Exercise...exercise

We have all heard about the therapeutic effects of exercise,about how it can rejuvenate your mind and body,how it can brighten your day etc.But,there is a dreary side to it as well.After the novelty of starting to exercise wears off,it becomes a drag.You not only have to set aside some time for it everyday,but also fill up that time!You have to follow the same routine everyday and the results are slow to show.Kudos to the fitness freaks who can keep it going for years together.
My army colleagues(ex servicemen)look quite fit without apparently exercising.Perhaps,it is the healthy lifestyle or the robust air of the front which has kept them smart.Most of them look at least 10 years younger than their age.A good example to follow!

satisfaction vs happiness

I recently read an article about a comparison between life satisfaction and happiness.Happiness was defined as how people feel about themselves and satisfaction was arrived at by comparing various economic factors.People in developed nations had more life satisfaction compared to those from poorer nations.People in developed nations compared themselves to poorer nations and their satisfaction quotient increased!
Goes against the standard teaching,doesn't it?

product reviews

There are reviews on the net for all products like cars,electronic goods etc.Where are the reviews for drugs(medicines)?People blindly listen to their doctors' advice and swallow a host of medicines.What are their experiences after ingesting a particular drug?The same can be said of a host of health-care products like wellness regimes and also about hospitals and diagnostic centers.There is a need for user feedback and objective assessment of the various options available to patients and doctors.

For example,there are at least 10 manufacturers of Ciprofloxacin in India.Is there an easily accessible chart comparing the costs and efficacy of the various brands?

Is an attempt to rate drugs,various treatments and even doctors feasible?

Unfair end

I was driving back from work and listening to Michael Jackson's songs.Suddenly,it flashed to me that his death was unfair to all of us.The allocation of talent and genius is haphazard and its grooming is chaotic,to say the least.

I am sure some more songs were due from him.Even though his album 'Bad' was released in 1987,the songs are still fantastic and I am sure will be evergreen.

Let us hope that his soul rests in peace and thank God (and MJ) for the songs.

Jungle warfare

Another story from the stable of army doctors!

A doctor whose chopper landed in the jungles of Northeast India found himself with only a knife and a matchbox.Although he had been taught survival tactics,he could not remember anything.So,he followed some simple rules.He decided that since monkeys are our ancestors,it would be safe to eat anything they ate. He drank the sap of plants instead of the unsafe water.He found a stream and followed it thinking that it would definitely lead him somewhere.

His plans worked and he finally made it to civilization after a month! 

Health Hazard

I am getting alarmed by the health problems that some of my colleagues have come to face during the discharge of their duties.

At least three people I know have been affected by tuberculosis and one of them even had to undergo surgery because of the complications.

At least two people I know have had mild heart attacks due to stress.Of course,in one case it was due to a metabolic problem but still stress might have been the trigger.

One of my friends was attending an interview where there was a medical checkup.The doctors found elevated blood pressures in 9 out of 10 candidates although none of them had symptoms.

I have forgotten the number of people who have mild complaints like back pain,gastritis etc.

Is the 'noble profession' really worth the price?

How to fail in exams

I recently heard some funny stories about how people managed to flunk their exams because of flimsy reasons.

A final year student was taking ophthalmology exams(viva).The examiner was a well-known terror.He asked the student to spell out the word 'ophthalmology'.The poor fellow spelt it-'opthalmology'.The examiner asked him if he was sure about the spelling and the student quite confidently replied in the affirmative.The gentleman got really pissed off that he did not know the right spelling and failed him.

There was another professor who used to fail students if their walk seemed too arrogant to him.If the students had prepared well and were confident,they were flushed down the drain.

A student who was taking his final year clinical exams noticed that the examiner was wearing a beautiful saree and could not take his eyes off her.The lady happened to notice the gleam in his eye and promptly failed him! 

Threshold!

Here is another story as told by Dr Ray.
Nepalis ,as a group,have a very high threshold for pain.If a Nepali says he has a slight pain in his right lower abdomen,for example,the diagnosis is appendicitis and he requires appendicectomy.
Once,a Nepali,who was a soldier came to the army doctor and saluted him .
He said,"Doctor,I have a problem with my index finger."
The doctor thought that since he had just saluted with his right hand,the problem must lie with his left hand and asked the soldier to elaborate.
The soldier took out his detached left index finger from the shirt pocket of his uniform and said that this was the finger that was troubling him!He had cut his finger while chopping firewood for the camp.
Hence,Dr Ray says "Be careful while treating Nepalis.Their capacity to bear pain is tremendous!"

