The eyes cannot see what the mind doesnt know. Fortunately for the modern age surgeons, the mind knows a lot or maybe we like to think that way. Surgery or as a matter of fact MEDICINE is a dynamic field, things are evolving every day.The principles we follow today may become irrelevant 5-10 years hence. New innovative ideas and enormous amount of research work may lead us to an era where we are able to offer surgeries with minimal morbidity and mortality. Robotic surgery and Tele conferencing surgeries are already being carried out. Maybe in a few years time surgeons would operate sitting in a console room controling Robots doing the actual work. Infact surgeries are being done using MRI to give real time information about the blood vesses and anatomic stuctures.
All this development comes at a price ofcourse, the scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries have toiled hard and some even gave their lives for their passion and work.
Marie Sk?odowska Curie (famously known as Madam Curie) died of aplastic anemia obviously unaware of the hazards of radioactivity she discovered.
In the discovery of Helicobacter Pylori, Marshall swallowed live bacteria to prove their existence and fullfill the Koch’s postulates.
Numerous dedicated doctors and scientists have worked very hard in the best years of their lives to bring medicine to the state it currently is.
But we can not sit back and enjoy the moment, still a lot of research work has to be done, New diseases like AIDS, Hepatitis C , most of the cancers have no cure. New innovations are coming up regularly and I am sure the day is not far when we have cure for the incurable.
I am in this field from 2001, thats almost 7 years and have a fair bit of idea about different type of surgeons. The one thing common in all of them is their ego and desire to do things in a different way.
In my 1st year as a junior resident, I was confronted by two senior residents, one was considered to be very good, the other one was just average. The 1st one was a perfectionist and liked to do things exactly as they were written in the books, the 2nd one hardly ever cared.
Then there was an assistant professor, he used to sing songs in OT when he was nervous or when extremely happy. Some of the songs were awesome and I used to add them to my playlist immediately.
Then there was my thesis guide, he was extremely well behaved with everyone in the OT and was an excellent surgeon, respected by everyone.
There was another one; just an average surgeon who thought he was the best. He used to look up frequently to see who was admiring his skill and handywok.
Later in my 2nd and 3rd year I had a unit head who had very limited or outdated knowledge and used to prefer thyroid surgeries.. He was a good speaker and initially everyone was highly impressed. Only after a few weeks you would know what a jerk he was.He used to make up OT table stories and we had to put up a straight face. The moment he left everyone used to burst into spontaneous laughter.There were evenings dedicated to him and we would just sit and talk about his stories. (He was a nice person thiough).
After My post graduation I worked a bit in Cardiac surgery unit and was confronted with two surgeons of extremely opposite nature..
To be continued
One was extremely confident and sure about the work he was doing , it was fun to work with him , the other one it seemed was highly distressed while working, he was not very proficient in his work and always used to find excuses to blame us for his mishaps.
I have already come to a conclusion in my short career, no matter how the surgeon is inside the theatre, he would always be a different person outside it.
One of my juniors said this to me when I demanded why a few simple things could not be done on time. We were all overworked, As post graduate students we were in the hospital for upto 60-70 hours at a stretch on every 3rd weekend. (24 hours sunday + 24 hours monday + 8 hrs OR on tuesday
sleep in the ward 3 hours + postoperative round 9 pm Tuesday)
At that time I didnt give this remark much attention but now I realize how right he was. How can a hospital system in which the three working residents( who havent slept for 18-24 hours ) provide effective services to their patients. Of course these things are understood by everyone concerned still no effective action is taken.
To be cont…
To continue rest of the thoughts…
Of course all our consultants know about the kind of physical and mental stress a resident has to go through, yet they choose to ignore it with the simple “We have undergone the same thing during our residency days” Point is taken but what about the patient load. Was it still the same as it was 10 years ago.
Answer is a an owerwhelming NO. You cant expect to treat patients the same was you were doing 6-10 years ago.
The frustration was evident every time Indian contingent came back from the Olympics empty handed.
As a child I used to think and later media used to highlight the point “how a nation of a billion people cant get a medal in olympics”. That later changed to Gold after Leander Paes’s bronze medal in 1996 and RajyaVardhan singh Rathore’s Silver Medal in 2004. Till now we had to content with stories of the legendary Milkha singh and PT Usha (both of them missed bronze by a fraction of a second). Abhinav Bindra’s exciting performance will surely go a long way in boosting the morale of indian athletes and contingent in Bejing.
Saina’s exciting win in badminton against a better ranked opponent is also good news and i think she is one match away from a medal
A passing refrence– India lost the series against Srilnaka in cricket 2-1.Shh. The less said, the better.
Every time i come out finishing a laparotomy, relieved though i am There are numerous “What ifs” in my mind. The system I work in is not certainly the best in the world and there are certain areas in which mistakes can occur.
Like for example we always forget to take the critical “time off ” before surgery to correctly identify the side and organ to be removed. The floor nurse is hardly visible except at the time of the final counts and the scrub nurses keep rotating if the surgery is long. Obviously they all are very efficient in their work and so far no mistakes have occured but we need to strenghthen our thoughts and minimise the mistakes.Blog Portal
Despite the heroics of Srilankan Spinners,Sehwag and Harbhjan helped India win the 2nd test at Galle.
Winning the toss was important as it would be in the 3rd test at SSC. The Indian seamers did a commendable job in the 2nd innings taking 4 wickets between them and providing early breakthroughs.
Tendulkar, Laxman, Dravid and Ganguly are still to fire , I think batting 1st on the placid SSC wicket will help them.
As for the Srilankans they lacked application in batting and looked as vulnerable to pace as India did to spin.The 3rd test has great prospects for us and after a long time an Indian series in Lanka looks exciting.
Credit goes to Harbhajan Singh for the way he came back in the 2nd test; Its not easy to sit out for a long time, come back and perform like the way he did.
As i had predicted or rather feared, Ajanta Mendis proves to be a mystery bowler and most of the batsmen have no clue about his unorthodox action. He took 6 wickets in the 1st innings and most of the batsmen couldnt go into double figures. He bowls the offcutter, legspin, googly and the straighter one with the same action and is very hard to pick.Only Sehwag seems to have a clue against him.
After the Asia cup loss Kumble said experienced players like Dravid and Laxman will easily sort him out but Dravid has been out to him three times in as many innings.
Indians are still in the game mainly due to two superb individual performances from Sehwag and Harbhajan otherwise they dont really have anything to cheer about.
