A nineteen year old girl, twelfth pass, pregnant for the first time, and visiting a private maternity home regularly for ante natal checkups landed finally in painful breast abscess ten days later she delivered her baby. It was because of retracted nipple and the maternity home doctor might have forgotten, or neglected, or was just unaware of the fact that the breasts should be checked at the first visit. She was a registered practitioner holding some diploma after her undergraduate, and she had failed to take care of her patient and had made her and her kid to suffer a lot for such a simple reason. It was simple to diagnose, simple to treat, and unfortunately so simple that she neglected.
It could be a good medico legal lawsuit to appeal against her, but the village dwelling new mother feared the court. And the culprit doctor was left unpunished, free to neglect her other patients…
This happens here, many times. The patients don’t know the roles of doctor and same is true for the doctors. In fact we doctors are trained to neglect… not in the books mentioning some strange combinations of words and numbers as laws, in fact we’re supposed to mug up those laws without knowing the meanings.
We’re trained to neglect in the exams. As undergraduate students we must know that we should examine the breasts… and we must not examine them while examining the patient lest the ‘case’ shall become complicated, lest we shall fall short of time for reading… lest we shall lose the patient compliance. We’re supposed to write ‘All is well’ in our report or case history and examination, no matter what the reality is. We must must must modify the case in order to make it simple, banal or… digestible to the examiner. Then we pass in the exams and grow up as real doctors… only to follow the ‘all is well’ tradition. We need not examine the patient thoroughly we should not… we should not trouble ourselves, to take pains to see the nipples in this ‘case’. The patients are unaware many times… and they fear the court, most of the times they don’t even know that such laws do exist.
And we make money, increase the hospital building, take more and more patients… and increase our capacity of neglecting. Because one time or other in our lives we were medicos and we can’t forget the impressions left in our minds by the exams… the things supposed to be the only purpose of our lives as medicos. We never wanted to be doctors… we wanted to be businessmen and obstetrics and gynecology is the most lasting and profit giving business… it never stops even though in the society there isn’t any illness.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Frozen in time
Here, in Solapur an epidemic of water born diseases- cholera, gastroenteritis and also the hepatitis is going on. They need more doctors… at least to look ‘at’ the crowd of patients. My previous classmates now interns, are attending them… or are trying to avoid. My hands are tied, by the three F’s on my mark sheet, indicating that I’ve failed in one subject… for they think that I have no sufficient knowledge or skill to handle the patients of obstetrics and gynecology. I can’t act an intern till I prove it on the mark sheet. I can’t help them to look after the patients. I can’t even look at the patients.
My skills and knowledge are under revaluation; they’re verifying it by recounting my marks. And they’re doing it since more than one month. They might be employing one full person for counting one mark and in this way they might need to employ a staff of around 140 people to count marks of me alone… I guess. Don’t they think this is too much? Don’t they think they’re harming themselves along with me? Do they think… ever?
What about my two months if the marks are increased? And what about my time spent in waiting for the results of revaluation, if my marks are not increased? I might not be supposed to wait, to take it this seriously… to value my six months. Or I should think the negative, should expect that my marks won’t increase… and study, or do something to pass in next exams. I should expect to pass in the next exams… or should I not?
I’ll manage my feelings… somehow. But what if I wish to go and to serve the outburst of patients… as an intern? No, I can’t think like a doctor, for I’m not a doctor, yet. I can’t think of the patients, yet, for I myself am on a way to become one… a psychiatry patient. I wish… I carve… I die to escape from this… but nothing happens. As if I’m frozen in time. And I can’t do anything, other than the waiting. And I wait; I still wait for the results of the exams… the impotent exams unable to test my abilities and my desires… And have to fight with my mind as it gets attracted to the frustration.
My classmates keep on thinking that I’m lucky to escape the donkey work of handling the huge lines of patients and I keep on envying them for they’ve got a chance to serve the patients… no one is happy… this’ the destiny. Is it? Probably I must feel thankful of my university that I got a chance to escape the work and to get time to sit before the computer and to type this in daytime… and to spend nights without any work, without any sleep, in worrying… in craving… or in sleeping, getting lost in irrelevant bad dreams.
But what… if I’m not thankful?
My skills and knowledge are under revaluation; they’re verifying it by recounting my marks. And they’re doing it since more than one month. They might be employing one full person for counting one mark and in this way they might need to employ a staff of around 140 people to count marks of me alone… I guess. Don’t they think this is too much? Don’t they think they’re harming themselves along with me? Do they think… ever?
