Chapter 39-A kick in the butt

Jan 1996-Onwards

My "vacation" in December was a lot of soul-searching, introspection, answering awkward questions from parents and vowing to do well in the upcoming exams in 3 months time.

I fell short of attendance in Pharm by one class. One.

That is in the past now, however. The fallout of all this is that I have to take these papers along with the 2 regular ones in 3 months time. I also have to attend extra classes to make up attendance and Internal Assessment marks (which are OK anyway) and these classes have to be done outside my normal classes somehow. Along with all this, I have clinics and my PSM posting will be in March.

This is a problem.

The PSM posting is serious stuff. We have finished the happy, carefree field trips and will be posted in a village for a month, going there for 3 hours every morning. At the end of this posting, all of us have a presentation to make which is taken and marked very seriously. It usually involves things like mapping the village, calculating nutritional status of kids in the village, measuring energy deficits, etc etc. It takes a long time and could be fun if it wasn't for my 5 paper debacle.

And it is in March, right before my 2 sets of Send-Ups and 2 sets of Univs.

So, we start the semester. This is a short one, with exams in April. It's supposed to be an easy one, with only Path and Micro, but well, not for me.

My nose is to the grindstone from day 1.

For reading purposes, I shift to Shom's room, who is also reading for upcoming PG Entrance Exams. We are left with about 75% of Robbins, the big Path book to read and finish before March. This covers the whole of systemic pathology and then there are parts of Micro still left-Virology, Parasitology and Mycology.

My days consist of reading Path in Shom's room and little else. It's a huge book but easy to read and very interesting, so that’s not a problem

In the evenings, after class, after the customary tea at Snappy and the compulsory gossip session, I sit down with my reading board in Shom's room and open my Robbins. In the last year, we covered the first 1 chapters or so with Hemat and as I flip through the remaining 30 or so, there is a feeling of impending doom, never far away and barely kept at bay by reading constantly. 

I uncover some interesting tid-bits and tell Shom who makes a note here and there, hoping that some of these little useless facts will crop up in his exams.

This is how the days go by. Come back from class, go to Shom's room, read Robbins till late and sleep. Then repeat the next day.

This semester, in Micro, we have Parasites to deal with and it's just too confusing to remember accurately. I'm sure it's important stuff, but my head starts swimming after the first few worms. All of them seem the same. They all lay eggs which become worms eventually and then lots of things happen in the middle. Some are in water, some go underground, some live on leaves and some in human tissue. Some eggs are round, some are oval, some are single and some are in groups. This kind of thing is best left for the end when hard core mugging will be required. I can't deal with this now.

Of course, there is the entire syllabus of last year on my lap also. All of Pharm, and most of Micro and Path. It does help that since I didn't know my attendance fate till late last year, I did read all of this well and so I can leave it till later.

In Pharm, my nemesis, I walk across to the Dept, meet Dr G and request that I be allowed to attend a few classes and practicals with the Additional Batch. She is all sweetness and light now and agrees readily.

This is going to be like a mini-Final Year. All studies, nose to the books, all serious and no time to play or party. It helps that I am in love with Robbins and every page is being read and underlined.

It's a kick in the butt for sure. Deserved also. I know that and I aam ready but boy,

this is frustrating to the core. Here I am, reading non stop, attending classes, taking notes and abstaining from all manner of fun and frolic, while my classmates are doing pretty much the opposite. Sometimes in the middle of a reading session, usually in the company of Shom, who is reading for PG Entrance Exams, I sit back and take stock of what and why exactly I am doing what I'm doing. 

I know that all of this is my fault and that's the only thing that keeps me going. Over the past 2 years, I know that I do my best work when my ass is about to be kicked and when deadlines are tomorrow and now, I have the entire syllabus of the 2nd MBBS to cover in 2 months. And it's not a small affair by any means. 

Ash has finally left. Probably too tired of the state of room, he has decided to shift to Monkey's room, in Lister Annexe and that's where he will live for the rest of the course. I am alone in the room now, and although it's sad that my roomie is now an ex-roomie, there is much more space to scatter books, clothes and rubbish and more than enough scope for my room to become the worst room in the entire hostel. 

This fits in nicely with Shom's plans though. He has graduated, and gone from the highs of a full blown ceremony with black hats and proud parents to being unemployed and homeless in 1 day. He has been asked to vacate his hostel room and has decided to shift in with me.

This is great news. Shom is a normal person. So that means he likes his room to be fairly clean, which implies that my room will become clean. Which is great. 

He starts by hanging those round, paper lamps we call "globes" and sorts out the interior decor, putting good looking bedsheets and the like. For him, the environment in which to read is important and everything should be just-so. I don't complain since anything he does will be a major improvement. And so, with all of that sorted, the reading marathon continues.

