Take things into perspective and life can range from petrifying to side-splittingly hilarious.
Being a medical 'student', for instance.
Being a medical 'student', for instance.
Initially, I was eager to devote all five senses to caring for the sick. A few cases done and the examination sequence became purely mechanical, partly thanks to it not paralleling typical TV medical dramas: No impulsive 'code blue!'s, no transformational plastic surgeries, not even mind-numbing love triangles.
The patients we got often placed us at the bottom rung, showing none of the reverence our Professors were offered. Soon as they realize we're only doctors-in-the-making, they refuse to speak at all, preventing us from examining them; in extreme cases, altering the entire history to send us off in some tangent. The staff held us in no stellar heights either – every question that came our way only yielded aphasia.
True, it did little to revive my dying self-esteem. Yet, to me it was a badge of freedom – from responsibility, from duty, from blame. A green light to the mistakes our superiors would have to answer to; all in the spirit of learning.
But what happens outside the hospital is a whole different story.
Voila Community Medicine: a branch that announced the return of the driest school subject crossbred with the Science of healing. Don't get me wrong - in the real world, Preventive and Social Medicine is what MBBS is all about - looking after the needs of the masses, administering basic healthcare, averting major and minor medical mishaps, extending from the humble village doctor all the way up to the World Health Organization. But within the confines of college life, its monotony is seldom debated.
The first week of the month-long posting, we were instructed on what we'd be doing out in the real world. Field visits consisting of us mimicking door-to-door salesmen, conducting surveys from a ready scheme, analyzing the allotted community's situation – the only reason we looked forward to doing them was to escape the dreary classes explaining the entire thing.
The patients we got often placed us at the bottom rung, showing none of the reverence our Professors were offered. Soon as they realize we're only doctors-in-the-making, they refuse to speak at all, preventing us from examining them; in extreme cases, altering the entire history to send us off in some tangent. The staff held us in no stellar heights either – every question that came our way only yielded aphasia.
True, it did little to revive my dying self-esteem. Yet, to me it was a badge of freedom – from responsibility, from duty, from blame. A green light to the mistakes our superiors would have to answer to; all in the spirit of learning.
But what happens outside the hospital is a whole different story.
Voila Community Medicine: a branch that announced the return of the driest school subject crossbred with the Science of healing. Don't get me wrong - in the real world, Preventive and Social Medicine is what MBBS is all about - looking after the needs of the masses, administering basic healthcare, averting major and minor medical mishaps, extending from the humble village doctor all the way up to the World Health Organization. But within the confines of college life, its monotony is seldom debated.
The first week of the month-long posting, we were instructed on what we'd be doing out in the real world. Field visits consisting of us mimicking door-to-door salesmen, conducting surveys from a ready scheme, analyzing the allotted community's situation – the only reason we looked forward to doing them was to escape the dreary classes explaining the entire thing.
Seven long days later, we assembled in the college's parking lot, to be dropped to a slum nearby. I boarded the bus pre-occupied with the thought of conversing with people. I am no smooth-talker, but with the additional burden of communicating in a language I couldn't speak well enough to save my neck, things seemed pretty bleak.
Once there, two friends and I approached the first house. A teenage girl shyly stood by the door to their modest abode, occasionally shouting for her mother to help her with some answers. While the questions were purely ordinary, the interaction proved more insightful than anticipated.
There was the old lady who was so offended that we didn't have time to survey her house while we finished her neighbor's, she made us promise we'd return the next day itself. Or the mechanic and his family, crammed into a single room - sans kitchen, sans bathroom but not sans contentment. Despite prodding him more than once, what changes he wanted around the place, he assured us beyond doubt, he was as satisfied as humanely possible.
Contrast that with the B.Com Freshman, who was dismayed by the general apathy of the slum's residents towards development and the lack of concern shown by the authorities.The attention we got was flattering - offered tea, invited in, in one house made to wait a half hour, while the mother ransacked her house to locate her kids' birth certificates, ensuring we had genuine information. That last incident had us missing our bus back to college, forcing us to heckle a Rickshaw driver to rush us in time for class at the lowest fare possible, all in vain.
Yet, the minute he saw us don our white coats as we entered campus, he wouldn't accept anything more than 20 bucks - Rs.5 less than what we'd bargained for.
Funny too, when we're showered more attention than we deserve. What about the Rickshaw driver who picked up a few of my friends and me from college? On our way, we witnessed a minor accident, with the victim being carried off to the sidewalk while we got down. Just as people were trying to figure out whom to blame, our hero of a driver stepped forward shouting, "Have no fear - they are all doctors here!"
While five language-impaired Malayalees shot one question after the other to the confounded lady, I kept bugging them to check her vital signs, oblivious to any legal consequences. Declaring her fit as a fiddle, we disappeared as soon as a three-wheeler would permit.
Where do we come in, then, between the extremes of an omniscient practitioner and clueless freshmen?
Every course is multi-faceted, and medicine universally so. High about knowing 'stuff', overwhelmed by the distance still to be covered, so often insecure about the here and now - it's all different versions of the same story. Irrespective of our route of entry, every pupil is dragged through a thousand and one sleepless nights, triple that amount of medical tomes and the adrenaline-rush of facing examiners that hold our fates in their collective palm, before being churned out a ready-made doctor.
Yet, one wound healed, one soul repaired, one life saved is sufficient for all those hours of pain to make way for a large moment of hope, achievement and gratitude.
Come to think of it, it's a vital part of our polishing into doctors. What better way to conquer suffering and serve faith than to be put through shades of agony and bliss ourselves?
Atleast that's the way I take it now.
Philosophically yours,
Dr? Lamya
Yet, one wound healed, one soul repaired, one life saved is sufficient for all those hours of pain to make way for a large moment of hope, achievement and gratitude.
Come to think of it, it's a vital part of our polishing into doctors. What better way to conquer suffering and serve faith than to be put through shades of agony and bliss ourselves?
Atleast that's the way I take it now.
Philosophically yours,
Dr? Lamya