What about my two months if the marks are increased? And what about my time spent in waiting for the results of revaluation, if my marks are not increased? I might not be supposed to wait, to take it this seriously… to value my six months. Or I should think the negative, should expect that my marks won’t increase… and study, or do something to pass in next exams. I should expect to pass in the next exams… or should I not?
I’ll manage my feelings… somehow. But what if I wish to go and to serve the outburst of patients… as an intern? No, I can’t think like a doctor, for I’m not a doctor, yet. I can’t think of the patients, yet, for I myself am on a way to become one… a psychiatry patient. I wish… I carve… I die to escape from this… but nothing happens. As if I’m frozen in time. And I can’t do anything, other than the waiting. And I wait; I still wait for the results of the exams… the impotent exams unable to test my abilities and my desires… And have to fight with my mind as it gets attracted to the frustration.
My classmates keep on thinking that I’m lucky to escape the donkey work of handling the huge lines of patients and I keep on envying them for they’ve got a chance to serve the patients… no one is happy… this’ the destiny. Is it? Probably I must feel thankful of my university that I got a chance to escape the work and to get time to sit before the computer and to type this in daytime… and to spend nights without any work, without any sleep, in worrying… in craving… or in sleeping, getting lost in irrelevant bad dreams.
But what… if I’m not thankful?
Monday, March 15, 2010
healing- to survive
Life is painful, uncertain, and unpredictable… like a classical horror movie when the ghost arrives when you think it’s safest. We try hard, do our best to achieve something, we get the thing only to lose it at the next moment. Happiest moments in life turn to those of greatest grieves, haunting our memories like laughing cruel ghosts… making us to fear the happiness. Sometimes the situations are so hopeless that the word ‘hope’ seems to be rubbish or some impossible thing. We cry sometimes. Sometimes the situation is beyond crying; tons of grieves and depths of sorrow make our tear glands immune to feelings.
Does this mean we should fear it, keep on praying that the uncertainty should keep a distance from us? Or should we lose interest in life, for its uncertain? Or should we succumb to the fear and stop living or live life of some zombie, with no feelings? Many times the changes are irreversible; we can’t repair the things. Why should we continue to live, if life is continuously punishing?
But isn’t it good that we’re still alive? Why should we run to unsafe valleys of fear and depression in search of some safety or certainty? Can’t we become a little brave and use this uncertainty and grieves as the causes to remain alive? We can dedicate our uncertain lives to bring some safety in lives of others, to save lives, to try to palliate their sorrows, to heal them. We can dedicate our lives to make human life certain, safe and predictable, with good outcome. The situations are unchangeable many times but we can try to heal and to avoid them to happen in the future. Science is there to aid us, and so is the art of our heart. Let it beat, no matter with whatever quantity of pain it has, but always make it to eject happiness with its every beat.
We can make the world happy… at least we can try it.
Does this mean we should fear it, keep on praying that the uncertainty should keep a distance from us? Or should we lose interest in life, for its uncertain? Or should we succumb to the fear and stop living or live life of some zombie, with no feelings? Many times the changes are irreversible; we can’t repair the things. Why should we continue to live, if life is continuously punishing?
But isn’t it good that we’re still alive? Why should we run to unsafe valleys of fear and depression in search of some safety or certainty? Can’t we become a little brave and use this uncertainty and grieves as the causes to remain alive? We can dedicate our uncertain lives to bring some safety in lives of others, to save lives, to try to palliate their sorrows, to heal them. We can dedicate our lives to make human life certain, safe and predictable, with good outcome. The situations are unchangeable many times but we can try to heal and to avoid them to happen in the future. Science is there to aid us, and so is the art of our heart. Let it beat, no matter with whatever quantity of pain it has, but always make it to eject happiness with its every beat.
We can make the world happy… at least we can try it.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Healing... an attempt to cure
Healing… it makes to feel better. The wounds disappear and the intactness returns… intactness, the condition of no pain, no discomfort, no chance of getting infected by some troublesome pathogen. And the part can work with full potential, taking full joy, without the fear of getting more damaged. It’s a matter of chance… takes time sometimes, sometimes it never happens, sometimes leaves permanent ugly contractures named scars… and sometimes the condition worsens to its worst.
It requires luck… plain luck I can say, or the innate things to achieve healing… or some aids to heal faster… to make the wound disappear as quickly as possible… something like care, antibiotics or dressings- the things designed to cover the wound and protect it, keeping it dry and infection free. And science is working on it, at its best, I hope.
