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Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Sthethoscope Poem



There was a young man in a boston town,

He bought him a stethoscope nice and new

All mounted and finished and polished down,

with an ivory cap and a stopper too.



It happened a spider within did crawl,

And spun him a web of ample size

Wherein there chanced one day to fall

A couple of very imprudent flies.



Now being from Paris but recently

This fine young man would show his skill.

And so they gave him his hand to try

A hospital patient extremely ill.



Then out his stethoscope he took

And on it placed his curious ear,

Mon Dieu! said he with a knowing look

Where here is a sound that's mighty queer

.

There is a empyema beyond a doubt,

We'll plunge a trocar in his side

The diagnosis was made out-

They tapped the patient ;so he died.



Then six young damsels,slight & frail,

Received this kind young doctor's care

They all were getting slim and pale,

And short of breath on mounting stairs.



They all made rhymes with ''sighs" and "skies"

And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls,

And dieted much to their friends surprise,

On pickles and pencils and chalks and coals.



So fast their hearts did bound,

That frightened insects buzzed more;

So over all their chest he found,

The rale siffilant and rale sonore



He shook his Head.

There's Grave's disease,-

I greatly fear you all must die;

A slight postmortem,and if you please,

Surving friend would gratify.



The six young damsels wept aloud.

which so prevailed on six young men.

That each his honest love avowed,



where they all got well again.

This poor young man was all aghast;

The price of stethoscope came down;

And so he was reduced at last,

To practice in a country town.



Now use your ears,all that you can,

But don't forget to mind your eyes.

Or you may be cheated, like this young man.

By a couple of silly,abnormal,flies.





By Oliver Wendell Holmes- An American physician & Poet Harvard Medical School.





Tuesday, July 5, 2011

BEFORE THE ALARM GOES OFF....

28th June, 2011- a date which will always remain etched in my mind, not because it is the day when I have proposed, but because it marks the day the “Final rotations” of our clinical postings have begun. As I see it, the CET results have been declared, and the grand joons will be arriving any day soon. It just seems yesterday, that my results were declared and I landed up in the college of my dreams! Drishti’09 and Aavishkaar’10 seem such a memorable past. Now, it will be someone else’s experience. And very soon GOSUMAG’11 will fall under the same category.
What makes me think more, more than that these are the final months for us to learn, practice, expertise and master our clinical skills, is that these are the final months indeed. “One and a half year more”, someone may point out to me, but don’t you realise how quickly these three years have gone past, these months will nothing but just fly away as well! And if my friend Einstein’s theory of relativity is to hold true, then these will run out even quicker, even before you and I realise it.
On a brief and quick flashback, I am amazed at the amount of experience this place has helped me amass. And I am sure, greater experiences are still in the pipe-line. It has indeed “metamorphosed” me, but in a good way and will still do some more.
What the future holds in store for us, only time can tell. Only time will prove whether 28th June marked “THE BEGINNING OF THE END” or just “THE END OF THE BEGINNING”! Till then I wish to extract more than a hundred percent of joy and memories out of the precious moments that I have left here at the Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College and King Edward VII Memorial Hospital. A sound gongs in my head “TIC – TOC, TIC – TOC ............” can you hear it? Very soon, the alarm will go off and the dream shall be over!