Candle Light...

(I have scribbled numerous experiences as a doctor on a medical site called Rxpg. It is easier to say your stories to doctors and budding doctors. On an open platform like this I always felt a grave responsibility in writing medical stuff. I feared creating a wrong image or bringing forth the wrong message as medicine is a highly specialised field and intricately related to human life. The limited understanding of a non-medico may alter the message. However after several years of contemplating I am sharing the most popular post I wrote some 7 years back . It does reflect the lack of resources and the poor working condition in government set ups and the hard work resident doctors put in to provide healthcare and learn amidst this scarcity and chaos.I take refuge in humour though mostly I lack it :) :). )


Living in india you learn to adjust with loads of things.One of them is power cuts.They are inevitable.Specially when you have a big exam ahead .You may make arrangements but things just go topsy turvy.I recall during my first year of MBBS we had absolutely  no power cuts in our hostel so we gals didnt give it a thought that the unthinkable may happen just before our physiology professional .It happened.We were shocked to know that none of us had candles.....khair it was not tht bad besides we had a good laugh after a bit of panicking..... 

Now what is bad is when you hve 10 first day post operative patients in the ward  to look after and you are posted as an Emergency medical officer;.the first one to see the patients and admit as well take care of the post operative patients.That day  there is a major power failure.That very day the generator refuses to work and with a candle in your hand you are (Florence Nightingalish ) trying to take care  of every possible complaint  of the patients. Changing drips and ensuring the antibiotics are adminitered at the right time  in between also making emergency admissions.Amidst all this you hear a post operative patient wailing and threatening to jump of the bed complaining of excruciating pain. You hold a candle upto her face and squint while the relatives panic. You use your better senses and discover that the patient failed to pass urine and look for a bladder lump.Happy with yourself you immediately catheterize the patient while one of the female relatives hold the candle for you. Dexterously you evacuate around half a litre of urine and get a blessing from the relieved patient. Now this isn't that bad after all. 

However the nights at the hospital are always long and eventful. 'Bad' was on its way to the hospital that same sweaty night as my candle fought bravely with the wind.She arrives . The lights are dim . I could hardly see her face . She could hardly stand even with support . She was pregnant and bleeding .I ask her to sit but I could hardly go near the patient that I hear a thud and a splash. 


I am standing with a candle in my hand and between her and me is a pool of blood which in the candle light seem like black molten coal. She collapses . I postpone my collapsing and without delay rush her to the labour room .


 Now in this scene there are no showers of blessings for me. The labour room is flooding with patients, spilling with patients , groans and moans and frantically running doctors trying to work their best. But lets not forget that it was a sweaty summer night and the labour room just had a few candles more than the emergency room. The heat and the dark and the patient load had turn my seniors into steaming kettles ready to burst at the slightest provocation . As I barge in with a pregnant patient pouring blood I am hit with a zillion angry words and scoldings . I start to lose orientation and frantically fill in the admission notes accelerating my escape from the wrath. As I step out I feel I was in an out of an oven and just escaped hell's fire. 




"Yeah this was bad" I self talked looking at the moon peeping from the window and  rushed  back to the emergency room for more ordeals. 



That was one night.Then there was another such night.When the lights went off but the generator worked thankfully.Two patients  were in active labour.I was with my senior and our counterparts were  getting their four hours relieving. My Senior asked me  to do an examination and I found that the baby was coming and we wash up immediately for the delivery after giving a call to the paediatricians.As we are about to deliver her the  generator betrays us !!!!  lights go off and we struggle in the dim light of the candle. But I guess it was not enough of an ordeal. I am holding the just delivered  baby and suddenly my senior realises that the other patient is ready to deliver . Now this is really bad... nervous bad... frustrating bad...!!!!!


My sleepy counterpart is immediately called for help. The other baby delivers and the sleepy head confuses the scissors with the clamp . Anyways a 'growl' from the senior makes her realise the mistake in time. So three doctors with a couple of candles and a bit of chaos end up with  two successful candle light deliveries .......great!! fantastic!!!!

