Dr. Arfana Yesmin

Dr. Arfana Yesmin is an assistant professor in the medicine department at CIMCH. She did her MBBS at Dhaka Medical College. FCPS from BCPS too. She was a government medical officer for eleven years before this. 31st BCS. That means she probably spent a lot of time in small upazila health complexes. Seeing a hundred patients a day in the heat. Now she sits in a slightly cooler room in Chittagong. The medicine OPD is mostly just older people with high blood pressure and body aches. They bring in old prescriptions folded up in their pockets. The paper is usually soft and tearing at the edges. She just flattens them out on her desk. Looks at the old medicine names.

She checks blood pressures with one of those manual cuffs. Pumping the rubber bulb. Listening with her stethoscope. Probably tells them to eat less salt. They just nod. She writes down some basic tablets. Gastric medicine. Painkillers. Sort of repetitive work. Eleven years in government service pretty much makes you used to the crowds. She does not rush. Just writes the dose. Morning and night. After meals. She teaches the ward students too. Showing them how to check for anemia by pulling down the lower eyelid. Just pale pink tissue. She finishes the patient. Hands the paper back. Calls the next one.