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.