Name: Dr Wassim Malas | Age: 49
Nice doctor’s bag, what does it say about you?
I’m eccentric, and because it’s an old-fashioned Gladstone bag which might Dad gifted me when I qualified, I like to take it with me wherever I go, even though it’s not big enough to hold the things I need when I go on a visit.
Where do you locum?
I have a sessional job and locum in Salford.
What’s your trusted steed?
I drive a Nissan Micra, 1 litre, 2004, with over 120,000 miles on the clock, and which I intend to continue driving until it dies.
GMC- Friend or foe?
Friend: maintains the professional standards that attracted us to the profession in the first place, and if we’re required to be accountable for our own actions, it will cause us to stop and think about what we do, rather than default to auto pilot, or get carried away by our egos.
What is your all time best diagnosis/moment in your epic career?
Wow!! now you’re asking. There’s a few, and each was epic for it’s own reasons.
I diagnosed BPPV in a patient suffering from Vertigo, explained the condition to her, did the Epley manoeuvre with her, curing her, and taught her to do it again on her own, should the fractured otoliths in her semicircular canals drift back to cause her further vertigo.
Any close calls?
Plenty: where do I start. I forgot to send a cancer referral one day, and thankfully, the patient rang back, was referred, and due to my honest apology, was grateful that I had referred him when a couple of my colleagues who had seen him before me had decided not to.
What is your favourite saying/motto?
Trying something and discovering it doesn’t work, teaches you how NOT to do it: which is often more important than learning how to do it.
What most gets on your nerves at work?
When we lose sight of the human patient, and do things for the sake of targets to generate an income, rather than focusing on how to improve the lives of the people we vowed to care for.
How do you chillax?
I enjoy discovering and creating a new recipe, which, when I execute with other friends, and we savour and devour it, gives us all a new sensation and experience.
I love to dance to quality music, in a group with other friends, enjoying the same experience.
I love watching anyone who is good at what they do, put a complex task together effortlessly, with skill and precision.
What disease would you like to cure before you die?
Personality disorder, and to eradicating osteoporotic fragility fractures.
Tell us a secret about you/secret ambition
I’d love to be able to converse in every known human language, and proceed to expose many of the falsehoods that contribute to human misery:
Over prioritising of material symbols, the sabotaging of attempts to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, the prioritising of national productivity and CO2 emissions at the expense of irreparable damage to our environment and health, the provocation of wars in order to profiteer by promoting the arms industry, nationalism and all intolerance grounded in ignorance about otherness.
