الحمد لله رب العالمين
والصلاة و السلام على رسول لله وعلى آله و صحبه و سلم

1. In surgery, to be specific, in dealing with electrolytes, there's something we call "The Rule of 40".

2. The rule describes important points to be considered in dealing with potassium. There are basically 4 items, which are;

i. Not more than 40 mmol added to 1 litre solution
ii. No faster than 40 mmol/hour (to be infused)
iii. Make sure its urine output is at least 40 ml/hour
iv. Maximum amount can be given is 4 x 40 mmol/day (=160 mmol/day)

3. Potassium is really important, as a slight mistake in dosage or rate of infusion/injection could be lethal.

4. Once a upon a time, not long ago, there was a dramatic mistake in an operation that led to the death of the patient. It was a high profile case, as I could find no article or news regarding the case. My professor, Prof Dr. Hala Ezzat told us last week. I doubted it at first, so then I asked another professor, Prof Dr. Nadia El-Sharqawy. She told us the same, it did happen.

5. On that odd day, the operating surgeon was asking for one injection of an antibiotic. It was a minor surgery by the way. Unfortunely, the nurse by mistake handed the doctor an injection of potassium chloride instead. The solution was injected, and that was it. The patient died on the spot! He got immediate cardiac arrest on diastole. (As far as I know, one ampoule of potassium contains 5 ml of potassium. Each ml contains 2 mmol) My Allah bless his soul...

6. What made the case more interesting is, the patient was the son of the Minister of Health of Egypt at that time, who is, until now, an internationally well known respectable surgeon!

7. That former minister is Prof. Ibrahim Gamil Badran. He is the one responsible for establishing one of the biggest medical scholls in surgery, and is known as the Father of Surgery in Egypt. You can see his profile here. http://www.ias-worldwide.org/profiles/prof99.htm

8. May this case be a great reminder for us, doctors-to-be, that potassium kills, if given in certain amount and certain rate. And the safe range is really small. Another electrolyte that also has to be taken into consideration as serious as potassium is Calcium.

9. Don't you(and me) ever get tired of mastering medicine. We deal with lives. A slight slip, and the patient dies. May Allah bless us...

و الحمد لله رب العالمين

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركلته
الحمد لله و الصلاة و السلام على رسولله


1. I'm trying my best to consistently attend Dr. Hussein Khairy's morning lecture and ward round each day. And here comes one of the most important subject, "Fluid & Electrolytes".

2. I try my best to avoid talking or writing about politics now, especially if it's beyond my knowledge, as things (Malaysian politics) have become more complicated than ever.

3. But my mind tells me otherwise. One interesting thing that I got from the "fluid" lesson, can't hardly be avoided from being related to politics.

4. As a matter of fact, 60% of our body weight consists of fluid. Considering an average human being of 70 kg body weight, he will have 42 litres of fluid in his body. From that 42 L, 3.5 Litres of the fluid is in intravascular compartment, which is 5% of body weight. It is quite interesting knowing that out of 42 Litres of total body fluid, only 3.5 Litres that greatly affects our body. Subhanallah...

5. Our main concern in most of the situations (like trauma, shock, hypertensive crisis, etc) lays upon regulating this 3.5 Litres intravascular fluid. We add some more fluids, electrolytes, plasma proteins etc to make sure this 5% of body fluid stable. And in most of the cases, this 3.5 Litres that is causing us problems.

6. Out of 30 millions of Malaysian citizen, only 13 millions voted for the 13th GE. That was more or less 40% of the population. Only 40% of the population who decided the leadership of the country, generally speaking.

7. Most of the time, the national policies are determined by few, maybe tens or hundred of Malaysians in the Parliament. Even bigger decisions for the country are being determined by even lesser number of brains.

8. Remember, that the World War 1 started merely by assasination of an "Archduke", and ended with 9 millions fatalities.

9. The World War 2 was started by few leaderships of few countries, and ended with 75 millions fatalities, which made the WW2 likely the deadliest conflict in human history. It needs only one man to push the "YES" button to change the world. Look at Aghanistan and Iraq. Look at other poor countries.

10. As historians said, "war is started by few, and suffered by many". Indeed, it's not only the war. It applies to pretty much everything.

11. In any community or civilization, only few will decide the future of the rest. Be it the president, prime minister, politicians, the academicians, the scientists, the 'ulama', the artists, whoever they are. The rule is, the few will decide for the many.

12. How many students who participates actively out of a hundred in your classroom? Out of millions of citizens, how many who speaks out for their rights?

13. The question is, can we let this phenomenon to continue? If it is really the rule, should we be the "few" who changes and decides, or the "many" who follows and being changed?

"Be the change you want!"

والحمد لله رب العالمين

Bismillahirrahmaanirraheem,

Alhamdulillahi wassolaatu wassalaamu 'ala Rasulillah SAW.


For the past few days, I've been reading an article about Nobel Prize. This is a prestigious international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and for peace.

The founder of the award, as we all know, Alfred Nobel, the genious who got very rich with invention of the famous dynamite.

Believe it or not, the Nobel Prize is actually a fulfillment of Nobel's will. His will was hardly longer than one ordinary page.

One of his will is, that he declared that his entire remaining estate should be used to endow "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind".


Since then, scientists were racing towards excellence, to be the best for mankind in their respective fields. Nobel succeded (intentionally or unintentionally, I don't know) to ispire the humankind in a superlative manner, in a way that scientists are racing towards excellence to create the best product with greatest benefit to mankind.


