Jan-Mar 1995
..and so, after failed attempts at asking names in Tamil and getting used to stethoscopes hanging around necks, our 1st 4 week OG posting is drawing to a close. We are escorted to the Labour Room to get a close-up view of the nitty-griities of delivering babies and the like. There are 2 Labour Rooms, one called "Clean" (CLR) and the other Septic (SLR). At first glance, the SLR is FAR cleaner and quieter than the CLR, but the SLR is where potentially contaminated cases (mothers) are housed.
It's chaos. It's overwhelming. And it smells of amniotic fluid.
The CLR is opposite ward 12 and the corridor is lined with a few pregnant mothers awaiting their turn inside. A ward just outside has patients being treated for Eclampsia (Epilepsy in pregnancy). We enter a pair of swinging doors and are greeted by a freezer located next to the door.
We are made to take some guesses on what this freezer could possibly hold.
There are placentas. Lots of them. Frozen.
There are 4 rooms with delivery tables and a few doctors running around. I also see the Final Year guys I had seen in the Ward, looking even more haggard and stressed. It turns out that they do this posting for 14 straight days, sleeping for 3-4 hours in the hospital, going back to the rooms only to eat and bathe.
They are the backbone of the Labour Room and do deliveries, suture wounds, assist in surgeries and generally run around all the time. They are also exempt from all classes except OG. I guess that''s the only silver lining.
When not doing all this, they monitor patients and rumour has it that their records are seen by Madam A. Hence ,there is much tension in the air. Bad behaviour in the Labour Room can come back to haunt you in exams it seems.
Our Ward Leaving arrives. When I call home the day before, my mother imagines that this event consists of a party to celebrate the end of our posting.
Each of us is allotted a case and we need to take a history and present it to whoever is coming to listen. Marks will be allotted and will count towards Internal Assessment. The history, naturally, is to be taken in Tamil. No interpreters are allowed.
I have mugged up all the Tamil needed and ask away. As usual, figuring out the answers is a problem, but I'm catching on just a little,enough to fool my examiner into passing me.....
So much for a party. Till I graduate, there will be about 30 more such "parties", increasing in intensity and importance.
There is talk about organizing a Class Trip, now that University exams are a year away and there is some time. There is a toss-up between Kodaikanal and Ooty.
In the meantime, the usual happens. Classes go on, some without me, Snappy sessions are in full swing, almost never without me, and rooftop and hostel parties happen regularly, never without me.
Our whisky drinking is progressing. Starting off with a crude brand called "Bagpiper", which tastes like a mixture of alcohol and spirit, we've moved up to "Bagpiper Gold". This is just slightly better but indicates improving tastes and better appreciation for the finer things in life.
A Rum/Coke pre-mixed drink called "Cariba" has made it's appearance and it saves time and money since there is no Coke mixing involved with the Rum. It's just OK and is in our arsenal for a short time, till Old Monk makes a roaring come back.
So it is Old and Gold for a while. And the parties continue in the wing, once in my room.
My room is a favourite venue for some parties since I have a Music System, a Philips deck gifted by Dad. This has a double deck, a radio, but no CD. I'm in love with it and try to catch Sri Lankan Radio, succeeding only after numerous attempts have been made at pointing the antenna in different directions.
Now, this deck has a plastic casing and has sliding controls on top. When the slider is slid, there is thus a gap going deep into the bowels of the thing.
In one particularly rowdy party, late at night, Vinay decides that he must mix the drinks as a bartender does. Therefore, he takes a 7 Up bottle, opens it and shakes it vigorously, with his thumb partially blocking the opening, creating a fountain of 7 Up which is supposed to mix with the Vodka some guys are drinking.
That is the theory.A steady stream of 7 Up lands on my deck and makes it's way through the various openings in the various sliders.
That was the day the music died (for a while).
The music splutters and stops. I am really pissed (and drunk). Everyone is taking turns to screw Vinay but I'm more concerned that that my deck just died. Someone gets the bright idea that "After all, it's just liquid. So if we focus the table lamp on it, the heat will get the 7 Up out of there and the deck should work". This sounds plausible and so I focus my lamp with it's 60W bulb closer to the top of the deck.
The party over, the music stopped and our stomachs rumbling, we head off to the shacks for tea, egg parathas and other sundry stuff.
About an hour later, Rahul and I come back to my room.
The heat has melted the plastic on my deck partially. The sliders now are stuck halfway. But it plays!!! My deck stayed that way forever. Melted, partially burnt but working.
