Bitter medicine

In his latest episode of Satyam jayate Aamir Khan raised the issue of healthcare management and related issues. The first issue was of unwarranted and improper surgery. There was a time when doctors were deemed Gods. Then came the Consumer protection Act and a whole lot of bitterness crept in. The legal system forced doctors to understand ‘acts of omission’ (not doing what needed to be done) and ‘acts of commission’ (doing wrongly what was done).It was emphasized that acts of omission were more easily upheld, and hence more punishable. I believe that is why the swing was towards avoiding being sued for not doing the needed, resulting in a surge of investigations and aggressive management, even surgery. This is not purported as justification, just my cause and effect analysis. Take it or leave it. Then there was the issue of unwarranted hysterectomies. There can be no justification for this whatsoever, but here is another scenario. Increasingly, would be parents and expectant moth...

The April issue of  Reader's Digest published an open photo-editorial “Outrageous” on Corporal punishment in schools.It took me back to my schooldays in St Columba’s in New Delhi some 53 years ago. I joined St Columba’s in mid session in 1959 in Mrs. Clark's Class IV B. Post lunch break we used to have a daily Math’s tables rapid fire test. Each mistake warranted a cane stroke on the palm. After receiving five or six cane shots each day, I knew my tables by heart by the third day. My class teacher in the 9th, a Mr. Edward Seqeuira, was an expert grammarian and taught us English. The use of the cane ensured we knew our Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, verbatim. Once he was punishing a class mate who happened to be the son of a senior foreign diplomat. As he brought down the cane on the palm, the boy caught the cane and wouldn’t let go. All of us couldn’t help giggling. The matter reached the Principals office and the boy’s father was summoned and summarily told that eit...

The young boy confronted his mother.”Who is this man who comes to our house once in a while or at weekends and stays the night, even sleeps in your bedroom?” “You shouldn’t speak about him like this. He is your father.” “Then how come he doesn’t stay with us like everyone else’s.” “He does. Only he works very hard and comes home when you are asleep and leaves before you wake up” Does this story sound familiar? It wouldn’t be your own story with a few modifications, by any chance? Let me see. Most doctors begin their day by patient consultations at 6 am or 7 am. The few health conscious one may go for a walk or a round of golf. Most of the wives being doctors start their work while seeing the kids off for school, or may even be off to work themselves. Those who are house wives settle down to attend to the household chores after seeing the hubby and kids off. In the afternoon, the kids come home, have lunch and settle down for their home work. The doc eats late or alone or both, and then...

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...