To date, there were only two Muslim scientists who became the recipient of this prestigious award. Prof Dr Abdus Salam from Pakistan (1979), and Prof Dr Ahmed Zewail, from Egypt (1999).


(Up to the year 2000 there were no less than 44 Jewish winners of the Nobel Prize in Biomedical Sciences, while Muslims only 2)





Something caught my attention when I was reading Prof Dr Abdus Salam's speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1979.


He quoted, verses from Al-Quran Al-Kareem, from Surah Al-Mulk, verse 3 & 4;





Inspiration


Yes, people live with inspiration.

I am amazed, for how people can be greatly inspired by human-made awards. People are racing for awards and prizes. People are astonished by prestigious prize and big podium.

They are so inspired, that they even race and die for it. (Of course most of the Nobel Prize winner didn't ask for the prize, including Prof Dr Abdus Salam)


Let us imagine, if we, all of us, as Muslims got inspired by the best award human can ever imagine, the paradise.


In fact, we should be greatly inspired by the Jannah (Paradise) and more importantly, the day of Al-Akhirah(Hereafter) as ALlah has promised that He will grant the Jannah for devoted Muslims, who work and strive very hard to give benefit to the Ummah. To give benefit to mankind.


These are what I've been thinking when I was reading the article on Nobel Prize.


Why are we so inspired by the human-made awards while Allah's "award" is the greatest of all?

At-Taubah, verse 111

The only difference between an excellent scientist and an excellent Muslim scientist. The intention, to give benefit for the Ummah, to the mankind, LILLAHI TA'ALA!




Allahu A'lam

BismillahirRahmaanirRaheem

Alhamdulillahi wassolatu wassalamu 'ala Rasulillah...

It has been... months since my last post in English. It's only... to write something in English when i'm not accustomed to it, takes double the time writing it in Malay

...Anyhow

Alhamdulillah, recently i'm in Forensic & Toxicology round, the "CSI" round.

Well I used to be a fan of CSI, and now I know, to what extend the film makers cheated us just to show how cool their actors are, and how the investigators ellegantly solved the mysterious cases with sophisticated tools in "drive-thru" fast plots

=)

Anyway, during this 2 weeks of Forensic & Toxicology round, one lecture attracted me the most. By Professor Dr. Mohamed Adly on Fingerprints.

Fingerprints or Dactylography is extremely important, especially for medicolegal investigators and police, to identify a living person. It is one of the most dependable method for identification, simply because of 2 facts;

It is unique and constant. The occurence of 2 living person having the same fingerprints is 1 in 64 millions! That is to say, it is almost impossible for 2 person to have the same fingerprints. And your fingerprints will never change by time.

Few years back, I remembered watching one of Dr. Zakir Naik's video(as far as i remembered) on the miracles of al-Quran from scientific point of view. And he quoted 2 verses from Surah Al-Qiyaamah;

"Does man think We shall not put his bones back together?

In fact, We can reshape his very fingertips"

Surah Al-Qiyaamah, verse 3 & 4

Some people asked, "Why fingertips?" "What's so special about our fingertips?"

And Subhanallah, now we know that, there's something special on our fingertips. It is so special to the fact that Allah's ability to reshape the fingertips in The Day Of Resurrection is more superlative than the act of putting human's bones back togehter. MasyaAllah...

And that thing on your fingertips will be some sort of identification method for every human being, that Allah will reshape our fingertips and fingerprints, and we will know then, who is who. So surely no one will escape the Day Of Resurrection because we will be holding our own ID on that day, as our fingerprints are specific for each one of us.

Of course Allah Knows everything. There's no need for fingerprints identification for Allah to know who is Abu, and who is Ali, and who is Kasim and so on... But this is the way to teach human being, especially the ignorants and the unbelievers, tha there is no God but Allah, and Prophet Muhammad SAW is The Messanger fo Allah, and Al-Quran is Kalamullah The Words Of Allah.

And one more thing, this is how Allah teaches us to think. One of the Mukjizat of Al-Quran is, it is The Book Of Guidance, not just a book, not a history book, not a philosophy book, not a literature book, or even a book of science. So, don't just read it blindly, understand the meaning of it, and THINK!

As Dr. Zakir Naik said,

"Al-Quran is a Boof Of Signs, not a book of Science".

As philosophers always say,

"I think, therefore I am"

So, start to think

That's all, Allahu A'la wa A'lam...

Thanks for reading, as it is the first step in education.

=)

Wassalam

حَتَّىٰ إِذَا أَتَوْا عَلَىٰ وَادِ النَّمْلِ قَالَتْ نَمْلَةٌ يَا أَيُّهَا النَّمْلُ ادْخُلُوا مَسَاكِنَكُمْ لَا يَحْطِمَنَّكُمْ سُلَيْمَانُ وَجُنُودُهُ وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ

At length, when they came to a (lowly) valley of ants, one of the ants said: "O ye ants, get into your habitations, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you (under foot) without knowing it."

صُنْعَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي أَتْقَنَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ

(such is) the artistry of Allah, who disposes of all things in perfect order:

-Surah An-Naml, verse : 88-

"...some people may only need one aayah(proof) to accept Islam, but some others, let it be thousands of aayaat(proof's') he/she will never listen. They are just like what Al Quran has told us,

صُمٌّ بُكْمٌ عُمْيٌ فَهُمْ لَا يَرْجِعُونَ

Deaf, dumb, and blind, they will not return (to the path)..."