In another party happening on the roof of Osler House, Condom is seriously drunk. It's a full moon and he's going on and on about how he's in love with the moon. How the moon is so beautiful and how it's shining etc etc. This goes on for a while and finally, some part of our cocktailed brains figures out that he might actually be in love with a person and not the moon. This is interesting and we spend the rest of the night pestering him about who this might be. He does not oblige.
In other news, Rajeetha and Phani are now officially a pair and very happy about it. They are often seen spotted in the library or here and there, but always together. So Phani bites the dust.
My First Ward Leaving Later...
...So that's the end of OG and the beginning of Pediatrics, about which my memory is extremely fuzzy.
Pediatrics is spent mostly in the Ward, looking at impossibly small and desperately sick children and babies. The Ward is on the 1st floor and just outside it is an examination table where I always see someone trying to somehow examine a crying, screaming child.
The Head, Prof S, is a stickler for breast feeding and we are reminded constantly about it's various advantages and how bottle feeding is the new "pure evil". There are posters here and there about this, along with a chart showing the symptoms of something called "Dengue Fever" and "Chicken Gun Ya fever" which of course, sounds funny at first.
The feel of the Ward is the same we encountered in OG one floor below. The number of people is twice as many, since babies are accompanied by mothers, some of whom look so worried and helpless that it's depressing when I can't answer any of their questions, mostly because I just don't have the answers.
I haven't mastered the art of "saying something but nothing" yet that doctors somehow learn. I keep quiet.
Pediatrics this posting involves more History taking and an introduction to examination. I see pallor, clubbing, malnutrition, heart disease, kidney failure, cancers.
It's just depressing to see all this in a kid. Yet, we have to, and will be examined on it.
One guy takes 6 attempts to start an Intravenous Line on a kid who is so sick he can hardly scream. Veins in kids are small and fragile, I learn quickly and this is a skill where Pediatricians are masters. This subject requires tremendous patience, not my forte.
I decide that I cannot do Pediatrics later in life.
Along with this, we plod along in Pharm, Path and Micro. Other lectures in Medicine, Surgery etc are taking shape. I always sat on the back benches in 1st year and that has not changed. It's fun to read the graffiti on the benches and then to contribute some of our own. One feature about lectures that has not changed still is that the girls and boys sit separately. There is no decree or rule about this but that's how it happens. Always. The boys occupy the Right and Middle Sections and the girls sit on the Left.
Some girls sit on the front bench and take copious notes, often pausing to highlight important points and using Sketch pens.....
It's remarkable how interest in a class declines from front to back.
Our 1st Pharm Test is announced. This will be a 3 week marathon. So I gear up and make a Time Table for it like a good student would.
And like 99.9 % of Time Tables, it's shot to hell and I am studying at the last minute.
The theory part is OK..At least this is an interesting subject and Katzung is a Godsend. The pracs are OK too. In the PharmDyn lab, we draw lots to see what experiment we get. Mine involves injecting an unknown drug into some tissue to see what happens and then identify it. Something on receptor actions on isolated heart muscles. There is a viva also, typically sarcastic which is the norm for Pharmacology.
We then switch to Pharmacy where I have to make some kind of a solution. The "recipe" I recall well, but the damn thing just won't dissolve. So that's that.
The main viva is terrifying. One on One with someone whose sole purpose of existence is to make you realize how little you know. And so, after a reasonable exam and like most of the class, I fail.
Back in the civilized world of the hostels, I see Shom and Vikrant on and off on their way to and from the Rural and Urban Health centres. Internship is kind to them for the moment and Vikrant is making plans to go home (Chandigarh, my hometown too) in April. They have a 4 week Elective posting after their Comm Med posting and Vikrant has chosen to do Cardiology.
The lazy bums have chosen such things as Forensic medicine, where all one does is see some autopsies and sleep all day.
Rahul has exams in 2 months time but this is not deterring him in any way from the usual hostel party scene. Bong has disappeared completely and is engrossed in Final Year.
One evening in Snappy, me, Vinay, Rahul and Shom are wasting time as usual. Someone says something and before we know it, Rahul and Shom are in a nasty verbal exchange. Really nasty.
Now, Rahul is much better built than Shom and so before it turns physical, Vikrant intervenes and the two push off. They don't speak to each other or even about each other. For many days.
This is particularly awkward for me since I know both of them so well, they were both (still are) good friends till a minute ago and they live practically next door. In parties, they don't talk. They don't drop into each other's rooms. Like they don't exist.
