The least one would expect from a center for children with special needs, is that the staff members are equipped with adequate knowledge to deal with emergency situations. Yet, having worked at the center proved otherwise.

I was in my second year of medical school when I decided to take on a part-time job at a unit for special needs children. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching them, and was always coming up with new methods of conveying information to make sure I was getting through to the children. Pictorial representations always did the job, and I was happy to be able to connect with the children. I was young, passionate and naïve, cradling high hopes that we live in a progressive society with enough awareness towards disabilities health. However, the harsh slap of reality revealed how unprepared we were to receive the disabled community, as were the teachers and volunteers who froze in panic when a special child broke into fits of seizures

Refugee /rɛfjʊˈdʒiː/ n. A person forced to flee their country because of violence or persecution.

It started with an opportunity – “Oh, I’m starting a refugee clinic in Serdang.” “Great! What can I do to help?” – and my journey advocating for refugee health unfolded from there. Klinik Amal Muhajir (KAM) was the brainchild of Dr. Siti Noraida, a remarkable philanthropist I had the good fortune to know by being under her tutelage for PBL at one point during my pre-clinical years. I wanted to follow a leader of her calibre. I wanted to learn how advocates like her offer their services to a society that desperately needs their contribution.

A voice went, “I was raped,”.

It sounded odd. Garish and out of place. Yet, this was my voice. The words bounced off the walls of the doctor’s office in the private hospital where I had seconds earlier requested to have a pelvic exam and pap smear performed. I glanced at the clock and noticed a full minute had passed. Wrapping my ankles around the cold metal of my chair, I leaned forward and reiterated my intentions– “I want to do a pap smear, please,”

To me, having depression feels like drowning. In an ocean so dark, so deep that no light could possibly penetrate it, my head is under water and all I see is black. But no matter how much I’m pummeled by the waves, my hand remains resolutely above the surface, asking for help. Anxiety, on the other hand, is like standing at crossroads, but one that branches out to innumerable directions. I stand there paralysed, not knowing where to go. “Ah,” I thought, “Here comes the tachycardia.”

It all began in the orthopaedic posting where most of the bosses were men. The specialists in the subspecialty team had the liberty to pick and choose house officers as they like. Naturally, with such a biased and patriarchal system in place, male house officers were much preferred. The only chance of a female attaching to a subspecialty team was if she was deemed attractive enough. What was left of the lot -- the so-called ‘unattractive’ females were left on the general team. My ‘unattractive’ self was then denied the chance to be attached to a subspecialty team such as knee and hip replacement or sports medicine.