Sutured Dreams

As thou exit the cocoon Does nostalgia compel thou to look back? At all the hours spent in darkness Preparing for the freedom outside. But what is freedom to thee? Besides a battle against time Thou bask in the sunshine Only to be crushed like a bug by cruel fate. Nature will not permit thee to shine for long So fleeting is thy existence But shine on thou will Bringing a smile to many with thy beauty. Were thou afraid to leave thy cocoon? As I am to leave my own asylum Can I spread the same joy as thee? Or will I suffocate in solitude for the rest of my days? So many doubts, so many questions But the answers are too few I wish to be ignorant, I wish to be free To live as gracefully as thee.

Day before yesterday, just before my shift was about to finish in the evening, an ambulance arrived. Before the patient was shifted, the bystander showed me a referral letter. He also showed an ECG that was obvious ventricular fibrillation. The hospital that referred the patient was about 20 km away. I immediately ordered to shift the patient inside, knowing full well that the prognosis was grave. Ventricular fibrillation is a condition where the heart has stopped pumping blood effectively. The patient will have no pulse. CPR was initiated and the patient was intubated. But it was too late. The 74 year old lady was in asystole and despite our efforts, she could not be revived. There was nothing that we could do. To have any chance of revival from a VF cardiac arrest, you need high quality CPR and early defibrillation. Unfortunately, this patient received neither during the 45 minute transport. This is not a rare incident in Kerala. Few hospitals have a defibrillator. Vast ma...

The biggest difference between an intern and someone that has just passed out is that there is no room for error once you start practicing on your own. You are responsible for any mistake that you make. And any mistake can always land up in legal problems if you are unfortunate enough. No matter how much you read, nothing beats experience. Seeing a case at least once will help you react better - faster, calmer and more efficiently than if you are seeing it for the first time. Practicing at various casualties over the past few months had provided me with a certain degree of confidence. But all of that counts for little when you see something you're not familiar with. So a few days back when a patient came with a history of trauma followed by what appeared to be quadriparesis, I made a rookie mistake of not immediately placing a large bore iv line. I had read about neurogenic shock before of course but somehow that had not struck my mind immediately. And as with most trauma ...

There is no emotion quite as unselfish as empathy. The ability to truly recognize and feel the pain of another person is a rare gift. Many respond to the troubles of others by acts of pity, sympathy or compassion but how many can truly appreciate what another person is going through emotionally? I say it is unselfish because it offers no direct advantage to the empathizer. Sharing the mental anguish of another person is emotionally taxing and oftentimes futile. But the beautiful thing about empathy is that it motivates us to help the sufferer and can enable both the empathizer and the sufferer to reap emotional benefits. Thus, empathy forms the foundation for a tolerant society. What stops us from empathizing? Our egos. Intolerant societies build walls between different classes, religions and genders. People are raised to form their own little bubble in which they live and they believe that everything outside of it is immaterial. Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to empathize wh...

Gary Neville, the great Manchester United right-back, in his autobiography recalled what he had to go through at the youth level before he was given an opportunity with the first team. Neville said that when his youth coach would tell him to run 6 miles in the morning, he would run 7. He and some of his teammates in the youth team that did this, made it to the first team. The others who did not put in the hard yards, did not. A similar attitude is required in medical school. It is not a pre-requisite to be supremely intelligent in order to become a good doctor, just like how you don't have to be naturally gifted at everything to win trophies in football, like Neville. Of course, it helps to be able to learn things quickly, just as it is to have Messi's ability on the ball in football. But attitude and hard work is what shapes good doctors, much like it is essential for young footballers. Ravel Morrison was once touted to be most talented prospect in English football sinc...

An injury-time winner from Marcus Rashford insured that Jose Mourinho's men came away with all 3 points from the Vitality Stadium but one wouldn't have considered that likely after the first 30 minutes. Bournemouth started the first half strongly, completely dominating the first 30 minutes of the contest and taking the lead through Callum Wilson. Though the goal came via a cross from the right, most of Bournemouth's attacking came down the left hand side with Ryan Fraser and Adam Smith looking dangerous as always. It was only after the half hour mark that United finally started to look dangerous. Alexis Sanchez put in one of his better performances in a United shirt, making dangerous runs into the channels. It was one such run that led to him crossing for Martial to slot home the equalizer. Sanchez was also unfortunate to adjudged offside when he was put through by Fred and was one-on-one with Begovic. Fred had earlier spurned a glorious opportunity to equalize w...