History

**PAGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION**

Precocious

I still remember the Year 9 school assembly where senior teachers were dishing up reels of meals for us to concoct the course of numerated success the rest of our lives should take. Yet even at this age I was blessed to learn such ultimatums were an empirical fallacy having been empowered to follow my intuition and passion from an early age.

Why do teachers in mainstream education squeeze and press pupils to plant choices they are simply not in a position to peel? I’m not talking about what GCSEs to pluck, but the funnelling of a foul stew that one must brew the rest of their life NOW or forever regret fermenting too much froth in their broth.

Life is forever dynamic and ever-changing, and the excess froth teaches us how to improve, evolve, and savour the broth we simmer. We need to know how to stop + tinker, to create our own recipes in the moment and follow them through so we are ready for the day we stand alone surrounded by pots, pans and a stern stove in a strange-looking kitchen. One will never tread the same path so poignantly painted by plenty, yet instead they will twist, turn, cascade and some trails will fade. Along the way, appetites will change, diets may become deranged, and popular produce can become sparse.

Hence I am averse to conveying ideas of fixed lifelong occupations + careers to people regardless of where they are in life. More importantly, simply chasing after status + wealth will drain + derail you, as will being arrowed into aisles that contain and constrain you to be ready for the marketplace (a process known as streaming and skimming in sociology). So no more labels, boxes, categories and typologies!

empowered to follow my intuition and passion from an early age

Niyyāh

Controversial as it may be in today’s commodity-driven world to suggest such a notion, I have always believed in fuelling and fanning my flame with meaning, feeling and endless curiosity. Part of this stems from my faith as a Muslim where the importance of instilling pure niyyāh (intentions) into one’s everyday rhythms and flows is heeded. Purity is marked by altruism, appreciation and compassion for the living; people (ourselves + others), places, and our environment of ecological wonder (flora + fauna). My faith was thus one of many substantive fruits of my youth that spurred me to seed this notion into the reeds of my existence.

It would blossom in spite of the robotic rhetoric I would be smothered by within institutional settings such as my secondary school. Amidst the death knells and sirens I gleaned mellifluous melodies mingling with astute aspirations after one teacher spoke of people, development and health + wellbeing. These concepts resonated with the symphonies of my soul, evoking a potent sense of purpose and intrigue, hence my GCSE platter subsequently featured Health & Social Care. Although I didn’t perform well with my assessments (in large part due to the frequent absences of our teacher) I revelled in the revelation of ways to revolutionise how people live.

*These concepts resonated with the symphonies of my soul, evoking a potent sense of intrigue and purpose*

Channels

Herein lied the elements of choices I continued to kindle. Although school incensed me, my thirst for learning harboured a maelstrom of illimitable ideas, thoughts and concepts yearning to be unleashed. Bursting to extinguish the cesspools of school I envisaged three channels to embark upon at this nodal point in my life:

Joy and pure passion to breed my creativity and feed my curiosity of the ARTS + OUTDOORS
Enhance cultivation of my compassion through the SOCIAL + POLITICAL SCIENCES
Embrace my academic excellence in science and mathematics to pursue a career in MEDICINE

I envisaged three channels to embark upon at this nodal point in my life

Discovery

Instinctive bearings hereby traced a continuum swaying from fun to abilities and drew me towards compassion. Thrusting through early meadows of further and higher education I stumbled upon a stall from the British Red Cross (BRC) enticing fresh minds with free first aid training with the caveat of volunteering at events. I became engrossed by murals canvassing the movement’s history at the local training centre and was captivated by it’s fundamental principles. Little did I know that my immersion would span and stream the entirety of my degrees.

Spiralling through waves, elevating to new heights, the insights I discovered were mesmerising. Having reached the summit of my studies I tackled the bitter halls, battered walls and crescendo of convoluted cliques in mainstream teaching, only to unearth the searing stench of depravity being spewed. The difference between cheap fast food and teaching was merely the demographic of clientele, yet all were numbers on a spreadsheet ploughed of individual humanity, of dignity, of identity, and persistently plunged with gunge.

Epiphany

Friends of mine were often bemused by my extensive engagement with BRC considering it was merely a finite hobby and I had no intention of toiling in contemporary medicine. I largely viewed biomedical models of mainstream healthcare as cleaning up the mess of society; of it’s contemporary systems and processes shaped by the politics and economics of our time-space. I agree this was a reductionist remark, yet at the time I was submerged in swells of stunning schemes striving to prevent and reconfigure this mess. Thus I routinely revoked with hilarity any motion of functioning in contemporary healthcare.

Yet my spirit could not sustain surroundings numbing my inherent inclination to care for people. When another friend again proposed venturing into healthcare I paused, pondered and whisked with wonder. Scouring avenues in prehospital emergency medicine I grasped any last-gasp opportunities and scored. As I write, I am just over a year away from qualifying as a Healthcare Professional and I am profoundly grateful. I am where I belong, a space where I can exercise my niyyāh and what excites me is I have only just sprung out of the blocks upon this rugged, rewarding and evolving terrain.

Converge + Coalesce

What a privilege it is to inhabit the unique position of amassing knowledge, skills and experience in social, political AND now clinical sciences. I am steaming to see my streams of joy, compassion and excellence increasingly coalesce, flower and surge with time. It is incredible how all torrents have naturally converged despite the choice I made many years ago, demonstrating how not only is it possible, but it is also vital, to freely express all sacred strands of your fulfilled existence. They may scatter, splatter and clatter in form through each calm and storm but you will forever find your function at their core.

I am steaming to see my streams of *joy*, *compassion* + *excellence* increasingly coalesce, flower + surge with time

Nevertheless, privilege ultimately prevails in the honour of being entrusted by people to help them in their time of need and crisis. As a clinician, I do not wish for any person to be critically unwell, but if they are, I want to be there to provide the requisite patient-centred care. Having carved out areas of clinical interest I craved a space to share ideas, thoughts and reflections from my journey, hence the formation of #drBACKPACKsVOCATION as another blog series.

Break Free

REBOOT and break free

‘I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This does make it hard to plan the day’. Yet, ‘I have a why in life, so I can bear any how’, and I am ready and hungry to discover and give more to new people and places. drBACKPACK