"I really miss those days I spent in India for my studies! We had nice fun eating Indian food, Watching Sharukh Khan and Rajnikanth movies...", Dr. Huda Aldhubaib goes nostalgic.
Dr. Huda Aldhubaib, completed her Medicine from M S Ramaiah Medical College in Bangalore after completion of her BSc in Carmel College, Goa,. She is now a prominent Kuwaiti Doctor who is in charge of Wound and Diabetics Foot clinic in Jahra Hospital and Massayel Clinic.
"I left Kuwait to study medicine in India. First I joined for Bsc at Carmel College, Goa . Later I joined M S Ramaiah Medical College in Bangalore. The first one and half years was very tough for me. As I had studied in Arabic Medium here in Kuwait, it was very difficult for me to cope up with the English language . However my professor helped me a lot in improving my language. I still remember my professor, how he persuaded me to watch English news channels and read English newspapers daily to improve my language", Dr Huda recollects her college days in India.
"After my first year, things become easy. I got very used to the Indian culture. I mixed well with all categories of people, different religion, different caste, languages etc.. I had many friends from all religions of India," Dr Huda said. With the beginning of practical sessions in college, Dr Huda started learning Indian languages also. "I used to mingle with the local patients in Bangalore who only spoke in Kannada. So I started talking to the locals and picked up the language very easily. By the time I finished my college in India, I could speak in Kannada, Hindi, Tamil etc. comfortably," doctor added with pride.
In 2003 she came back to Kuwait and joined the Ministry of Health. Later she also did her IIWCC, an international course from Toranto University and completed her masters from UK.
Diabetics and Foot care was my area of interest. The number of diabetic patients are shooting up in Kuwait. The reasons are very simple. It is the life style and food habits. We have a very sedentary life style in Kuwait. No proper exercise, no physical activities etc. The weather in Kuwait doesn’t permit you to go out and do exercises regularly. But you can always approach a gym or even a daily walk in the nearby shopping mall and this will give you enough physical exercise. The other one is the food habits. We eat lot of rice and oily food stuff. The sweets are also a killer. We have a lot of deserts in our menu after food. You need to be very careful about all these and limit your food intake, Dr Huda said. "Smoking with diabetes is very dangerous as you are blocking the vessels. Any diabetic patient who is smoking will easily become a victim to amputation," doctor warned.
Foot care is very important for a diabetic patient. In most of the cases, a small wound, mainly on the foot, will lead to amputation of the leg. We are working hard here to stop the amputation and treat the wound to cure the patient, Dr Huda explained more about her profession. Amputation will only take 10 minutes in the operation room, whereas treating the wound is a very long process. For a patient to trust in this treatment , he will need ample support from his family else he will feel lonely that he is daily going for dressing, get fed up of the treatment and will lose hopes. But it is our duty to make them feel comfortable and give them the strength. We have many a successful cases where we brought back the patients to normal life without opting to amputation, Dr said.
We have all the latest facilities in Kuwait. Many of the materials and equipments we have here are very expensive, and cannot be affordable by the common patient. Still we are providing this to the patients.
Wearing right kind of footwear is another important point you need to take care if you are diabetic , Dr Huda advised. You should always wear sports shoe with round front shaped, so that there is good amount of airflow along with a diabetic socks. It is also very important to choose the right size shoe. Generally, the feet size fluctuates when we sleep, so the doctor advises to buy shoes 6 hours after we wake up as the feet size will be correct. As a practice, you have to check your feet daily. Look for changes in colour. In case of any redness, bluish or blackness in colour you need to contact your diabetologist. Also take care of the smell of your foot. Any bad odor indicates the fungal infection. Fungus can grow into the body through foot. Usually we never dry the space in between the toes after bath. So this area will always be wet and prone to fungal infection. You also need to take care of any change in shape of your leg. Any swelling in the foot you have to be very careful. Take care of any cracks on your foot. When we say apply moisturizer, people usually use Vaseline from local super market, but it won’t help as it contains many other materials such as perfume etc. You have to use the medicated Vaseline from pharmacies, doctor advices. Use of diabetic socks also helps in improving free blood circulation. The normal socks will compress the blood vessels. The material used in the socks also needs to be taken care. The cotton material is always better as it prevents the fungal infection. All these are simple, but very important points you need to take care if you have diabetics, Dr Huda said.
People who are working continuously in the office should take a break in between and walk around for few minutes. If you have a wound on your foot, you should always elevate your leg and keep it on a higher position. Another important point, especially for the ladies is that if you are a diabetic patient, you must avoid doing the pedicure and manicure in the salon. Even the way you cut your nails is also important. Diabetic patients should cut the nails straight. You have to prevent cutting nails in wrong way.
Diabetic patients should not ignore any symptoms however silly it is. Any numbness, burning sensation, cooling foot etc. could be a nerve damage, and need to be investigated by your diabetologist. Detecting early stage will have a lot of chance for fast curing. Diabetic patient wearing high heels is another disaster, doctor said. Even for a normal person, wearing high heels is a risky one, then for a diabetic patient it is dangerous.
Food habits also needs to be taken care. It is very important to have five meals per day. "Many people think taking 5 meals will increase your blood sugar, but instead it will well maintain the sugar level with five meals, i.e. 3 main meals and 2 snacks. But the quantity and quality are important", Dr Huda said. Some people take chocolates while taking insulin as they feel dizziness etc. This is wrong. You need to check with your diabetologist to control the insulin intake, she added.
With my Indian nurses here, I work like a strong team. "I have never met any Indian nurse who doesn’t work hard", doctor said. The most important thing is you should love your work. The moment you are not loving what you are doing and you are just coming here only for your salary, your growth is stopped and you cannot perform well, doctor said. Learn more on what you are doing. Even if a doctor writes “dressing”, a learned nurse can identify what kind of dressing to use for that patient. There are many courses and workshops for nurses, I suggest them to follow up such courses regularly and upgrade themselves, she said.
"Even now I miss my Indian days. After my studies, I had visited India several times. I miss the real Indian street food, Indian movies, Indian culture..." Dr Huda says. "I used to watch many Indian movies of Rajnikanth, Sharukh Khan, Mamooty, etc. however my favourite actor is Sharukh Khan" Dr Huda said.