The Inherited sins

       Do you believe the sons and daughters will have to bear the weight of their fathers’ sins like they inherit their fortune? Well, I don’t have any definite answer. I have been taught to keep away the fortune, which has blood on it, not literally blood, but the money, which is not earned in a right way. Yeah, that is a thing, which we can try to do. But what about knowledge, that has been obtained distilling sufferings and pains of innocent human beings? As a man of modern medicine, who believes and practices the ways of science that has been evolved as a result of hard work of numerous famous and infamous people belonging to several generations, I think I am obliged to carry a part of their sins too.

             The first and primary principle of modern medicine is ‘do no harm’. It makes sense and it is easy to practice in a usual clinical case, given the comfort of advanced pharmacological and anesthetic facilities available now a days. There was a time when pain was inevitable part of medical treatment. Thanks to our forefathers who had spent their lives developing and researching, providing todays comfort. As we go through the history books, we come across many of them. A great majority of these physicians are not mentioned anywhere, but still it is imaginable how these people contributed.

              Same time, when we go back to history of medicine, we come across notorious doctors who operated on normal people for no reason, patients with no reason and painful procedures, which were used to make a normal person insane. The time, when women were subjected to cruel surgeries without their consent, the outlaws and slaves were treated as guinea pigs, the holocaust victims upon whom grave experiments were done is not so far. There is no end to the list of declassified project reports, which include injecting harmful substances to normal people and withholding standard available treatments to patients without their consent for the purpose of research. It is understandable that we do not print those names in history books as glorious chapters, but sure we do make use of knowledge attained through such inhuman experiments.

             So, having evil past will make us evil? I don’t know. But if there is something as inherited sins, then I think it is not going to be contained with the man of medicine, I am sure, the patients or people who are benefited from the use of those knowledge are also going to share those sins. Sure, there has to be a heart of hardened feelings to be a true man of medicine. We practice our knowledge upon the patients in good faith.

Cacography; The art of beautiful handwriting

       The doctors are notorious for their handwriting. Well, everyone in this profession knows it is a bitter reality. Most of the medical students will find it difficult to decipher their senior’s case sheets. But as the medical life progresses, we get used to it. We learn to decipher things. The writing becomes just a matter of giving the brain a cue to guess what is meant. Most of the time we manage. But there are some very difficult cases that can really tear your head apart. I am lucky to have some people with such blessing with me.

           I have wondered why it happens. Most of the medical students are of high intellectual grade, the reason why they got it into this profession. One factor may the shear volume of things of repetitive nature we have to not down daily. I have handwriting, which is good if I write slowly, but as it get busy it gradually deteriorates. Sometime I deliberately write in a shabby manner because I am bored writing the same thing many times. Rarely I do that to prevent other people from reading.

I have also seen, some doctors who actually take sincere effort to keep all their writing neat and clear. They need appreciation. There are some other people whom I hate so much. They write in such a way that, if you look from a distance it is all uniform even calligraphy. But if you try to read what they have written, you will be in soup. There will be so many incomplete words and meaningless strokes. One of my friend underlines wherever he finds comfortable. Those lines do not mean anything.

patient position

          When you are a surgeon, then you will also have ample opportunity to express your artistic skill. Here is my colleague’s impression of patient position for donor nephrectomy. Look at that expression. So deep and thoughtful.

Some non-vegetarian thoughts

    Yesterday we had a luncheon at our Department chief’s home. On the way back, some one asked me how was the party? I replied “It was very nice, although the food was veg”. Yeah, exactly that is my point. I take a mixed diet (that’s how we say. We are not non-vegetarians because we also eat vegetarian food. Lol). If some one asks me what are my feelings towards vegetarians, “I don’t have anything against them and I am perfectly ok living with them although I feel pity for them in my mind.” 

        Recently one of my teachers, who is a vegetarian by choice, was persuading his son over phone “son, please eat something at noon, when I come in the evening, I will take you out and we will have a nice dinner”. This really ignited my thoughts. My mom had to persuade me endless time to have food, especially school tiffin, lunch etc. But all that time it was vegetarian food. Positively, I cannot recollect even a single time when she had to persuade me to take a chicken or meat dish. I am talking about me. I have little cousin sisters who are like, all allergic to food, no matter what it is.

       I have a close college friend. Chicken biriyani is like an antidepressant for her. After a harsh day in college or hard day at hospital, it was beautiful to see her face glowing with happiness after a nice meal. Now, this is a common phenomenon seen in Delhi. So many vegetarians live here. I had a roommate, a typical Delhite. I can remember how desperate she was when she had to stop eating non-veg food, because her boyfriend did not like it. The funny thing, she was happy to have non-veg whenever she was fighting with him. That relationship is still going on with periods of intermittent war and peace.

    

     I had another batch-mate, a vegetarian. She was totally allergic to eggs. Even a smell of egg, or faint trace of egg, she will swell up and have rashes. Poor girl! I have never met a vegetarian, who does not drink milk. As of me, I have never ever eaten a vegetarian dish that I would prefer than a non-vegetarian dish.

     To have a friend who enjoys eating and drinking the same things as you do is the best friend you can have.

United States, Europe and Medical History

     I was reading Bailey & Love’s Short Practice of Surgery. I find it an extremely useful book for a beginner in surgery. It starts every topic with a definition, which can be quoted in any exam, since this book is considered to be a standard textbook in surgery. Rather than that, one thing I love about this book is the additional historical aspects and comments given in small boxes, about the surgeons and surgeries described in this book. Once I completed reading this book, I felt like I have done a small picnic through the history of surgery. I would like to share some thoughts here.

        

       I consider golden period of surgeons, the time between 1850 and 1925. Why, because that was the time the surgeon could name anything. Who ever dared to do something new, had that procedure called by his name. Lot of new instruments were designed and named during this time. May be one specific reason is invent of anesthesia for the surgical procedures, which made things palatable for the patient.

      

    The same period was also the birth time of all major medical industries; drug companies, healthcare products, medical machineries etc. Most of the industrial giants in the medical and surgical field were started during this time. Not only companies, most of the famous clinics and medical institutes in United States and United Kingdom were also started during this period.

     Another interesting thing I found is that, if I chart the countries on a map according to the contribution they made to the modern medicine, (my reference is Bailey only.) there will be only few countries in this medical atlas; US, European nations, especially UK, France, Germany and Japan. Needless to mention, Japanese are always portrayed as people with extreme standards that Western people find difficult to accept (explained as over enthusiastic). There are occasional mentions about some Asian and Middle East countries. Africa, Saudi Arabia and India are always the contributors of clinical images of bizarre tropical illness. I don’t know whether there are any special reasons, but China and Russia are totally out of scene. Australia also does not seem to have contributed much. When it comes to names, United States and UK needs a special mention. I cannot count how many classifications, categories and charts are named after various places in US and UK.

        This explains why Modern medicine is aptly called ‘English Medicine’ in my place.