Mind also gets wounds many times… of all ranges right from tiny scratches up to bomb blast injuries, equally painful, disabling, bleeding… worsening. But the dressings aren’t available, neither the antibiotics. We can’t visit the market to purchase a mind healing medicine. Psychoactive drugs are there… but they’re mere numbing, making the mind to ignore the wounds like what happens to the extremities of diabetics. And the wounds remain there rotting, dying forming a gangrene of mind… not healable.
The gangrenous extremity is amputated to avoid its spreading… but… but alas, we can’t amputate the mind, yet, no matter how rotten it has become. The gangrene spreads, affecting the whole of the mind and the person dies leaving a walking cast of a human behind… the human becomes a mindless zombie, with no feelings, no joy, no pain, and no regret… of doing anything. And crimes increase in an effort to get some joy… or some pain… or some feeling, but dead mind can’t feel anything.
Can we treat this? Not yet, unfortunately… Can we avoid this? Maybe if we try… mind is fragile… humiliations, setbacks, losses, deaths… heartbreaks anything… anything can wound it. And the injuries can’t be avoided. We’ve to avoid the gangrene… the death of the mind and feelings. we’ve to pay heed to the wounds, to achieve this… we’ve to wipe the wounds, clear them, to make them dry by allowing them to ooze out the pains…
Again some are lucky, they can go to the arts to express the feelings to their own souls… to pray it to secrete some healing substances… and they succeed. Some have to keep on bleeding, tolerating… to try to ignore… and some succeed in ignoring. Some survive, carrying to painful wound throughout their life and some develop gangrene. But there are some wounded souls who attempt healing of their own mind by attempting to heal the pains of others. They become the dressings for other wounded minds, they become angels… don’t remain humans. But again, becoming an angel is a matter of plain luck… an innate thing, or aids in the form of some angel’s blessing…
It requires luck… plain luck I can say, or the innate things to achieve healing… or some aids to heal faster… to make the wound disappear as quickly as possible… something like care, antibiotics or dressings- the things designed to cover the wound and protect it, keeping it dry and infection free. And science is working on it, at its best, I hope.
Mind also gets wounds many times… of all ranges right from tiny scratches up to bomb blast injuries, equally painful, disabling, bleeding… worsening. But the dressings aren’t available, neither the antibiotics. We can’t visit the market to purchase a mind healing medicine. Psychoactive drugs are there… but they’re mere numbing, making the mind to ignore the wounds like what happens to the extremities of diabetics. And the wounds remain there rotting, dying forming a gangrene of mind… not healable.
The gangrenous extremity is amputated to avoid its spreading… but… but alas, we can’t amputate the mind, yet, no matter how rotten it has become. The gangrene spreads, affecting the whole of the mind and the person dies leaving a walking cast of a human behind… the human becomes a mindless zombie, with no feelings, no joy, no pain, and no regret… of doing anything. And crimes increase in an effort to get some joy… or some pain… or some feeling, but dead mind can’t feel anything.
Can we treat this? Not yet, unfortunately… Can we avoid this? Maybe if we try… mind is fragile… humiliations, setbacks, losses, deaths… heartbreaks anything… anything can wound it. And the injuries can’t be avoided. We’ve to avoid the gangrene… the death of the mind and feelings. we’ve to pay heed to the wounds, to achieve this… we’ve to wipe the wounds, clear them, to make them dry by allowing them to ooze out the pains…
Again some are lucky, they can go to the arts to express the feelings to their own souls… to pray it to secrete some healing substances… and they succeed. Some have to keep on bleeding, tolerating… to try to ignore… and some succeed in ignoring. Some survive, carrying to painful wound throughout their life and some develop gangrene. But there are some wounded souls who attempt healing of their own mind by attempting to heal the pains of others. They become the dressings for other wounded minds, they become angels… don’t remain humans. But again, becoming an angel is a matter of plain luck… an innate thing, or aids in the form of some angel’s blessing…
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
exam as a chance
Retaking the exam… reappearing for the torture, tolerating the pains once again, again without any cause… it’s dreadful, but I’m not scared, and I don’t want to be. As I’m looking at it as a chance, to see, what happens if I look at it as a day to day happening? I’m not going to repeat the parrot’s fission and not going to try to be like some other person who I’m not. And actually I’m eager to see the results… in real sense…
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
my dream
Here I accept that I’m not perfect
To reach my dreams I do lack the strength
I beg the strength to my dreams
And in this way gets fulfilled my every wish
My dreams give me wings when I want to fly
And they wipe my tears when I tend to cry
I cry my pains and weep my weakness
But fail always to abuse my lack of strength
A weak person with huge dreams
Can this mismatch lead to a fulfillment?
