I received this card along with a small gift bag with spices for pasta in appreciation for my contribution for the Pediatric Critical Care Conference recently held in Anchorage and organized by Alaska Native Medical Center. We had prominant guest speakers form Washington and Houston. I presented one hour talk about Myocardial Dysfunction. One thing I managed to do was to keep them awake. But they might have stayed awake for the lunch which followed !.
This is the counterpart of two birds with one stone; two fish with one hook. Rather unusal to catch two halibuts in one hook, but this is exactly what happened in the last fishing trip. Both of them were released as their size was not impressive. Enjoy the clip.
كان هذا تعليق طبيبة أطقال أمريكية زميلة لي حين أخبرتها ان طبيبين بحرينين قد فازا بجائزة أفضل معلم طبي في مستشفى هنري فورد في ميشجن وفي مستشفى انتجرس في اوكلاهوما. تحية الى الطبيبن القديرين د. أسامه العرادي استشاري الجهاز الهضمي و د. عادل ابراهيم استشاري العناية المركزة و العناية المركزة لزراعة الاعضاء اللذان لم يفرقا يوما في مستشفى السلمانية في العناية بين مريض من اولاد الملحة لايسأل عنه أحد وبين أخر تنهال مكالمات التوصية عليه من كل حدب وصوب. وما يجدر ذكره أن كلا الطبيبين قد تلقيا أنذارا بالفصل من وزارة الصحة, على أثره تقدم د.عادل ابراهيم بطلب الاستقالة بيدي لا بيد عمرو). وقد قبل طلبه في رسالة جافة من سطرين خلت من أي شكر أو تقدير لخدماته أوحتى مجاملة التمني لة بالتوفيق في حياته المهنية. أما الدكتور أسامه فأظنه اَثر أن يضع ادارة مستشفى السلمانية في الكرسي الساخن وترك الكرة في ملعبهم بانتظار ان يبادروا باقالته. محترفو الجمبزة يتقدمون الى الامام والكفاءات لامكان لها والتقدير لاياتي الا من وراء البحار. والى الامام يا بحرين.
last week, on a deep see fishing trip, I was hoping for a big hailbut. We got descent ones around 35 lb. Those taste better, but I hoped for one over 100 lb. Then the line got hooked with really strong pull. I struggled to pull it and finally got exuasted and handed the rod to the captin. After another struggle it showed up. What a disappointment! it was not a halibut, it was an ugly looking skate, all the pain in my arms for a skate, well one day I will catch a big one.
Two Bahraini physicians received the faculty teacher of the year award in two different hospitals. Dr. Osama Al Aradi, a brilliant gastroenterologist was awarded in Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. This took place around the same time another brilliant bahraini physician received the exact award in another hospital. Dr. Adel Ebrahim, a general and transplant intensivist, received his award from Integres Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma. Both physician trained in the US and were shining stars in their residency fellowships. Both returned initially to Bahrain, Salmanyia Medical Complex to serve, faced a numerous obstacles. The first was the ministry of health insisted on having them serve as residents and not as consultants in their specialties for a year till they get evaluated! Both fought fiercely for proper patient care and provided highest standards of care while serving in Salmaniya. Both found themselves meeting each other in Salmanyia long corridors Long after all the consultants left for their nap and private clinics after they squeezed lemon on the Safi ( tasty fish). Both found themselves working 4 to 6 hrs extra everyday to care for their patients. Both did rounds on every weekend in the hospital. Despite their excellent patient care, their interest in teaching residents and students they were never appreciated. Both of them found themselves swimming against a big current of carelessness were self interest of those in power in what matter and not the patient care. Dr. Adel Ebrahim who was admired by resident and students and was much appreciated by the patients and their families was labeled as "the trouble maker" by the administration for continuously and relentlessly fighting for his patients and asking for proper drugs and equipments. They even annexed the ICU to another department to prevent him from becoming the chairman! Around the same time and with out joint planning, both came to the same conclusion; leave or join everybody else lose yourself and focus. Both left the US. " strange! they awarded me for doing 10% of what I used to do in Salmaniya!!" Dr. Alradi said. When the minister of health was asked by the parliment about the size physcian immigration she answered " it is only three greedy doctors" You now know two of them. The third one is ME, but we are not 3 we are 14 and more to come!
We had a Korean table tennis player From Seatle visiting Alaska 3 week ago mostly for fishing, but we managed to have him exchange his fishing rod for table tennis racket for one day. Sang Yung, a former AK tennis champion for several years and among top 5 players in Washington, and a winner of US open under 2200 rating few years ago, with a record of participating in more than 50 tournments state wide, was a tough challange. His official USA table tennis association rating is 260 point higher than me (this is a big gap). Well, usually the official rating is a pretty accurate in determining how good you are with one exception. That is, if you don't play in big tournments your rating will be low even if you are good, as you have to "steal" points from those rated above you by winning them. Obviously everyone claims to be under-rated but I am truely under-rated! So, we arranged a small tournment( top 5 players RR) and both of us won against all other players 3/0. We decided to play the final 4 out of 7 (I almost regreted accepting that). It was very challenging game that I was ahead 3/1 than equal 3/3 then I WON 4/3. I will leave you with clips from the match; this time it is not only me smashing
There has several bear attacks on garbage containers in Anchorage lately. It seems that Bears preferred the left overs in the garbage alot. Several $110 tickets were issued for home owners who left the garbage outdoor a day earlier attracting bears. There has been 10 bears active around the city. Last year a brown bear visited my son's elementry school (Kincaid elementry). The presence of the bear was anounced in the school and outdoor recess was cancelled. The school principle was looking into calling all the parents to pickup their kids when he got a call form the animal control that the same brown bear was found and captured in the backyard of his house! Next morning the picture of bear posing in the backyard was on the newspaper.
The Georgia Aquarium, opened in November 05 in Atlanta, is the largest of its kind. It holds 30M liter of water, 100000 animals of 500 species. Also it has the highest admission cost for an aquarium in the US. It celebrated its 1 millionth visitor at day 98 of operation. Here Ali is trying to touch a stringray and baby sharks.
The Columbia glacier at the Gulf of Alaska is the fastest retreating glacier in North America, thanks to the global warming. It is 3 miles wide. Look who small the cruise ship looks. This picture was taken by Hesham Salman
This picture was taken at Prince William Sound at the Gulf of Alaska. This beautiful site was hit by the tssunami in 1964 and was the site of massive Exxon oil spell in 1989.
