What is your verdict?

Sometimes in life,one tends to stumble upon situations that make you feel helpless even when you are yearning to help.

This story is about a doctor.I shall not say who or where.You tell me what you think.

There was a doctor in a small town.Patients were always queuing up outside his door.They claimed that their diseases seemed to get cured immediately on taking his treatment.They knew he was expensive but were ready to spend because the remedy never failed.A gifted doctor?Its for you to decide.

My husband and I were curious to know what drugs this particular doctor gives and makes everyone up & about so fast.These are a few instances we came across.When patients went with complaints of high fever,he gave them a high dose of iv steroids and brought down their temperature immediately.Then why shouldn't the innocent patients sing songs of praises?A simple 1st degree burns of only anterior aspect of 1 forearm,by plain boiling water was prescribed IV 3rd generation cephalosporins and IV Amikacin for a single day.A lady with diagnosed chronic allergic upper airway disease with occasional allergic bronchitis,with no history of fever was immediately prescribed IV Cefaperazone,IV Sulbactam,IV Amikacin,IV Deriphyllin,IV Avil.

The thing which irked me most was the trust these patients had in this doctor.If you advised them to go to another well known doctor in the locality,they were reluctant because they feel they will not get cured as fast as with this fellow.

Well it does not seem that right to me.If someone can tell me what the rationale was for the above treatment then I'm ready to listen.Do give me your views.

Hiisssssssssss....goes the SNAKE

Yes I know what you must be thinking...'why is she talking about snakes of all things??' Well simply because I was thinking of a few 'snake' related moments recently and thought of writing on it.

Snakes are one of the most feared and unfortunately one of the commonly encountered species.My land Kerala has its own generous supply of it.They are even worshipped and thus the numerous sarpakavu in the state.Also don't forget the image of the snake charmer from India which is depicted in every foreign movie on India.

There are many who have had their own experiences with the hissing monster.My own grandmother is so scared to even take its name that she calls it mettavan (the other one).My first experiences with the slithering reptile was in medical college during my undergrad days.The number of snakes sighted in our hostel were not too few.I remember the day of our Forensic practical exam.The examiner asked us various questions on snakes and how to identify the various poisonous types etc.After returning back to hostel in the evening we heard someone scream snake and instead of fleeing from the scene we went ahead to identify the type of snake.Sounds crazy?Definitely!

Then during my internship I had several experiences with snake,well their victims to be exact.The people brought following a snake bite were umpteen and all had a different story to tell.Not all of them were serious bites.And even more interesting were the times when the responsible snakes were brought to the casualty to be identified.Once they brought a snake in a plastic bag and yours truly happened to be on duty.When they asked me to look at the snake in the bag,I agreed reluctantly.Gathering courage, I asked them to open the flimsy plastic bag in their hands.When they opened it there was a rustle of the plastic and some movement within and I leapt and went back a few feet.The man burst out laughing seeing the duty doctor terrified and explained that it was his hand beneath the bag that caused the movement.Oh boy!How embarassing.Hehe.

This one I heard from a fellow intern.Along came a snake in a tin this time and the people who brought it were not sure it was dead.Everyone crowded around the tin and were bending over to see the controversial attacker.As soon as the lid came off,BOOM! Off went the lights too.Yes Kerala is also known for its power cuts.Scuttling feet and little screams of terror were heard.However when the generator came on,everyone was relieved to find the snake curled around in the tin with its evil head smashed and motionless.

One late night during my duty,3 young chaps came and one of them had a cloth tied around his leg.Snake bite again.On explaining to them that since the snake was unidentified we had to keep the patient under observation for a day as a precaution in case things went wrong,the 2 bystanders burst out laughing and the victim grinned sheepishly.Never before had I noticed such a behaviour after a possible dangerous snake bite. On enquiring the reason for their peculiar reaction they told me that it was the victims wedding the next morning.Poor fella.I couldn't help grinning too.Well in case you're wondering,they left early next morning against medical advice.Since he did not reappear, I assume the bride did not lose her groom to a snake.