Our Class Trip has been finalized. We are headed to KodaiKanal for 3 days. It will be cold and beautiful, the booze will keep us warm and it promises to be much fun.
Kodai here we come!!
A few days later, we come to know that we will going to Kodaikanal. Awesome. I've never been there and this promises to be fun.....
..and so, after failed attempts at asking names in Tamil and getting used to stethoscopes hanging around necks, our 1st 4 week OG posting is drawing to a close. We are escorted to the Labour Room to get a close-up view of the nitty-griities of delivering babies and the like. There are 2 Labour Rooms, one called "Clean" (CLR) and the other Septic (SLR). At first glance, the SLR is FAR cleaner and quieter than the CLR, but the SLR is where potentially contaminated cases (mothers) are housed.
It's chaos. It's overwhelming. And it smells of amniotic fluid.
The CLR is opposite ward 12 and the corridor is lined with a few pregnant mothers awaiting their turn inside. A ward just outside has patients being treated for Eclampsia (Epilepsy in pregnancy). We enter a pair of swinging doors and are greeted by a freezer located next to the door.
We are made to take some guesses on what this freezer could possibly hold.
There are placentas. Lots of them. Frozen.
There are 4 rooms with delivery tables and a few doctors running around. I also see the Final Year guys I had seen in the Ward, looking even more haggard and stressed. It turns out that they do this posting for 14 straight days, sleeping for 3-4 hours in the hospital, going back to the rooms only to eat and bathe.
They are the backbone of the Labour Room and do deliveries, suture wounds, assist in surgeries and generally run around all the time. They are also exempt from all classes except OG. I guess that''s the only silver lining.
When not doing all this, they monitor patients and rumour has it that their records are seen by Madam A. Hence ,there is much tension in the air. Bad behaviour in the Labour Room can come back to haunt you in exams it seems.
Our Ward Leaving arrives. When I call home the day before, my mother imagines that this event consists of a party to celebrate the end of our posting.
Each of us is allotted a case and we need to take a history and present it to whoever is coming to listen. Marks will be allotted and will count towards Internal Assessment. The history, naturally, is to be taken in Tamil. No interpreters are allowed.
I have mugged up all the Tamil needed and ask away. As usual, figuring out the answers is a problem, but I'm catching on just a little,enough to fool my examiner into passing me.....
So much for a party. Till I graduate, there will be about 30 more such "parties", increasing in intensity and importance.
There is talk about organizing a Class Trip, now that University exams are a year away and there is some time. There is a toss-up between Kodaikanal and Ooty.
In the meantime, the usual happens. Classes go on, some without me, Snappy sessions are in full swing, almost never without me, and rooftop and hostel parties happen regularly, never without me.
Our whisky drinking is progressing. Starting off with a crude brand called "Bagpiper", which tastes like a mixture of alcohol and spirit, we've moved up to "Bagpiper Gold". This is just slightly better but indicates improving tastes and better appreciation for the finer things in life.
A Rum/Coke pre-mixed drink called "Cariba" has made it's appearance and it saves time and money since there is no Coke mixing involved with the Rum. It's just OK and is in our arsenal for a short time, till Old Monk makes a roaring come back.
So it is Old and Gold for a while. And the parties continue in the wing, once in my room.
My room is a favourite venue for some parties since I have a Music System, a Philips deck gifted by Dad. This has a double deck, a radio, but no CD. I'm in love with it and try to catch Sri Lankan Radio, succeeding only after numerous attempts have been made at pointing the antenna in different directions.
Now, this deck has a plastic casing and has sliding controls on top. When the slider is slid, there is thus a gap going deep into the bowels of the thing.
In one particularly rowdy party, late at night, Vinay decides that he must mix the drinks as a bartender does. Therefore, he takes a 7 Up bottle, opens it and shakes it vigorously, with his thumb partially blocking the opening, creating a fountain of 7 Up which is supposed to mix with the Vodka some guys are drinking.
That is the theory.A steady stream of 7 Up lands on my deck and makes it's way through the various openings in the various sliders.
That was the day the music died (for a while).
The music splutters and stops. I am really pissed (and drunk). Everyone is taking turns to screw Vinay but I'm more concerned that that my deck just died. Someone gets the bright idea that "After all, it's just liquid. So if we focus the table lamp on it, the heat will get the 7 Up out of there and the deck should work". This sounds plausible and so I focus my lamp with it's 60W bulb closer to the top of the deck.
The party over, the music stopped and our stomachs rumbling, we head off to the shacks for tea, egg parathas and other sundry stuff.
About an hour later, Rahul and I come back to my room.
