Sutured Dreams

Recent news of an intern being subjected to sexually inappropriate behaviour by the HOD of a well-known college in Trivandrum is not surprising to those of us who have been practicing medicine for a while. It's upsetting yes, but unfortunately not surprising.  The medical hierarchy has always been rigged to favour the ones at the top. Many will claim that this is a good thing and that seniors should be respected. There is no denying that but along with respect there should also be trust. Trust that those in power will not cross the line into abusive and inappropriate behaviour.  It is not exactly a shock to learn that men in this country are unable to behave properly while in the company of women. What is shocking is just how little deterrent there is in the medical fraternity to stop such blatant abuse of power. The girl in the first paragraph found out she was far from the only one who had such experiences with the professor in question. Most campuses don't have any fo...

How does one describe the end of a working experience? There is a mixture of happiness that it happened, sadness that it's over and regret that you couldn't have done more while you were there. Having worked in both government and private hospitals for prolonged periods, I can definitely say that I prefer working in government hospitals for a number of reasons. As an MBBS doctor, you'll definitely be doing more good in a government hospital - can help more people and you'll learn a lot more by seeing more cases and having better followup (people always tend to come back). And you don't have to worry about creating profit for the hospital (something that doesn't come naturally to me).  So when Covid cases started shooting up in Trivandrum last year, I had felt an inherent desire to help out. And as always, I tend to overestimate exactly how much I can help out in the need, which is a recipe for disappointment. Like all things in life, the past few months have had...

It's easy to sympathise with an alcoholic. As long as you don't have to live with them. My experience with one was short but traumatic enough that I had blocked it out completely from my mind for some time.  "Vic" was my father's home nurse for a while but calling him that would be a disservice to home nurses everywhere. His only goal in life was to get as drunk as possible. He figured that working under a doctor would provide easy cash.  The problem for me back then was cash. I had little and was cheated out of months of pay by certain places. I had to work long hours almost all days to get by. There was no one else at home to supervise.  2 weeks after starting work, Vic said he wanted 40k per month as salary, which is the same as I earn today while on Covid duty as a government doctor. Once I made it clear that that wasn't happening, his behaviour began to get progressively worse.  He would ask for money to get groceries in the morning before I went to work...

  What do you do when 2 senior doctors have differing views on a particular topic? A) Go with the doctor who looks older. B) Go with the doctor with more degrees to his name. C) It doesn't matter to me because I'm a junior doctor. D) Go review the literature for yourself and draw your own conclusions. If your natural inclination was anything other than option D, I'm afraid your education has failed you.  Taking things at face value I recently had one of my juniors tell me that a big reason for coronavirus spread was via hair and feet. When I asked for a reference (since I hadn't read anything like that), I was told "That's what the doctor here told me so it must be true". There were no replies after that.  One must always find a balance between being a skeptic and having an open mind. I searched for any evidence to support this claim and have not been able to find anything special thus far (anyone reading is free to point me to any evidence backing this up...

Recently I had advised a friend to visit a nearby Taluk Hospital. Apparently, the doctor there was not only not helpful but also gave a mouthful of colourful words to boot. This behavior is not uncommon in our profession and over the past few months, I feel that I can hardly consider myself to be an exception to this problem. I had decided early in my practice that I did not want to be one of those doctors who needlessly scolds patients. But simply having good intentions is not enough to prevent compassion fatigue from creeping in. It’s a cultural problem. Only a couple of days back I had someone ask me half-jokingly why I needed a day off when I don’t have any family at home (thanks for that). While this comment was tongue-in-cheek, it is more or less along the lines of how most people think. I never realized before how good it is to have an excuse to take a day off (the most acceptable being usually family or religious reasons). Things like trying to recharge your mind is viewed ...

Going back to work and meeting new people provides an opportunity to start anew. But as much as I like to pretend things are as normal as they used to be, there is still a voice in the back of my head telling me that too many bad things have happened for normalcy to resume.  I can function alright most of the time. No one will think anything is amiss. But once in a while, I let slip the vulnerability that lies beneath the surface. The pain I carry with me all the time. But I never show that side of me for too long. No one wants to see that. I prefer to write because it's a non-invasive way of getting these things off my chest that won't make anyone feel particularly uncomfortable.  During the past few months, I've had to deal with a mixture of palpitations, anxiety and loneliness. I guess it's just what happens when everyone you care about disappears from your life one by one and various nefarious elements swoop in to destroy your self-esteem.  I went to see a professio...

 I was recently contacted by a family friend. She had a daughter who had just completed MBBS. She was enquiring if there was any way her daughter could get into government service without having to do Covid duty. Now, I had no idea if this is possible and so just referred them to appropriate authorities. But this incident does show the mentality of the common man towards government jobs in general. They want the money and the recognition but preferably without the hassle that comes with it. The problem though is that the medical profession comes with a lot of responsibility. A lot of lives depend on a single healthcare provider whether they like it or not.  The pandemic has revealed both heroes and cowards this year. The heroes being the ones tackling sick patients going into respiratory failure. This comes with horrible working hours in PPE suits, not to mention the stress and possible burnout that comes with working in uncertain times. The cowards are the ones kicking health...