BITTEN BY THE TRAVEL BUG!

Yes i googled OK! I googled the conference I wanted to attend. I had my thesis ready. I wanted it to be recognised. And I wanted a mini vacation for myself too. I was going to be done with my exams. So why not. I have read somewhere years back in a book of miracles that if you really want to do something that bad then the whole process of doing it becomes super easy. So making the abstract and sending it to the conference people, getting selected, then doing all the formalities of booking the tickets and getting the visa seemed like piece of cake.

It was so exciting! I was just waiting for my exams to get over. I was not even bothered about my results. Whatever the result may be I was going to Malaysia ( a first solo trip ) and I was going to present my research paper there ( another first ). eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppps ! So cool I felt.

Along with being excited I was also teeny tiny bit scared. What if I lost my passport? What if my baggage got lost? What if I didn't wake up at the right time. All these thoughts were racing through my mind. My 'aai' sensing this tried to calm me down and told me not to worry about my presentation and to just relax and enjoy the trip. How will I not worry about my presentation? I did not know if it was of international level. I had made 1000 changes in the power point after taking advice from 10 people. Sameer kaka was a huge help. And I had to finish it within 12 minutes.

Let me tell you a bit about my research. It was basically done among urban slum dwellers in the Mankhurd area in Mumbai. So I had to explain the other delegates what exactly is an urban slum. Since my department is of community medicine my study is based in the community and not the hospital. In these slum dwellers I selected study participants who had diabetes for more than a year. I screened these people with diabetes for any complications. The whole process was educational for me as well as the patients. I learnt a lot about complications of diabetes. I had an amazing moment when I looked at the retina of a diabetic patient through the fundoscope. So I studied the prevalence of different complications and found out that neuropathy was the most common.Dr Kasbe and Dr Rufi from my department helped by doing multiple logistic regression and we found that increasing age was a significant factor for occurrence of complications of diabetes.

So enough of my topic. The conference had an amazing mixture of people from all over the world. This was the 5th international conference of public health. Not only doctors but people who had done Phd or were in health economics or were doing social work were also present. There was a nurse too.

The topics of presentation ranged from mental health to maternal health and from primary health care to health economics. It was fascinating to learn about the mental health problems of the low socio economic status people living in Malaysia. And these people were living in proper buildings built by the government. Another research done in mental health was the effect of violent video games on the the behaviour of people playing them. Also I never knew that there was a huge problem of teenage pregnancies in Philippines. Then a study done in south Africa showed that having health insurance improved the health seeking behavior of people. 

Apart from the presentation I had interesting conversations with different people from different countries. I got information about health insurance from a proffesor in Malaysia along with marriage advice from a health proffesional from Palestine. People from Bangladesh were very friendly. A doctor from Afghanistan revealed that he loves watching Bollywood movies everyday after coming back home from a long day at work. 1 movie per day. 

Yes and I did roam around in Kuala Lumpur accompanied by my newest friend from India who lives there. He made me travel in trains, have the local tea, make me shop, and also took photos of me.

So the " SAFAR HUA SAFAL"

Going for a vaction is one thing but combining it with work is more satisfying. For me travel is more about meeting people and learning about their lives than visiting the tourist spots.

I came back home super proud of myself with a lot of motivation to do a lot of research work and also travel the world.