Doctor on the move

This is a story that happened on another rainy day.
I was coming back from the hospital library at around 10 PM.It was raining and the weather was foul.Suddenly,the bike in front of me skid and the 2 people on it fell off.I got down form my bike,parked it by the roadside and went to their aid.Imagine their plight when a stranger who is in a debatably presentable condition introduces himself as a doctor and offers a free check-up right by the roadside.They turned out to be fine with only minor scratches and I continued my journey.
A few days after this,when I was going to the hospital in the morning, another set of people in front of me managed to fall off from their bike.The pillion rider turned out to be a pregnant lady and she was bleeding from her scalp wound(a small one).Luckily,a gentleman in a big SUV offered to take the bikers to a nearby hospital and I went on.
All this brings me to the question-How safe are we travelling on these roads?Whenever I travel in my car,I am thankful for the days it doesn't get dented.
Moral of the story-There is none!Advice to myself-Be prepared for accidents ,both to self and to others.

Dissection of a song

I have always been amazed at how a song loses juice when analyzed too thoroughly. This used to happen when we used to practice for our music performances. My favorite was (is!) a song named ‘Piya Basanti’.First, we had to learn the song by heart (literally).Then write down the lyrics. Then began the onerous task of preparing the background music. We only hat three instruments-guitar, drums, keyboard and the guitarist was a greenhorn (guess who!).The notes had to be simplified and adapted (for example guitar in place of flute).Chords had to be found for each line of the song. We had a small room in the college quadrangle where we used to practice. The practice used to go on till we came close to perfection (hee hee!).
Zoom forward-After the performance, when I listened to the song, I used to feel sick of the whole thing. The lines which had profound meaning and romanticism were just chords and notes to be negotiated with. Added to this was the agony of the results although the results were pretty good in some cases.
So, is it better to live like a dew drop on the leaf or live life in all its glory?!!

Life-A system of breakdowns and repairs

After 31 years of strenuous living,I have come to the conclusion that life is a system of breakdowns and repairs.The cells in our body are always going through this process.Eventually,they wear out and behold the end.This is the story of how the realization dawned on me.
I woke up one fine morning on a bright summer day.I had an exam to go to.As usual,I was not satisfied with my preparation and was not keen to go.I went anyway.I was riding a 50 cc bike.It started raining quite heavily and since I had a pseudo romantic view about getting drenched,I did not stop.The accelerator cable of my bike snapped and I started pulling it with my hands.It was late evening and not many repair shops were open.I carried on till the exam hall and completed the exam in my cold and numb state.Since I could not ride my bike at night,I parked it in my friend's place and caught a bus.The bus broke down in a remote place and I walked all the way home feeling hungry and angry(hungry young man!).By the time,I reached home,my parents had gone out and since I did not have the key,I had to wait for a full hour before I could make myself at home!
I recovered from this and went on to bigger(?) things.My car had a tyre puncture and it took me a half day to get it repaired.
My digestive system broke down because of constant abuse and I had to get an over-alling done(Endoscopy!).Plus,I had to swallow down dozens of tablets to repair it.
My mother cut her little toe on something and I am trying to help the wound to heal.
My daughter was born 2 weeks early and she is in the process of regaining her body weight.
My mobile has become de-currencified and is waiting to be recharged.
Oh!To maintain homeostasis.....ah!

Live to eat

I sometimes wish that I was non-vegetarian.They have a wider choice of food and the names of the dishes sound so colourful.
But among the vegetarian dishes ,my favourite one is paani puri.Hats off to the guy who invented this dish.I remember first eating this when I was in 6th Std in Hyderabad.I think,subconsciously,I was hooked.I do not remember when my next dose of this delicacy was,but I developed a passion during high school.
Imagine the ecstasy-first the poori goes into your mouth,then it bursts.The floodgates open ,the paani rushes out over your tongue stimulating the taste buds-sweet,sour,salt and sometimes bitter.The paani drips out of the angle of your mouth and you lap it up.The paani descends into the oesophagus lighting a fire and then into the cauldron of the stomach being churned for all its worth.
There are several names for paani puri-gol gappa etc.The poori is made from atta or sooji.
In Bangalore,my favourite paani poori places are-Sheshadripuram,VV Puram.Shankar Chaat house and near my house.
The filling is usually green peas or sometimes alu or hesarukalu(English word?).I think the best is hesarukalu as it does not have a dominating taste.

