Where do you pray at work?

I’ve been thinking about this FAQ a lot lately. I recently instinctively answered it with my call room/office of course. But then I realized that wasn’t always the case.

One of our interns this year is Muslim. I casually told him I was going upstairs to pray and his eyes lit up.

“How, where do you do that?”

This is when I realized that my prayers were one of the things I had to sacrifice in the past.

As a medical student, resident, fellow, we didn’t have a designated call room or office. We shared with everyone. There was no area to call our own or find some alone time, let alone perform our daily prayers as Muslims.

I never felt empowered enough to ask for space.

I ended up either going home to pray, or waiting until the end of the day, especially in residency, to make up all the prayers. And because of long OR times, demanding schedule, and exhaustion, I missed many prayers.

It wasn’t until I was an attending that I noticed this. And our intern’s surprise at the fact that, yes, we can perform our prayers in the hospital made me realize this huge gap.

So I want to pose a question for #MuslimTwitter, #MedTwitter, #MedStudentTwitter

Where do you pray?

Where do you pray at school and at work?

What’s your specialty and do you have access to a prayer area?

For example:
I’m a surgery attending and #IprayIn my call room or office.

Please use the #IprayIn so we everyone can follow the answers.

My favorite prayer mat.
#IprayIn