A message to Dr. Nargis Albert; the head of the community medicine and public health department

Dear Dr. Nargis,

After spending two weeks in the community medicine and public health round, I have to admit, I am impressed. Many of the opinions I got about that round were so frustrating. No one can doubt that it is a very hard round and need maximum effort in all levels but it is a hard route that I would like to take in my journey of becoming a good doctor.

This round and those visits gave me the chance to meet new people, simple people, it made me realize two things, first of all, it is almost always that people carry great respect for Doctors unlike what I expected due to the media butchering campaigns that is out for doctors, secondly, I was given the chance to meet two kinds of Egyptian people, both simple and both have different health needs and face different health problems; CSPM and rural.

I found that people trust us, as doctors, very much. They want to talk to us and they need us to listen to them, it was a very close simulation to a real life doctor.

Another thing is that it added working as a PHC physician as a solid option in my post graduate work options. Before that I saw it as a punishment for those who didn't study enough to get brilliant grades. Now after I have understood the system of health care in Egypt I can say that I am willing to work as a PHC center and that won't be because I am a bad student but it would be because I am good enough to help those people and I want to do that, isn't helping people what mainly attracted me to medicine.

So far so good, but I want to give you my feed back regarding some points that I found not meeting the standards of the rights of students! The only reason I am giving me feedback is to enhance the effect on the students of the next years and the more years to come.

Time management seems to be a huge problem in CM&PH department. Professors many times come late to their lectures and accordingly don't use the full time benefit of the lecture. They can't fairly distribute lecture hours on the over all content of the chapters; the last lecture is the one that will be so heavy so long and very hard to be studied, this problem can be easily solved if professors come in time and give each part of the subject they will lecture its fair portion of time. Also about the rural visit, you kept saying be on time ten to ten sharp and the bus will leave you if you came late, Dr. Nargis, our bus took off at half past ten, we came on time, you are the one who delayed our trip, so just for your information; omission is a reaction and not an action, when later on you find students coming late, know that it was you who started it and it may appear as a reaction on our behalf yet it is so shameful to be on yours; don't say that you "wait" and "come late" because we are the one who are always late, if you come on time all the time and respect our appointments, you will find us there before you (this apply to the professors of the ophthalmology department as well of course except for Dr. Mohamed El Basty and Dr. Mohamed Abd El Mabood who were always on time) p.s: Your time table is a jewel, I don't know how you did it actually, it shows excellent allocating of limited resources, great job really!

Please Dr. Nargis, can't you count your students, have you seen the buses we take to the rural and fever H visits, did you count the number of seats on both buses, don't answer cuz I know it already; NO, YOU DIDN'T, because even when about 8 of us took their own cars to the rural visit we were standing in the bus occupying every inch on its floor the whole way going and coming, I know we are men and it is our duty to stand such an easy setback, yet please, respect our right to have a safe ride from and to the rural visit, the college has many other buses you can use, try a third one, عشان ندعيلك.

I know that saying that would make many of my colleagues kill me but we need more training for the visits, in my experience it wasn't enough what was given in the communication skills, or I guess I should have worked harder by myself!

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