Chapter 27 -The start of Clinical Years

Dec 1994
I am at home, not doing anything much. One morning, someone in College calls me and tells me that I have somehow passed. This is not entirely unexpected, but this kind of news is always welcome. With exams, one is never quite sure and so, after 18 months or so in Jipmer, I have managed to navigate the 1st MBBS, and by all accounts, should be entering easier territory. Or so it seems. I wasn't to know it of course, but this year was going to be affect my life very deeply.

Jan 1995
I feel like I've entered a new class in school. The subjects are different, the books seem bigger and stranger. The teachers are new. For the past 18 months, we've been taught in Lecture Theatres on the 1st 2 floors of the College (Hunter and Bernard Theatres), and now we will move up, quite literally to the 2nd and 3rd floors. Pasteur Theatre and Lister Theatre will be our new homes now. Just moving up a flight of stairs makes me feel senior already.
Classes have not started yet and I'm already excited. For the next 3 years, we will be going to clinics, OT etc-doing the "real" doctor stuff. I have bought a new stethoscope, a Littman, quite expensive and at present, quite useless.

Advice has been trickling in:
"Golu bugger, make sure you attend classes"
"Just attend clinics yaar, lectures are just fart"
"Everyone fails Pharmacology"
"Make the most of this year-drink every day"
.....
Not all of it is solicited. In turn , I make it a point to act all senior and dispense my own advice to my juniors (the only junior batch I have), temporarily forgetting what drama it took for me just to get through Anatomy.
There are failures of course. About 15 from my batch. They will form the Additional batch and will repeat the failed subjects in 6 months time, and will continue throughout the course 6 months behind the rest of us. It seems cruel but I'm quickly learning that this course is not always fair and a far cry from the hey days of school.

After the relative paucity of subjects in the past 18 months, I am hit with the full load of stuff that will continue throughout the next 3 years. This is the real deal. For starters, there is the trio of Pharmacology, Pathology and Microbiology. These are the subjects we will be examined on later in the year.
Then, there is Medicine, Surgery and Obs/Gyn. There will be clinical postings as well as lecture classes on these which will continue till the end of the course.
And then, there is Preventive and Social Medicine. Known usually by its acronym- PSM, this one is a bit of a mystery. It is neither core clinical medicine nor a basic science and a quick glance at the book, written by "Park" shows that it covers things like Health Programmes, Statistics and a chapter on various types of toilets. I am told by seniors that PSM organizes fun field trips but the reading is very drab. Our introductory Lecture is taken by Prof Dana, who is affectionately known as Danny Boy. Unfortunately, in the same class he also tells us he is retiring soon.
On the first day itself, the entire class has been divided into 4 batches in alphabetical order for the clinical postings. I am in Batch C, and there I shall stay for the next 36 months. There is no question change of batches or any such thing. If you don't get along, its your problem.
Batch C starts their clinical life with Obs/Gyn. I start my clinical life with a mega crash course in Tamil.
For someone from North India, this is about as alien a language as they come. The script means nothing to me, the words sound as unfamiliar as they can and the first hour of my posting is spent in abject despair. Apparently, we will not get interpreters in our exams if the patient can speak Tamil. My MBBS course just went up several notches in difficulty but I take heart from the fact that no one has had language issues by the time Final Year arrives. One just learns eventually and I know I'll have to as well.

Rahul has also scraped through and has entered the Golden Year of MBBS-his batch will organize Spandan and the rest and it is perhaps the most relaxed year of MBBS, although "relaxed" just means a little less tension, a little less stress and a little more extra-curricular fun.
Bong has arrived in Final Year and I can see a change in attitude already. Casual gossip sessions are minimized, reading has started in earnest and he seems to exude this air of seniority. Final Year batches are an exalted bunch, a batch that has "been there and done that" and now has to "go there and do that" (pass the bloody Finals). He's reading the same books that I have just bought, except that they are all marked with highlighters and accompanied by reams of notes and scribbles. I guess my lovely new books will meet that same fate also.
Shom, Vikrant, Plaha, Mishra and all have passed Final Year and are now Interns. Their MBBS ordeal is over and will be replaced by the tragi-comedy that Internship can be. From the seniormost Med School students they are now the Junior most Hospital staff. Still, they get paid and don't have to study.
Vikrant and Shom are in Batch D of their batch and have started their Internship life with the PSM posting, also known as the "honeymoon" period of Internship. This is spent in either the Rural Health Centre a few kms away in a village called Ramanathpuram or in the Urban Centre near the sea called Kurchikupam. The RHC posting promises to be fun, with a casual OPD, and many hours spent drinking toddy and playing cricket.

It's a new year, a new day and a new chapter in my nascent MBBS life has begun. In my dirtyish shirt, covered up with my new, clean, white coat and adorned with my useless, expensive steth over my neck, I join my other Batch C mates outside Prof A's room. Prof A-she of the scary Maruti car, a legend in College and Head of the Obs Dept.

My Clinical Years have started. A milestone has been crossed.