Bitter medicine

REMEMBERING A GREAT TEACHER, DR P K SETHI Every year on Teacher’s day I would carry a card and some flowers to my teacher, Padamshree and Magsaysay awardee Dr P K Sethi. The card always carried the lines ‘what can I give you in return, please take my heart, to sir with love’ from that haunting melody by Lulu that was the title song of the Sidney Poitier movie “To sir with love” based on the book by E R Braithwaite. Not any more Dr P K Sethi passed away on 6th February 2006 I am writing this tribute in the words of those who knew him well, his own word and writings and some words of my own I WAS brought up and educated in the colonial era. I practised conventional western medicine in an urban environment. I have been a witness to the heady post-World War II days when, with the emergence of some effective antibacterial medicines, diseases which were formerly lethal, such as pneumonia or tuberculosis, could be effectively treated. I was full of optimism that soon we would have answers to ...

It is said that character gets you out of bed; commitment moves you to action; faith, hope and discipline help you to achieve the goals. Anna has shown this, and done it. What are the lessons to be learnt from Anna’s initiative? 1. People will listen to you if you have the nation’s interest, importance and improvement at heart 2. People will follow you if you are impeccably honest, sincere and have the courage of conviction 3. Any movement which is not petty or self centred and is focused on the larger welfare will become a mass movement as all classes of people do not hesitate to join it 4. A mass movement cannot be ignored 5. A mass movement will succeed if it is peaceful, non violent and conscience controlled There is not just one Anna in the country. We need all the rest of them to come forward and raise issues plaguing us, now and not wait till the water rises up to our noses.

I am posting this blog on the occassion of Doctors Day THE IDEAL I became a doctor because my father was a doctor. It had nothing to do with genetics or family tradition or any of the other rigmarole It was plain and simple because my father was my ideal. He was a graduate from among the oldest medical institute in the country, the King George Medical College, Lucknow in the year 1935 He joined the Jaipur State medical service and used to receive Rs 35 as salary in the form of silver coins, the jharshashi rupaiya I watched him as I grew and this is what I recollect, and adore His patients loved him. There was a deep sense of gratitude in every patient he had treated and cured. As a result it was not infrequent for these poor village folk to bring fruits and vegetables and other farm products as gifts, whatever they produced, whatever they could afford. They derived genuine pleasure from giving, and I could sense the satisfaction of achievement on the one hand and the unqualified grati...

THIS PIECE WAS WRITTEN SOMETIME BACK I AM POSTING IT ON THE OCCASION OF MY SUPERANNUATION ON CHANGE IN LIFE Preamble Dr Susan E Kersley is a retired doctor and a life coach. She has a website www.thedoctorscoach.co.uk .She wrote a series of articles in the British Medical Journal Career Focus on the whys and wherefore of change in life, from A to Z to be precise. They can be accessed at youcanchangeyourlife.co.uk.They were all eminently readable articles and they set me thinking__to change or not to change, that is the question. Apologies to the Bard, but, do I suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune, do a sea of troubles bother me ?Whether I should take up arms and effect a change, or continue to nobly suffer in the mind, if I don’t? What follows are some of my musings. Why pen them down? Because they may just turn out to be your own, and we may be brothers in arms. Change is an inevitable fact. The world constantly changes.’ All things must change to somet...

It is no longer unusual to read of doctors or medicos going on strike It happened in Rajasthan and then inDelhi in the Safdarjung Hospital "What is this malady and is there no tonic for this" is the question most frequently asked by the press and media and one they want us to mull over. SURE THERE IS but to determine the “tonic” we need to first analyze the ‘Etiology’ or cause of the malady In all the strikes called by the medicos all over the country so far there are two main reasons 1. Increase in pay and allowances 2. Scuffle with patients attendants and a demand for security Let us take the second cause first Have we ever wondered why there are no scuffles in private or corporate hospitals? The security there does not allow anyone beyond the stipulated to enter the hospital wards or ICU no matter who or what I wonder if any one even remotely related to the Gehlot family would have dared to barge their way in at The Medicity Hospital in Gurgaon And yet we are hell bent on ...

The hue and cry over the destroying of the documents related to the 1971 war is difficult to fathom At that time the Indian Government was very keen to let the people, especially the foreign press, to know that what was happening in East Pakistan was a war of independence by the Mukti bahini.India was no part of it. It had no training camps, nor was it supplying them arms. The Indian Government vehemently denied when it was suggested by Pakistan that the Indian soldiers were fighting in East Pakistan disguised as Mukti bahini.One only has to pick up the news papers of the time or read the public speeches of the then PM Indira Gandhi. Now suddenly we want to know everything and every truth. What we are forgetting is that this is precisely what Pakistan is doing, and denying, in Kashmir. They have the training camps, they are supplying the arms and their soldiers and intelligence personnel are infiltrating and fighting in Kashmir. The Kashmiri are after all fighting a war of independence...

I was watching the DVD of My Name Is Khan. Two issues stand out in the film, the plight of the Muslim community in the aftermath of 9/11 and the autistic individuals attempt to redeem his pride and honour thereof. In the portrayal of the life of an autistic, it appears a very amateurish attempt, as it is and inevitably will be compared to the compelling performance of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and Tom Hanks in Forest Gump. Even the performance of Hrithik Roshan as a mentally retarded character in Koi Mil Gaya was more convincing. On the other issue of the plight of the Muslim in post 9/11 US, the film seems to be a very puerile effort. It does not adequately bring out the psyche of the non Muslim toward a community viewed as the direct perpetrator of hate and revenge towards the American. There were scores of American and non American families in the apartments right across the Hudson who were actual witnesses to the demolition of the twin towers and that horrific experience is a ling...