Hospitals!

I am not a huge fan of reading blogs, but recently I have come across a few of them where the non-medical bloggers have aptly described their experience as a visitor to a hospital. They never had anything against the doctors as such, but their perspective towards the whole setting there has left me wondering about a lot of things. This has also been the topic of discussion at innumerable times.

The behavior of many people, which includes not only the patients and the visitors but also the healthcare workers, is something I have often been uncomfortable with.

• The doctor is talking to the patient. Just when you are explaining them the course of the disease or the treatment options, the mobile phone rings (of the patient, of course). The patient leaves you waiting and she merrily chats about her kid, her sister's kid, her sister's neighbor's kid and the all the kids in the world. You shoot stern glances at the patient and, at that very moment, she realizes that you are waiting for her. "Oh! Chalo abhi main rakhti hu, hospital main hu. Arey nahi, kuch nahi hua. Baad mein baat karti hu." And then the formal goodbyes before hanging up the phone! Can the doctor ever say back anything?

The sign that says to switch off the mobile phones in the consultation room is safely ignored.

• You are rushing to the labor room to get the progress report, for the doctor, about the high-risk patient who had bled on her way to the hospital and was stabilized once in. A man with all his force, spits on the wall, just next to the dustbin! Thanks to your reflexes, you just managed to stop right in time! Me, being the kind of person I am, chose to say a word or two to the man instead of ignoring the incident altogether.

These are just a few examples. However, the good part is that this constitutes only a minority of people, who are from far-off villages and have had no experience to be in a treatment-center bigger than a 12 x 12 feet area, where there are patients other than them.

On the other hand, there also has been an incident where a young girl, maybe just out of high school, very politely offered to help me in the huge amount of very mechanical paper-work I had, while all the other people were standing in line (a line is an under-statement, maybe I should say - a crowd jumping on my table) to get their papers done quickly.

The situation is changing and changing for the good!

PS: the good and bad about the healthcare workers in the next section.

Post Exam Era

The exam has long been over and the result is out. I know a considerable amount of time has passed since then, but when did I ever post in time, or for that matter, when do I ever post anything!

I passed with an excellent score of 99 on a two-point scale and a pretty average score of 242 on three-point scale. I know, although, they both are the same, only the people who are seriously into this business (read: IMGs who are struggling to get into residencies) can understand the huge difference between the two. I can continue to rant on how difficult it is these days to get an interview and then MATCH, for a visa-requiring person, but I'll leave that aside for the time being.

(For the uninitiated, here is a link to the scoring pattern of USMLE)

But for now, it is time to get ahead and study hard for USMLE Step 2 CK. However, I am tired of studying. It has been a lil' more than 8 years for me, and that is all I am doing (or to be true: worrying about) and I have no idea as to when this will end. You can't blame me for sure!

On a happy note: Clinical subjects are much better to study then the Biochemistry and the Physiology! And on some level, I like Medicine!

Oh! I am free now!

I have been looking forward to these few blissful days for ages, when I'll be done with my USMLE Step 1 and I'll be free, technically. But now I realize, that these days are not exactly 'blissful' and 'happy' as I had imagined them to be. Thinking about how will I fare in Step 1 (that is the tough part, believe me!), how to start preparing for USMLE Step 2 CK, how to plan for my 'future plans' and what not. Please do remember that I particularly excel at planning things, but as I now see it, my ability is at its best when I have a exam ahead. Or maybe, I am so used to taking exams, that I don't know what life is on the other side. My non-medical friends, as you may call them, are earning handsomely and laugh out loud at me, still studying and preparing for the never-ending exams!

I hope to be done with it people, soon!

But for now or maybe in a week, I have to start reading for yet another exam I intend to take soon. Winding it all up in a two to two-and-a-half month time seems a little impractical to me at present, but as usual, do I have a choice?

So the bottom-line is: You don't like when you are studying as you have so much to study and the course never seems to end. You don't like when you don't have to study because at least you had something to do previously! (which you are so much used to) However, you tend to like the time when you have nothing to do and when you wish that it would have been better if you had something, except studying obviously!

PS: Short post which shows that I actually have nothing to do now, and which also shows that I am 'not-much-of-a-blogger'.

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.

*******************************************************************


"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.

Following the trend...

So, here I go... just following the trend set by Arpita & Shruti. Imagining that I have been an ardent fan of their blogs, they'll at least read mine; and may be if God is kind enough, or instead I am good enough (which I know I am not), a handful of others would also show some mercy for my hard work (if you call it so)!

Now, I even don't know why I am doing this? By the way, I said I was being a copycat, didn't I? So let us imagine this to be the only reason. But one thing that is true that through this entire torture of the exams coming up and the long list of things-to-do in future, I hope that this will be my helpmate.

As for the name, this is a direct lift from a book mentioned in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince", but it does make a lot of sense at this stage.
That is all, I can put up here right now, I hope I'll be spending some more quality time here real soon.


P.S. If not my original work, surely some things copied from Shruti's blog. (referring to the 'memories of Brills' she has promised to pen down)