Bliss.

Bliss.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Experiments.

Deepu, BP, Abhi and Me. :)
Blogging with 10% charge remaining. Hence, this is going to be one hurried post.

Back in college, back to the routine (of Lounging in the Library) and back to everything. Well almost, because there certainly have been a few changes. 

For starters, I got a new haircut. (Inspired by our Surgery lecturer's amazing haircut). It was actually an impromptu decision carried out in solo and met with some skepticism from Ma (understandable, considering how Long Hair is the prerequisite for any woman according to her) but then, Hair will grow back, but Time cannot be reversed. Hence, such experiments should be conducted at the right age. :P

New roommates are another shift from last year. Hoping for good times ahead with Nammu ma'am and Ehra. Apart from this, I'm currently battling a disease. The primary symptom is that I remember random events from my life and a weirdly inappropriate smile appears at all the wrong times. This disease has no known cure, except of course to have a better control of where you let your thoughts wander during any soporific class.

Currently addicted to Tum Hi Ho and Kabhi Jo Badal Barse (the remixed versions) by the singer Arjun. 

College has been going on as usual. My affinity towards my phone has reached alarmingly high levels. (I should probably stop taking my phone to college, I've blossomed into a big Snapchat addict, a regular Hiker and an intensive Instagrammer. (All to make up for the time spent on WhatsApp -_-)

In this week, we got to see our first patient. A 27 year old woman with a recurrent swelling in the breast. We took her case history and examined the swelling. We met her again after the surgery and wished her all the best. For our first case, we were pretty excited and a major part of the process is about effective communication to elicit information from the patient. You'll need to take the patient into your confidence, listen to their complaints, their story, even if it doesn't directly pertain to the case and assure them that eventually they will get better (even if you aren't sure of it yourself). The toughest moment came today in the afternoon when we met her after the surgery. She broke down into tears and expressed her worries whether the swelling would recur again. We consoled her and assured her that she would be fine. This is our very first case, years later I might look back and feel sheepish/foolish/lame/stupid at my observations.. But then, the patient is not just another "case", they are individuals with a family, a story and are vulnerable. They require support and comfort too, apart from the medical care provided. 

Today happened to be quite an eventful day. Clinical postings in the morning were suspended and we assembled in the Lecture Hall. The route to the lecture hall was studded by security guards posted at regular intervals interspersed by clumps of nurses at the main entrances to greet the VIPs of the function. The event was to mark World Mental Health Day (Oct 10th) and was presided by the DC of Shimoga (V P Ikkeri) and the main man behind the event was Dr. Ashok Pai, a prominent psychiatrist, native to Shimoga and known for improving psychiatric facilities throughout Karnataka. Several other emiment persons also attended the event,

As I've heard on innumerable occasions, they spoke about the need to spread awareness about the importance of mental health, eradication of the stigma associated with it, improved mental health facilities in all districts and the lack of qualified doctors and psychologists to treat the increasing number of psychiatric patients. (The statistics are quite grim, one in four persons is susceptible to any mental health disease, one in every family may have a person suffering from a mental health disease..) 

Apart from this, we also witnessed a show from students of a school for Mentally Challenged children. The children performed exceptionally well and left many of us teary eyed at their enthusiasm, exuberance and their excitement. Somewhere, I was confused whether one must feel "sad" for them. True, we encouraged them, cheered them to perform better and applauded them for coming on stage and perfoming in front of a crowd, but is there the need to "pity"? Maybe not. Maybe. It's probably a very sensitive topic and I'm not very convinced I have a solid argument for either case, so I'll let it rest. But one thing can be said for sure, it certainly made the children happy to come on stage, as it made us, :)

Adios, dear readers (if any). It's about time I wind up and write Forensic Records for Vindhya (In return for Chocolates, what else? [Wait, am I turning into a greedy pig?!?!])

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