My inability to keep my room anywhere near clean and my penchant for being completely unaware of what's in my room and where it is a well known fact, I believe. Shom has one side of the room, with a nice bookcase and a shoe rack and a bed cover that hangs down from the sides and looks nice. I have all the muck on my side and although Shom has made an effort to make this presentable, it's still rather sad.

One evening, I am sitting in the TV Room, killing precious reading minutes when Shom walks in and announces that there is a snake in the room and I should get up there pronto. No one is really surprised that a) There is a snake in the room and b) I have no idea that there is one.

So I go up, slowly.

It turns out that there is no snake. There is, however, a big fat pregnant cat under the bed waiting no doubt to deliver her little litter right there. It's still a shock and we proceed to somehow coax this cat out and onto the balcony where she can do her thing in less inhabited surroundings.

Also, Puneet has turned vegetarian. This is interesting because he won't tell me the reason for this sudden change in lifestyle or for how long this state of affairs will continue. Puneet is also reading for PG Entrance Exams and has got a bike from Bangalore, on which we sometimes zip down to town for a quick bite. It usually involves a quick trip to Fillo or some place nearby where I grill him on Path and Pharm and he eithers answers or feels like crap. It's like a quick 20 questions with food. But his current situation has complicated things somewhat. Now he wants to find out where the "Chilly Mushroom" tastes like "Chilly Chicken" and where the "Baked Fish" tastes like "Baked Brinjals" etc. It's a fun exercise because now I get to eat all the good stuff and he experiments with new places. It's like discovering a whole new Pondy.

We do this many times in a week and it's instructive, fun and is a huge change from the tedium of the room and reading. I concoct many questions hoping that some of them will land up in his exam and I can get a major party. He just hopes he can get through.

Jan-April 1996

My mornings and afternoons, interrupted by a welcome lunch break are all about classes. In the morning, I have lectures, and clinics, all of which I am attending dutifully, mainly because I have no desire to get caught up in another Attendance disaster scenario.

This semester, we have started classes in Ophthal, ENT and Forensic Medicine in addition to all the various subjects we will be tested on next year. These include Medicine, Surgery and OG and of course, the BIG ONE for the semester, PSM.

The Ophthal book, I soon learn, is a lesson on how NOT to write a book. Apparently copied from a British book and written in an impossible to remember point and bullet style, this one is written by our Head of Dept and so we are expected to memorize this verbatim. And by that, it seems, one means totally word for word, with all the points in order. In a viva, if a point is missed or is not in the exact order as in the book, it shall be pointed about by the examiner who is the author the book.

ENT is a pain. Most of our classes are taken by a guy who's joined Jipmer recently, is close to being obese and takes the most boring classes I have encountered so far. It's just reading off slides and projections. He drones on and on and we doze off and on. I suppose the subject could be interesting, but who's listening?

I am told that when I get a bit older, I will look like this guy. I'm slowly getting there, thanks to Snappy.

Forensic is fun though. It's very different from what we've encountered so far and is about laws and their applications to medicine. So, we have our Prof taking a class on "How to Conduct yourself in Court" and his example is that one should not, under any circumstance, stand in a T-Shirt and Jeans with the T-Shirt caption saying "Screw Me". And other similar stuff. He makes it fun. I am awake during most of these classes.

There are class tests happening at intervals. These are my regular tests in the subjects being covered this semester. Also, there are tests for the Additional Batch who are 6 months behind and so are nearing the end of their semester, the part I was supposed to have finished last year. In the middle of classes and clinics and the odd test, I also have to go and sit for tests with these guys in Pharm and the parts of Micro and Path I have already been tested on. What this does is boost up my Internal Assessment which has now been padded up and looks really good. So I guess that's one good thing.

On the other hand, a typical week would involve 2 or 3 tests, classes, clinics, writing records, attending practicals and answering vivas.

Jan and Feb pass off in peace and pretty fast. It's amazing how time passes when one is NOT having fun too. I discover that though I'm keeping up very well with Path and seem to have really got the hang of it, Micro is not such a fun thing. March is here and my exams will be next month. Also, in this month, as if to really drive home the point, I am starting our PSM posting.

Now, we have had PSM (Community Medicine) postings before, lots of them. But before, they were all about class field trips to various places and general fun and frolic. This one, however, is very serious stuff. This is our last PSM posting and can make or break our PSM Univs also. And it's happening 30 days before I take my exams.

In this posting, which lasts from 10 AM to 1 PM daily, we will be allotted one village somewhere. Our job will to analyze the whole place, from layout and geography, to health issues, to water and sanitation, nutrition  etc etc. This will then have to presented to the Dept at the end and is marked and taken up for Internal Assessment. I used to use some of the Clinics time, especially the minor ones like Dermat and Radiology to read some Path or Pharm while lounging around the hospital, but here, there won't be much time. So I put a Baby Robbins in my coat pocket, hoping to read some stuff on the bus and we head off.

This could have been fun. Maybe it will be.