A day in the life: “It’s a blessing to have the power to change someone’s life”

My daily routine

On an average day, I wake up around 6.45am. If I have class, then this runs from 8-10am. If we don’t have class, then I’m off to the hospital. Usually, I take a boda bike [a motorbike taxi] which takes 15-20 minutes. As soon as I get to the hospital, I go to where I’m allocated. Usually a clinic, the ward or the theatre. I spend most of the day here and finish at 6pm at the latest.

In our clinic work, we get new patients or patients who are referred from other units for consultation. We do a full ophthalmic examination of these patients, take down their full medical history and provide diagnosis and treatment. As I’m still training, we discuss with the consultants if we’re not comfortable treating any patients. They then give us further guidance. The other part of clinic work is refraction and investigation, and we take part in investigations. We also have a procedure room in the clinic where we do minor procedures like incisions, biopsies, corneal tear repairs and intravitreal injections.

On a typical ward day, I come in, see the patients, look through their files and do any follow-up that’s required. I discharge them if necessary and also review the patients who had surgery the day before.

We’ve had some very special patients. Recently, a man called Mohammed came in. He was 76 years old and had a cataract in one eye. After his operation, he was overwhelmed and couldn’t believe he could see – he called us magicians! When you see someone happy like this, it just makes you feel happy because you’ve changed someone’s life. It’s a blessing to have that power.

Our main theatre runs from Monday to Friday. Monday is for cataracts and lens rotation surgeries, lens repairs and corneal tear repairs. Tuesday is usually a paediatric ophthalmology day, so mainly children, but we also have some adults come in for cataract surgery. Wednesday is cataracts and glaucoma strabismus operations. Thursday is oculoplastic orbital day [treating the structures surrounding the eye] and Friday is just for emergencies.

Sometimes, we have lectures scheduled after being at the hospital all day; these are held until 8pm. If I don’t have a lecture, I just go home. I’ll have something to eat because I usually don’t eat throughout the day. After this, I spend some time with my family, until my daughter goes to sleep.

I try to keep weekends as free as possible so I can just relax and sleep in until 9am. I love cooking too because I love learning different things. Normally, I only have time to make a quick stew or soup but if I do have time, I’ll make a dessert – apple crumble is my favourite!