Prof. Dr. Rashidul Hassan

Prof. Dr. Rashidul Hassan has four degrees just for lungs. MBBS, MCPS, FCPS, MD. He is a professor. That means he sees the worst chests. People coughing for six months straight. They bring in those yellow envelopes. Full of chest X-rays. He pulls the black films out. Holds them up to the window if the light box is broken. Just looking for white spots. Tuberculosis is pretty common anyway. Or just bad asthma from the brick kilns outside town. He sits at a desk. Probably has a small plastic spirometer sitting there. He tells patients to blow into it. They usually cough instead. He just waits. Writes down a syrup name.

The chest ward is always loud. Not people talking. Just coughing and machines. Nebulizers hissing in the corner. Pumping white mist into plastic masks. He walks through the beds with the medical students. He puts his stethoscope on a patient's back. Tells the students to listen. Sounds like crumpled paper inside the lungs. Crepitations. He probably asks a student what it means. They guess wrong. He just shakes his head. He prescribes a lot of inhalers. Red ones. Green ones. Tells the older guys to stop smoking. They just look at the floor. Probably going to light up as soon as they leave the hospital gate. He knows that. He just stamps the prescription.