World of a medico goes round and round in circles. Thanks to a maddening sprouting of hi-tech institutions there is no dearth of fellowship or super-specialisation in courses that sometime seem almost meaningless like Neonatal Endocrinology (like what??!). So sometimes I really wonder what I have gained by doing Post Graduation!
I mean most of the medicines I write in the OPD have stayed the same. Unless you work in a super busy
hospital, rare cases that you spend hours poring over as a Post Grad are found rarely.
Hmmm… I could say I have developed a more discerning eye and am able to pick warning signs early but strangely the management stays so very same. So what really changed, I would believe are things that have less to do with medicine than the tricks to practice it.
1) Love thy Mom: I have realized gradually that in Pediatrics or any other branch of medicine it’s all about handling the attendants. The better you are at getting your point across the better the results. Those years working away in dingy wards will prepare you for those upmarket Google educated attendants. What will embolden and help you
is the knowledge of your subject that will let you cut out the WebMD crap and focus on the patient at hand
2) Grey hair: I entered PG with a thick mop of hair that were black as a raven. With the pulls and the dark circles came the lightening of a strand of a hair here, then there. VOILA!!! in no time grey covered most of my sidelocks… The unintended consequences apart from vociferous calls for an early marriage were the fact that attendants now took me seriously 🙂 . I wasn’t complaining.
3) Cool as ICE: There are occasions especially when things will go wrong. But to cover up your tracks especially in medicolegal tangles is one of the dark arts that you only learn as you try and pacify those mean looking angry blokes outside. They see red and my money is that they would like it to be your sweet blood. The amazing composure at such times is a gift of those endless ICU nights where all you do is practice how to break the news after the umpteenth CPR. Sad docs need to get into it.. .getting out alive is important 🙂 .
4) Life up close yet impersonal: Each day in the busy corridors, on the sidewalks you’ll see troubled faces, harried, unsure but hopeful to see you and hear that little small piece of good news. You oblige some, that is about what you can do. That’s life.
Guys I can write hundreds of other things but I believe these are the ones that I really saw as what I’d really like to walk out of that institution besides my degree.
About the author: Satyam Kapoor is an alumnus of Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Batch 2003. He is a pediatrician who has completed his Post-graduation from DMC and Hospital, Ludhiana. Happy go lucky, avid reader and a mommys’ favorite Pediatrician is how he would like to describe himself.
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