Six months into the pandemic, life has become restricted to an arc of 100 meters. Home to hospital and back with the odd weekly outing to buy some fruits and vegetables. Long conversations with friends (luckily, of which I have many), phone calls, WhatsApp calls, video calls (nah, not many, cause I’m perennially running short of internet and being the Scrooge McDuck that I am, getting a bigger net pack is out of question) have not only helped alleviate boredom but to some certainty definitely helped to soothe frayed nerves.
A discussion on restarting the blog has become part of my daily conversations. But, call it a writer’s block or sheer lack of enthusiasm or the weight of uncertainty that has preoccupied the thought space, the inertia is a bit too much to overcome. But, when one is in the medical profession, there’s no shortage to stories to narrate. Thus, somewhere, it’s the narration that has taken the back seat.
Seeing patients is a roller coaster ride. Sometimes, you see a rare condition and feel that “Wow!” factor. The feeling is all the more rewarding when you’re the one to make the primary diagnosis. Academically rewarding always and emotionally draining sometimes. But, then you move on to the next patient and first is relegated a memory archive, only to be retrieved when you sit discussing with a colleague, or preparing a presentation for a clinical meet or when it just bursts into your conscious and you wake up in the middle of the night frantically reading up your textbook and searching PubMed for the most recent studies and researches and treatment modalities and prognostication indices etc. etc. And, yes, you won’t fall asleep until you haven’t read to your heart’s content. Heart? Or brain? Or both? Depends on what drives you, emotion or academics? Or both?
“A doctor needs to be coated. You should be able to see, but not get affected. So, it must be a glass coating, not an asbestos one” said a teacher once. Second year MBBS students that we were then, nodded our heads in affirmative not catching a single meaning of the spoken words. “Kya mast bola na Sir ne.....” is all that we said at the end of the clinic.
A couple of years ago, during a Saturday charity OPD that I was attending, a postop lady in her 60s walked in accompanied with a male in his early 40s. Seeing her discharge papers, she had come for review a week earlier. In a heavy OPD, any unnecessary patient does give that feeling of having wasted your precious time. But now that she had come, and I had examined her, what was the point of feeling anything?
So, regaining my calm I said, “You’ve come a week earlier. Continue these eyedrops and come again next Saturday.”
“Dekha.... bola tha maine.....” she said in a scolding tone looking at her attender – the man in his 40s. Then turning to me she continued in the same chastising tone, “Doctorsaab..... ye hamara ladka.....” and got off the examination chair and limped out of the OPD, still taking support of that man in his 40s, now blushing with embarrassment.
The next patient who walked in had an advanced eye problem. She had been advised a monthly review, but she had come a good leisurely six months later.
‘Super Laid back’ I had already made up an opinion. ‘She’ll say I had gone to the village’ my thoughts continued and I placed a wager with myself. And now, in just a second I was about to be proven right and get the rush of that Eureka! moment. So, in a single breath I asked, “Kaha chale gaye the? Ek mahine baad bulaya tha?”
“Teen ladke hai hamare. Par koi dekhne ko taiyaar nahi. Aaj ye hamari padosi aa rahi thi, to uske saath aa gayi” she replied. Eureka! indeed. What to do now? “Hmmm.....” I nodded. “Ye do test karane hai, dekhkar fir dawai badli karenge. Tab tak poorani chalate raho.” I said as I jotted down my advice and prescription on her OPD sheet in under 30 seconds and moved on to the next patient.
Many a thousand patients later, these two still come back to memory time and again, the scene feeling fresh out of the oven.
Almost a decade later, I’m still trying to figure out if I’ve gotten the glass coating. And if I have, how do I prevent it from becoming asbestos? Where does the sweet spot of titration lie?
Still awaiting my Eureka! moment.