A day in the life of a surgeon

I suppose everybody has a pattern for their everyday life.Here is how mine runs.I do not know whether this is typical.Everyone has their little quirks.
When I reach the hospital,I slip into my white coat.Normally,us surgeon bros do not like wearing them,but it has become mandatory-I suppose we too should look like doctors!
My boss during post graduation never liked jeans.He always said that since jeans were not meant to be washed,they carried a lot of germs.Another chap advised against full sleeves-carriers of bacteria.So,all the various advices were distilled into a set of some sort of formal dress code.
The best dressers are the interns-they do not have exams and they do not have to act prim and proper.
Once,I was wearing faded jeans.My boss saw this and sarcastically said,"I say,what is he wearing?What I say,you play the guitar or something?"I did play the guitar but I don't think he meant it in a complementary way.
A lady intern in my unit was wearing a dress which was sort of darkly shaded at the back.The bosses made her turn around and asked her whether the dress was wet.I don't think she minded but we had a good laugh.
Wearing a tie is a no-no.The tie hangs down into the wounds that we have to clean and it is not suited for our weather anyway.
Coming back to my routine-I enter the ward-everybody greets me -I greet them back.I start talking to the patients,enquire how they are,poke into their tummies etc,change their medications or prescribe medicines.Then,I go to the operation theatre if we have a list or the outpatient department if our unit is on-call.
In the OPD,we see patients,treat them or admit them for treatment and if there is an emergency case,we operate as soon as possible.I will write about my theatre antics in another blog.

About people

It seems people have started reading this blog!Hey,if anybody is reading,please leave comments so that I can churn out more drivel.
I keep meeting lot of people everyday during my work.So,the concept of 'personal space' is a bit strange to me.I keep poking into people's tummies(not to mention other things) and the concept of touching other people is quite natural to me.'You are violating my personal space '-what is that?
What is it that makes people so fascinating?Their little mannerisms,their subtleties,their way of speech....
Let me try and list out some things that make people fascinating to me.I won't take names because if they wasted their time reading this blog,they would feel offended...

• My boss' diplomacy-One of my ex-bosses used to be so diplomatic with people.He kept everyone in good spirits and never committed any faux-pas...
  
• My boss'(another one)-had this amazing habit of telling stories(I have written about one in the previous blog.
• My friend's habit of correcting my English(Hey,I grew up to be so...ok)
• My mom's habit of wanting to get things done(by me!) immediately.
• My senior's habit of workaholic-ness.(see,not so good English)
• One of my friends used to love sports a lot

Phew....It's difficult o remember little things about people...

• My wife likes dogs a lot.She goes 'oh,they are so cute....'
• My colleague likes 'tea'.Load him up with a bolus dose and he can go on for hours.
• One of my ward workers has dreamy,sleepy eyes.I am always tempted to get her checked for ptosis(a condition causing droopy eyelids).
• One of my house surgeons had this lovely voice(diva-like) -it was audible only on the phone.
• One of my colleagues used to smile a lot.(Being the meanie that I am,I used to tell her that her muscles were out of control).

I will write about myself in another blog(That would me more interesting and ruthless,I guess).

Anatomy of pain

I am back on track,reading again!I guess my blogs are going to become darker like my moods..
When people speak of pain,I don't think they realize what they are speaking about. I am used to enquiring about pain everyday during ward rounds,but I did not know how painful pain can be..
Some common examples of pain are:

• Body pain-You get this when you do something you are not accustomed to like carry a 50 kg gunny bag up the stairs and end up with a whining back.
• Pain of love-It appears when you are in love irrespective of whether or not the other person is involved.
• 'You are such a pain'-You get this when the other person is irritated by you.
• Painful achievement-This can be achieved by running behind a girl and getting slapped at first,but getting her phone number later on.
• Pain of labour-How can I ignore this!I suppose I will never get to know this but according to all my girlfriends,this is the pain that beats them all!
• Pleasant pain-The pain after...
• No pain,no gain-This is a sort of barter system where you trade pain with a lot of goodies!
• First pain,then nothing-This pain is used by anaesthetists as a sort of incentive before putting the patients to sleep.
• U r ok?No pain,no?-This is used by doctors to reassure themselves that they are doing a great job of saving mankind!

There are different methods of treating different pains.Obviously,they are trade secrets and I would be breaching my oath if I revealed everything.
Okay,plot drift--A patient recently came in for a vasectomy.We were happy that he chose to undergo surgery instead of his wife(She had heart disease).Pills and other methods are riskier and effectivel only for the short term.