Enough of snakes for a day?I sure had enough.So till the next time,ciao and hissssssssssssssss.................

A Year has Ended & a New Begins

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Apple of my Eye

Sometimes we come across certain people,places or situations which make us realise how lucky we are and make us wonder about the life we take for granted,well isn't it close to perfect?

Few days ago we had a tiny tot as our patient in the department of Ophthalmology.Such a cute little chubby toddler who was giggling away with pure joy whenever his father called out to him or his mother tickled him.Within minutes he was surrounded by the people seated next to the lovely family in the waiting room.The perfect picture of a perfect baby right?

Well unfortunately God had other plans.

This little 7 month old baby was blind in both eyes and would never ever see this world!

The news shocks even the toughest of souls,melts the hardest hearts and makes every nonbeliever say a thank you to the Creator above.

Little baby Abhishek was the first born to his young parents.He was the apple of their eye from the time they set their eyes upon his tiny face.When he was born his parents might have counted his tiny toes and fingers and heard him crying loudly when hungry  and finally watched him sleeping contendly and thought that their little son was as normal as could be.Imagine their bewilderment once their son grew bigger and healthier but would not look at their faces at all and they began to suspect if fate did indeed play a cruel game with them.

Recently only they came face to face with the bitter truth.Their precious had cortical blindness.A type of blindness where the damaged part is the brain area controlling vision.Also 90% of that area was damaged,so there was almost no chances of recovery.Plus no cure.

However one thing that struck me was that they still loved and cared for him immensely and was not showing their sadness to us.They seemed to have accepted it as their fate and embraced it with open arms.They now took joy from the fact that he was showing at least some signs of sight on bringing their face right up to his little one,which most probably is just shadow perception.However they seem glad to atleast have that much.They count him among their blessings.

Looking back,there are many things which this little family has taught me.Hope they taught you something too.I shall end this post by asking you to say a word of prayer for Abhishek and his parents.

Me,the DOCTOR

Did I always want to be a doctor??Did I become a doctor because my parents are doctors??Did my parents force me to be a doctor??These are just a few of the many questions I've been asked for a long long time.

I remember when I was a little kid in primary school my school bus driver used to tell the teachers in the bus "She's a little doctor" just because my parents were.From the time I have memories I remember hating it.Why did I hate it?Mainly because people just assumed I would be one from the very start.Well can you blame them now? ;)

I was always good in maths and physics in school.More of the subjects where you didn't have to mug up but just apply the things you understood.I would only study biology whenever an exam was approaching because it was not challenging enough.I was the kind who would get full in the various problems in the paper whereas lose for the derivations and stuff in which people usually score because they just have to learn it by heart. Or I would do my own derivations in the paper (which was not always the best way to do it).Thus I thought,I'd better be an engineer especially an architect and also do interior decorating as I always found that interesting.But fate had other plans.

When we had to choose our subject options in the 11th grade my parents left the choice to me and naturally they felt that I would take maths and computer science and leave out biology.However when my best pal Anjali and I decided to browse through the 11th grade textbooks,I found the computer science book highly uncomfortable.I could not study that.Then I took up my senior Anu's biology book and thats when I realised that I would indeed like to pursue that.Then in the 12th grade when Biology started teaching about the human body I almost let go of maths (which I thought of as my first love) totally.It finally started registering in my mind that bio would not be mugging up if found interesting and you understood it.

I guess that and the fact that my parents have always been people I admired silently and also that I referred to a working place as a clinic more often than an office really helped me make my final choice.That's when I realised that the childhood visits to my parents clinic were wonderful and I always felt comfortable there.

So folks here I am,a doctor now.I finished my internship a month ago so yes now I am a full fledged doctor.When the patients come back to you after they are better and thank you for helping them,or when some patient insists that you yourself do a certain procedure for them,or when they search for you to show their lab investigations etc it is a wonderful feeling which just makes me glad to be in my chosen field.

I hope and believe I will never have an opportunity to regret my decisions.I pray that God makes me a good doctor and gives me the strength and courage to be one.

P.S. All you people who used to call me 'Lil Doc' well looks like your predictions came true.