Moral of the story :No matter how bad things may get....they can still get worse..... and you may still end up sayingWOW !!! AWESOME!!!

Teach like a Lion....

His voice had an amazing enthusiasm. It exuded the knowledge and command he had on the subject. Anatomy lecture hall at KGMC animated and came to life  when Prof. Mahdi Hasan delivered lectures . 


Though he was retired, by the time we joined the college back in 1999 , but his love for teaching medical students brought him back to the lecture theatres as an honorary professor. His initial lectures for our batch was on Histology. I always had trouble with the microscope but I loved his lectures. More than the content of the lectures his passion for teaching mesmerised  me and I hated to miss any of his lectures. 


The best was when he taught us anatomy of the brain. 

The day of the lecture  he entered the  lecture hall  with a human brain on a tray and a large dissection knife. He sat down with an easy smile and started slicing precise sections at different levels of the brain and it seemed like the text book had come alive. 

We were all enthralled by his method of teaching. His loud clear voice reached the last benches ... no 'straining to hear' required. He would teach actively moving around making dramatic gestures with his hands ... almost like a seasoned actor on the stage or a musician charting the depths of music or a magician creating a spell. No one could doze in his lectures ( an impossible thing to do in his class). He taught us the neurological pathways, one of the toughest things to grasp , by making us Role play! What fun was that : ). 

He enjoyed and relished every bit of his teaching life. He had his eureka moments during teaching, like a yogi would get enlightenment during meditation. Difficult concepts spontaneously simplified themselves as he taught. 

The best thing about this passionate professor of ours was that he always said and lived by it... 

“Teach like a Lion but ask like a goat...” (the emphasis should be on teaching and not setting a tough question paper.) 

But what  motivated me to write all this after 13 years ? 


It was a picture circulating on the internet that I stumbled upon to my great delight. Our beloved professor was receiving Padma Shree from the President (the first one to receive it in the field of anatomy ). It was an immensely  proud moment and I felt totally thrilled . 


 In a time when teacher student relationship has lost it's sheen and education has become a business we Georgians are lucky to have had the opportunity to gain knowledge from a teacher like Prof. Mahdi Hasan.


This is my way of saying that I am privileged and blessed  to be his student and he totally deserves this honor.

Desta mander... God's work ... living Right...

Have you ever been to those stinky public urinals?


Natures call seems a real torture then. That typical suffocating stench could make you gasp for fresh air. You might hold your breath while your grimacing face is reflexly covered by your hand or 'kerchief. But the good thing is you can always leave that place just in time .....


 Imagine somebody who can't escape it.... 'cos her body itself has transformed into a stinky urinal.... and no matter how much she tries the stench never leaves her... and to add to her misery people shun and despise her...she is ostracized..


  I am talking about a much neglected obstetric condition caused during childbirth called  of vesico-vaginal fistula in which injury to the bladder during prolonged labour leads to constant leaking of urine for the rest of the women's life. It's not life threatening but that constant leaking is life damaging...


 In third world countries like India and Africa where good obstetric care is not available to a large population a good number of young women suffer from VVF post obstructed labour.... In Africa 1 in 12 women and approximately 3 million women worldwide suffer from VVF(vesico-vaginalfistula).


Now imagine that such a suffering young woman meets somebody who treats her and transforms her into a human again ....What would you call that ....??? I would call that reconstruting a broken life and mending a hopeless heart.....

Well this angelic person who does God's work is Dr. Catherine Hamlin who had worked in Africa (Ethiopia ) doing reconstructive surgery for VVF almost her entire life. With her husband she constructed a Addis Ababa Fistula hospital in 1974... Since then they have cured around 30,000 fistula patients.... I was introduced to her amazing work in 2009 when she got the Right Livelihood award for dedicated work in Africa.... which is an alternate to the Nobel.... Hats off to Dr. Hamlin....and to her 'Desta Mander' (Village of joy ).