Swine Flu and I

This post is entirely my interpretation and I, in no way, intend to criticize the government policies. I assume that the authorities did this in the best interests of the people of Jodhpur, and also their vote-bank.

For background information: Two weeks back, the authorities, all of a sudden, decided to start a 'Swine Flu Surveillance Program'. It is supposed to be a door-to-door survey covering all the houses of the city. There are a number of teams, each team consists of an Intern (eh, that's me)/ Doctor, a M.P.W. (Multipurpose Health Worker) and an A.N.M. (Auxiliary Nurse Midwife). What the teams are expected to do: ask for khansi, jukhaam, bukhaar (cough, runny nose and fever) in every house. And as a result of the emergency situation *rolls eyes* , all the intern duties have been scraped off and we have been put to the enormous task of the surveillance program.

I started my work on the 21st of November, 2009 with two nice health workers, thankfully! Here are a few conclusions/ inferences / pointers, I had to jot down:

Conclusions about the disease:

1. Most of the infected people are kids, but adults have a higher tendency to get sick and have more serious symptoms.
2. I did not find any case that was serious enough to be hospitalized.
3. Except for a handful of cases, almost everybody had consulted a doctor.
4. The small number of people who haven't been to a doctor, will never ever access any healthcare facilities!
5. A few of the above-mentioned people might just benefit from this door to door survey - that, I believe, is the population at which the program should be actually targeted.

Conclusions about the tendency/ approach of people:

1. Even though people have cough and are down with fever by evening; every morning they have to go to work, attend schools and do all the household chores!
2. Anybody you ask for the usual sardi, khaanshi, bukhaar has to ask each and every member of the family before deciding on whether his family members are OK or not.
3. If the people know that we might give out some medicines, they will go to any lengths to fake symptoms. However, if it is only a survey asking for information, they decide that nobody in the household has ever sneezed even once in the season. ("Docsaab, humare yaha to koi cheenka bhi nahi hai. Bhagwan ki kripa hai. Bhagwan bachaye...")
4. If you tell them that they'll be re-evaluated and given the medications on the next day, they try hard to convince you on how they have some very important tasks to be completed on the very next day - they have to go to the village, send the kid to the school and even have to go shop - and therefore, the treatment should be given on the very same day!
5. If the doctor (so-called-doctor) is just outside their house, they expect and demand the treatment of every possible health-related problem in the world, ranging from joint pain to leg ulcers.
6. A few well-educated people do ask for more information about the disease, the ways to prevent its spread and how they can be protected from getting exposed to the virus - I like them and try my best to provide them all the info I have.

Here are a few pictures:

I completely agree that this door-to-door survey is increasing awareness among the aam junta about the disease. However, I do often wonder that other than convincing people that something is being done to contain the pandemic, is the program serving any purpose? The one thing I know for sure that it has screwed my peaceful life - now that I am caught in this political gimmick!

The only advantage to me: some more exposure to the real world!

*Might add a few updates when the program is over.

A - Z of Medical School

Hey! I wrote this article ages ago for the college magazine. Now the whole plan has been fizzled out, I thought to put it up here.

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"A" is for anatomy. How can I forget the spine chilling moment when I was given the opportunity to find all the tiny branches of the Ulnar nerve? It still pains when I tickle my ‘funny bone’.

"B" is for bike. Don’t know, if ever in life, the speedometer will touch that high speed or we’ll spend hours on ‘Activas’ and ‘Pulsars’ just roaming around in the streets for nothing.

"C" is for coffee. My consumption of this beverage has rocketed in the previous two & half years. I am convinced my serum caffeine levels are well above the normal reference range.

"D" is for doxycycline. That’s the favorite drug name of my colleague. We are even thinking of gifting her a lil’ pup & naming it ‘Doxy’.

"E" is for ECG. Still blaming my long-left physics that I can’t understand how the cardiologists decipher a whole lot of arrhythmias & MIs from this strip of paper, which is no more than a scribble by a toddler for me.

"F" is for fanta-fanti aur setting, the hottest topic of our college.

"G" is for Goat. I always feel like one, the day before my exams, ready to be sl-slau-slaughtered!

"H" is for histories. I remember being told in the first week of my ward-postings that a detailed history is the key to a successful diagnosis. A colleague of mine took it a bit too far. He impeccably presented the history of a patient with emphysema together with the names of the patient's eight children and their history of dog bites!

"I" is for insults. We all know of at least one consultant in each department that looks on medical students as lesser forms of life; and who can forget the horrifying experience in joint classes of postings where your juniors know it all and the professor expects you to answer.

"J" is for the jukebox. The innumerable songs we listen on full volume, dance to them ‘on the roof, in the rain,’ on the bikes.

"K" is for K****I. You know what I mean! (Are we allowed to put in slang here? After all, we use it in every second sentence!)

"L" is for library. I have spent an unhealthy amount of time daydreaming in this establishment and when I was not there, cursing the people who were not-so-much daydreaming there.
P.S. Will everyone please turn off their mobile phones.

"M" is for Medicine & Harrison. I am always advised by my seniors to read through half of it in my 6th semester. Do you seriously feel I can ever do that even in the entire period of my under-graduation?

"N" is for Nicotine. I know I hate it, but a large number of medicos are addicted. God help them!

"O" is for OHT. Argh! The Over Head Transmission of the lectures is quite common in the morning lectures and those in the noon and in the posting lectures. Wait a minute, are there any more of them?

"P" is for Picture-Hall, associated with a whole lot of good and bad experiences.

"Q" is for Questions that the teachers fire on us during classes and examinations. Wish I knew what to do with them.

"R" is for Revision. We, medicos are supposed to it again & again, isn’t it?

"S" is for stethoscopes. The day you buy your own stethoscope is a milestone in any medical student's career. But I still can’t figure out why I was never able to use it? I mean, c’mon, have you ever ‘appreciated’ a murmur?

"T" is for treat. Treat for a new bike, treat for topping the class, treat for your birthday, your mom's birthday or your second cousin’s anniversary or for the new dog your neighbour just got.... Do you seriously require a reason for each treat?

"U" is for ultrasound. Let's be honest, doesn't it all look the same to you?

"V" is for Viva. No comment! It hurts!

"W" is for ward-postings. I still feel lost there!

"X" is for X-ray. Opaque is bones, no! Transparent is bones, no! Opaque is bones… Still can’t figure out. Somebody please help me!

"Y" is for the colour “Yellow” – the most horrifying colour. Yellow-coloured nerves in anatomy, yellow-precipitate in biochemistry, yellow-coloured book-Guyton in physiology, yellow-coloured pages of KDT in pharmacology, yellow-fever in microbiology, yellow-atrophy of liver in pathology… You surely don’t want more, do you?

"Z" is for zzzzzzzzzzz - sleep. Sleep is some- thing I have always taken for granted. I obtain a brief glimpse of the effects of sleep deprivation almost everyday as I battle into the early hours into the lectures.