Suad Al Bulushi, Oman

I’m EM physician from the Sultanate of Oman. I truly believe in the importance of EM as a life-saving specialty. My passion in EM started long time ago. I fell in love with emergency medicine (EM) from the first moment I joined EM block in medical school, I directly felt as I was meant to be in this specialty. Further more I’ve chosen EM field because I worked as intern in an Emergency department (ED) in one of our peripheral hospital. While being there I noticed how our emergency services still have long way to be upgraded and how our patients are suffering from under-trained physicians working in most of our peripheral EDs .Since I recognized that EM department are the corner stone in the early recognition & management of almost all sick patients, I decided from that point onward that I will join EM specialty, try to learn & train as much as I can, to be of benefit to our emergency services & our patients in Oman and the world.

I’m so passionate about EM, as it is rich in what is known as narrative medicine. Stories are the foundation of our practice. Patients tell us their stories. We edit them and add in our own details (test results, radiography, etc). We often retell these stories: as residents to colleagues and consultants when we seek input into a complex case; and even back to patients when we have solved the case, or at least written the next Chapter. So to me its so exciting like the making of big science fiction movies!

Our approach to decisions in EM bears similarities to the fields of anesthesiology and critical care, but is different than the other fields in medicine. We arrive at thousands of decision nodes in the course of a shift. Most of our decisions are made by unconscious processes that can predispose us to error if our knowledge base is poor, our experience lacking, or our vision clouded by emotion or stress. However, when we are prepared and clear-minded, a shift can feel cognitively effortless.

Throughout my training my passion for EM has flourished & deepen as I realized the amount of difference we are making in every shift.

I like helping people and alleviate their pain as much as I can especially when they are at their worst moments. I would know best that because few years back , I was hospitalized due to brain tumor , during my hospitalization, I experienced, almost all procedures a patient could have (IV cannulation, arterial lines, CVP lines, intubation , VP shunt insertion, blood transfusion & reactions) .Because of this I would like to think that I’m more sensitive now to my patients’ pain, more caring & mature in my decision & critical thinking.

Only in ED , you say Hi to a person passing by and then recognize him as the patient who we saved by early intubation due to progressive angioedema or was critically ill and spent weeks in ICU due to septic shock or massive MI !

EM the specialty like no others
I’m proud to be one of the family of EM .

Regards
Dr Suad Al-Bulushi
ArBEM,OMSB/EM
UofT,Toronto, Canada (clinical EM fellowship+Global health education)
MS HPEd MGH institute of Health professions