants us to realise this so that we continue to be grateful for everything he has given us.
So there's my rant over with for today! Lest I leave you all with a somber start to the weekend Scottish Dentist advised me to ensure I leave the blog on a lighter hearted note.
Speaking of the blog, I have to say I am utterly impressed at 2YIIAM's recent efforts at blogging. I think he is a brilliant writer and has an educated and interesting point of view on a range of topics. I really enjoy reading the blogs and hope that he will somehow continue them through the tumultuous A & E! His persistent efforts at acquiring more and more religious knowledge are very commendable and not only that he is influencing the rest of us too.
I also hope Watford Man continues his input into the blogs. Seeing some of your stuff on here recently has reminded me of school and university days where you knew a lot more than most of my teachers and helped me immensely as a result!
I guess one of the really important things in life is having a good support network made up of friends and family. I am very fortunate in this regard and to be honest life would be a lot tougher without it. While the Scottish Dentist (hopefully soon to be Stevenage Dentist :-)) is my greatest friend and someone who I can count on no matter what, I am lucky enough to have several other important people in my life and a lot of them are in 2YYIAM's Bloggers World!
Have a good weekend everyone and here's a little joke to leave you all with...
The Old Monk
A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying copies, not the original books. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this.
He points out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies. The head monk says "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."
So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody has seen him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears a sobbing coming from the back of the cellar, and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks what's wrong.
The old monk sobs, "The word is celebrate."
Especially published for 'Doctor's Free Time'
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