Maintaining a blogbook

I had made a resolution that I would write something every week .So much for my resolve!
I keep reading this simple blog called 'Rhythmic dissonance' authored by Raj.A nice blog with simple epiphanies!
On the Fox television series "House M.D.", main character Dr. Gregory House has an epiphany in almost every episode.I used to watch this series when I was in England and used to like it a lot.Dr house is almost my idea of a senior doctor,one who has seen too much and done too much...although his epiphanies do help his patients a lot...
I wonder how novelists get so many words out of their mind.If I start writing something,most of the stuff that comes out will be related to medicine.So,how did Stephen King write so many horror novels?He could not have lived through all the stories.Take for example,Louis L'Amour,who writes Westerns.The moment I start reading Westerns,I am transported out of this world and into a world of deserts,guns,chasing waterholes and riding horses.
I have started doing gardening.It gives a good feeling to watch things grow from nothing and bloom in all their glory.The habit is quite expensive,especially for inexperienced people like me!First,we have to decide which plants to buy,get good soil,re pot them,water them daily,spray insecticides..to take proper care.I suppose I should start looking out for gardening blogs and subscribe to them.

Coming clean

It takes quite a bit of effort to keep writing this blog.The thought of other people peeping into your thoughts is a bit disconcerting.Let me see how long I can keep up.
My boss is quite an interesting person.He has served in the army till his retirement and is now working in a medical college.When you become old(!),perhaps you cannot stop sharing experiences.Hope I too have some which are worth sharing.
He was posted in a middle east country where there was a war going on with another neighboring country.One day,while going to the hospital,he was surrounded by some people who were brandishing guns. Luckily,he was wearing his white coat and carrying his stethoscope.They blindfolded him and took him to a remote place where he was asked to examine a patient and give his opininon.He did so and even though he was terrified,he maintained an outward calm.Later,he was dropped back to his hospital.
He keeps giving this example and says how lucky he was.
Moral of the story-Always wear your stethoscope if you do not want to get shot!!

Jimi Hendrix and the fighter pilot

You begin to write about something and go somewhere else.It's called 'Plot drift',I believe.
I was just ruminating about the effects of music.I don't know if it has a therapeutic effect or not,but I find it very soothing.It steadies my nerves and improves my mood,which is morbid most of the times.
I don't know why Jimi Hendrix killed himself.His songs are so variegated and colourful.I am sure they came out of his brilliant mind.Are brilliant minds restless?Did he get bored after achieving so much in such a short time?Anyway,we lost a few hundred songs due to his impatience.Look at the output of other restless souls like Bob Dylan,Beatles etc.How poor our lives would be without all of them.
The driver of the bus which we travel in everyday is impatient as well.I heard that he has been a lorry driver in the not too recent past.He is super confident and drives as if he is on a 2-wheeler.He makes narrow turns and overtakes everything in his way.He should have been a fighter pilot.

Colours of Goa

I have been wanting to write this from many days but something or the other came up.So,here it is finally.
I went to Goa for the first time in my post graduation days with the guys(actually one guy!).We had a conference in Mangalore and decided to visit the famous 'Miami' of India.It was a low-budget venture since we didn't have much money.We got what we wanted,alright.It was sunny,the beaches were blue and the water was delicious.We swam at all the beaches...Calangute,Anjuna,Baga,Vagator etc. and also sipped the local special-cashew pheni.We did all this in one day on a bike-taxi and stayed in a small room for one day.I had decided that I was going to go back again and again.
Four years later...
I and my family decided to go to Goa.I forgot to check the season(It was monsoon) and I thought off-season meant less number of tourists.The rains started lashing us from Karwar and I thought since Karwar was 'Malnad' region,the weather was so and that there would be no rain in the coastal areas.The rains didn't stop.When we got down from the bus in Panjim,Goa had turned from blue & sunny to muddy,cloudy and rainy!It rained continuously for three days.In spite of that ,we visited all the beaches,went on a cruise and went to some temples.We saw more of Goa than I had seen the last time.
Moral of the story-Offseason means that it is the wrong season to visit!

Clinical Language Practice

I had posted a 9 year old kid with an abscess for incision &drainage in the operation theatre.I had to do it under local anaesthesia,sedation and my sweet talk!So,I started trying to soften him up in my pathetic Telugu & Tamil(The kid knew both & I didn't know both).I tried all through the procedure with gems like "valli irakka?","noppi unda?","ayi poyindi","nidra po","nidra vastunda?","valli irakka ante sollu"etc.I struggled throughout the procedure(not with the procedure but with my communication skills).
After the procedure,I called the mother of the patient in to pacify the patient a little bit.
Guess what she spoke to her child?
"Enappa novu agtha ideya?Alabeda mari,agi hoythu"
Kasthuri Kannada!!I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!!!!