The heat has melted the plastic on my deck partially. The sliders now are stuck halfway. But it plays!!! My deck stayed that way forever. Melted, partially burnt but working.
In another party happening on the roof of Osler House, Condom is seriously drunk. It's a full moon and he's going on and on about how he's in love with the moon. How the moon is so beautiful and how it's shining etc etc. This goes on for a while and finally, some part of our cocktailed brains figures out that he might actually be in love with a person and not the moon. This is interesting and we spend the rest of the night pestering him about who this might be. He does not oblige.
In other news, Rajeetha and Phani are now officially a pair and very happy about it. They are often seen spotted in the library or here and there, but always together. So Phani bites the dust.
My First Ward Leaving Later...
...So that's the end of OG and the beginning of Pediatrics, about which my memory is extremely fuzzy.
Pediatrics is spent mostly in the Ward, looking at impossibly small and desperately sick children and babies. The Ward is on the 1st floor and just outside it is an examination table where I always see someone trying to somehow examine a crying, screaming child.
The Head, Prof S, is a stickler for breast feeding and we are reminded constantly about it's various advantages and how bottle feeding is the new "pure evil". There are posters here and there about this, along with a chart showing the symptoms of something called "Dengue Fever" and "Chicken Gun Ya fever" which of course, sounds funny at first.
The feel of the Ward is the same we encountered in OG one floor below. The number of people is twice as many, since babies are accompanied by mothers, some of whom look so worried and helpless that it's depressing when I can't answer any of their questions, mostly because I just don't have the answers.
I haven't mastered the art of "saying something but nothing" yet that doctors somehow learn. I keep quiet.
Pediatrics this posting involves more History taking and an introduction to examination. I see pallor, clubbing, malnutrition, heart disease, kidney failure, cancers.
It's just depressing to see all this in a kid. Yet, we have to, and will be examined on it.
One guy takes 6 attempts to start an Intravenous Line on a kid who is so sick he can hardly scream. Veins in kids are small and fragile, I learn quickly and this is a skill where Pediatricians are masters. This subject requires tremendous patience, not my forte.
I decide that I cannot do Pediatrics later in life.
Some girls sit on the front bench and take copious notes, often pausing to highlight important points and using Sketch pens.....
It's remarkable how interest in a class declines from front to back.
Our 1st Pharm Test is announced. This will be a 3 week marathon. So I gear up and make a Time Table for it like a good student would.
And like 99.9 % of Time Tables, it's shot to hell and I am studying at the last minute.
The theory part is OK..At least this is an interesting subject and Katzung is a Godsend. The pracs are OK too. In the PharmDyn lab, we draw lots to see what experiment we get. Mine involves injecting an unknown drug into some tissue to see what happens and then identify it. Something on receptor actions on isolated heart muscles. There is a viva also, typically sarcastic which is the norm for Pharmacology.
We then switch to Pharmacy where I have to make some kind of a solution. The "recipe" I recall well, but the damn thing just won't dissolve. So that's that.
The main viva is terrifying. One on One with someone whose sole purpose of existence is to make you realize how little you know. And so, after a reasonable exam and like most of the class, I fail.
Back in the civilized world of the hostels, I see Shom and Vikrant on and off on their way to and from the Rural and Urban Health centres. Internship is kind to them for the moment and Vikrant is making plans to go home (Chandigarh, my hometown too) in April. They have a 4 week Elective posting after their Comm Med posting and Vikrant has chosen to do Cardiology.
The lazy bums have chosen such things as Forensic medicine, where all one does is see some autopsies and sleep all day.
Rahul has exams in 2 months time but this is not deterring him in any way from the usual hostel party scene. Bong has disappeared completely and is engrossed in Final Year.
One evening in Snappy, me, Vinay, Rahul and Shom are wasting time as usual. Someone says something and before we know it, Rahul and Shom are in a nasty verbal exchange. Really nasty.
Now, Rahul is much better built than Shom and so before it turns physical, Vikrant intervenes and the two push off. They don't speak to each other or even about each other. For many days.
This is particularly awkward for me since I know both of them so well, they were both (still are) good friends till a minute ago and they live practically next door. In parties, they don't talk. They don't drop into each other's rooms. Like they don't exist.
Our Class Trip has been finalized. We are headed to KodaiKanal for 3 days. It will be cold and beautiful, the booze will keep us warm and it promises to be much fun.
Kodai here we come!!
A few days later, we come to know that we will going to Kodaikanal. Awesome. I've never been there and this promises to be fun.....
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