But I get things more than I deserve
As my riveting dreams make me to preserve
Are they some witchcraft or some magic spells?
Those turn my weaknesses into my strengths
My pains become stimuli and rewarding
And dynamic becomes my ill health
Are they some angels who give me blessings?
And every hit of bad luck brings a shower of success…
Fate, good luck or maybe some unknown thing…
I never have to crave for my novel dreams
Like the heart is gifted with beatings…
My days and nights beat with my dreams
I breathe for my dreams, I breathe my dreams
And even if I die in between I’ll be breathing in my dreams…
I’m immortal; I’ll never cease to exist
Because I exist only in my eternal dreams
Excepting my dreams, I’m nothing… anything
As if I myself is a sweet dream of my dreams…
To reach my dreams I do lack the strength
I beg the strength to my dreams
And in this way gets fulfilled my every wish
My dreams give me wings when I want to fly
And they wipe my tears when I tend to cry
I cry my pains and weep my weakness
But fail always to abuse my lack of strength
A weak person with huge dreams
Can this mismatch lead to a fulfillment?
But I get things more than I deserve
As my riveting dreams make me to preserve
Are they some witchcraft or some magic spells?
Those turn my weaknesses into my strengths
My pains become stimuli and rewarding
And dynamic becomes my ill health
Are they some angels who give me blessings?
And every hit of bad luck brings a shower of success…
Fate, good luck or maybe some unknown thing…
I never have to crave for my novel dreams
Like the heart is gifted with beatings…
My days and nights beat with my dreams
I breathe for my dreams, I breathe my dreams
And even if I die in between I’ll be breathing in my dreams…
I’m immortal; I’ll never cease to exist
Because I exist only in my eternal dreams
Excepting my dreams, I’m nothing… anything
As if I myself is a sweet dream of my dreams…
ideal verses reality
Ideal doctor is - A god or angel or something like that… a superhuman, a person who treats the patient, yet feels the patient, who’s ready for the patient at any hour of the day, who cares the patient, tries her/ his best to make the situation more tolerable, puts the patient ahead of everything, can’t say no to anyone, who works for satisfaction. Well, he/ she may not be complete, may not have treatment for every disease, and may not have all the high class equipments, but the dedication is never lacking.
In reality with some honorable exceptions who dare to live as an ideal doctor… the treatment to every disease isn’t available, high class costly yet incompetent machines may be available. No one is dedicated to the patients… dedication to money is almost always there. Diagnosis is not possible without machines… doctors have legal bounding about the minimum of the investigations required. They exploit it, and run a side business of renting the machines. A CT or M RI may be prescribed for simple headache without any sound reason. Poor patients are always thrown to poor government hospitals where they receive treatment like waste particles of dust. They may not say no even to dead bodies, if they get the money… and dead bodies are not handled to relatives till complete payment is received. Doctor feels nothing even if a patient dies. Even if any mistake occurs by the doctor he/ she is taught in the medical school only to hide it, cover it and never mention it before the patient… or before anyone. These so called doctors are not humans… they are not even sub humans… instead they’re machines, money making devices. And medical colleges teach you to be a successful machine, to earn a rich luxurious life… no matter even if you’ve to forget to live, or to live a dead life… a rich dead life.
In reality with some honorable exceptions who dare to live as an ideal doctor… the treatment to every disease isn’t available, high class costly yet incompetent machines may be available. No one is dedicated to the patients… dedication to money is almost always there. Diagnosis is not possible without machines… doctors have legal bounding about the minimum of the investigations required. They exploit it, and run a side business of renting the machines. A CT or M RI may be prescribed for simple headache without any sound reason. Poor patients are always thrown to poor government hospitals where they receive treatment like waste particles of dust. They may not say no even to dead bodies, if they get the money… and dead bodies are not handled to relatives till complete payment is received. Doctor feels nothing even if a patient dies. Even if any mistake occurs by the doctor he/ she is taught in the medical school only to hide it, cover it and never mention it before the patient… or before anyone. These so called doctors are not humans… they are not even sub humans… instead they’re machines, money making devices. And medical colleges teach you to be a successful machine, to earn a rich luxurious life… no matter even if you’ve to forget to live, or to live a dead life… a rich dead life.
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