Blissful Life

When you apply skepticism and care in equal amounts, you get bliss.

Year: 2013

  • IFMSA – Introduction To It

    The academic society is brisk with activities. It is IFMSA’s chance to talk in pathology hall today.

    A worldwide organization with its hierarchy. Medical counterpart of IEEE.

    Says US is the place for standard research. That IFMSA gives exchange student opportunity to foreign nations.
    That WHO gives internship opportunities.

    Registration is like 1000 rupee per year. Gives a card that is valid in cafe coffee day.

    Mission statement is to offer future physicians exposure to global situation.

    To facilitate medical research, exchange, etc.

  • The Difference Between Interesting Things and Useful Things

    How many times has this happened in your life?

    You’re travelling in a bus, and the person sitting in the first seat at the front suddenly puts his face outside and looks at something. Within milliseconds, people sitting in the window seats in the 5 rows behind him do the same. And in the next few milliseconds, others who can’t just turn their head and see outside, stand up and do so.

    Sensing and responding to changes around them as quickly as possible, gives monkeys a survival advantage. And there’s a monkey carrying out its survival trick hiding inside all of us. He guides our senses towards all stuff that’s different from the normal – a cool new gadget, random shit facts, photoshoped images uploaded in facebook, utterly useless questions on quora, the gap that a broken tooth leaves, a friend’s new haircut, uncovered body parts – any stuff that’s new. These are the interesting things.

    Unfortunately for us, interesting things most of the times aren’t useful things.

    Books, subjects, exams, practice, revision, exercise – things that happen everyday, the normal things. They are what turn out to be useful in one’s life.

    It’s only been a fraction of a second since that first person turned his head. You still have a choice – whether to turn your head or not.

  • Fall on four limbs

    Neonatal ICU. There are two of them. One in Cheluvamba, ground floor. Second in Kid’s Hospital, top floor. NICU-2 is called Sick Baby Ward, and is more airy. But either of them houses the tiniest kids on earth.

    Caution: Before touching any baby, use GermX (contains sterol kind of alcohol, probably) to clean your hands. Now, before you touch another baby, use GermX again. And this is in addition to the dettol+soap handwash that you’ve got to do before even entering the ward. Anyhow, I’ve decided that it’s unethical to touch any kid unless it’s essential for learning.

    Pre-term babies invariably end up here. And their feet would be the smallest imaginable.

    Photosensitive babies would be blindfolded. At times, there’d be the phototherapy unit shining bright UV light at them.

    Not to forget the sensors. There’s temperature control. And whenever it goes below the set – 36.5 or so, it’ll beep. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
    So does the heart rate monitor. Oxygen Saturation. IV Infusion rate. Everything.

    Talking about IV infusion, you should know how tough it is to find a vein and put a needle inside those tiny arms. The doctor who was doing that was later recruiting new babies (neonatals) into the ward. Mother complaining of jaundice. But the baby was pink instead of yellowish. So, no jaundice. But the kid showed us some reflexes.
    Keep your finger on its lips, it’ll open the mouth and put the tongue out. Suckling reflex.
    Hold the baby by its chest and belly, facing down, and it’ll extend all the limbs, in anticipation of falling down. Parachute reflex. And it stays till you die. Yeah, the last time I fell from cycle I fell with my hands and legs down and not even a mote of dust on my clothes.
    And the most dazzling. Hold the baby upright and suddenly let it fall back to your hand below. It’ll show surprise by dilating the eyes and extending the arms. Moro reflex.

    And the 3 questions you can ask a newborn. Have you passed meconium (first stool) within 24 hours? Have you passed urine in 48 hours? Have you started taking feed?
    3 Yes, your systems are perfect.

    Going to see autopsy tomorrow.

  • 4th Term

    Apparently, third term is over.

    And with that came a new fervor for learning.

    Posted to paediatrics from yesterday, Feb 6, a day after I turned 20. Though we missed all the days of OBG posting, I’ve attended both the days of paediatrics.

    Day 1:
    When you take a case, why is it important to know the age? 😛
    Hemolysis at day 1 is different from that at day 6.

    And how is child case history different from adults?
    There’s an entirely new spectrum of diseases that can occur.

    Day 2:
    Immunization.
    The nurses welcome us (just me and Fadnis) warmly and give us a box of used vials to play with. We arranged them in the order they should be administered.
    Age 0- BCG (0.05 mL for kids born in hospital, and 0.1 mL for kids coming from outside, is what the nurse told. And the vial said “0.05 mL for kids upto 1 month, 0.1 mL for kids above 1 month”. You can guess why the rule of thumb works) Live attenuated freeze dried Bacillus Chalmette Guerin IP (IP? Dad replied via sms. Indian Pharmacopoeia. BP would be British. USP would be US) For subdermal use.
    OPV – Oral Polio Vaccine (20 doses bottle. 1 dose = 2 drops = 0.1 mL)
    Hepatitis B Vaccine. Live attenuated. For Intramuscular use.

    Age 1.5 month:
    OPV
    Hep B
    DPT (Diptheria, Pertussis, Tetanus) Intramuscular.

    Age 2.5 months: OPV, Hep B, DPT

    Age 3.5 months: OPV, Hep B, DPT

    Age 9 months: Measles (Right shoulder. Should see whether intramuscular or subdermal)

    And I forgot the rest.

    The intramuscular DPT and Hep B are given in the anterolateral of those small thighs as deep as that small needle (23 or 26 something) goes. The quadriceps was becoming very prominent while administration.

    BCG very superficially in the left deltoid area. The kids would be too small that they don’t even cry for more than 2 seconds.

    And a pregnant mother was being given Tetanus in the deltoid.

    No OPV was given today because the Pulse Polio Programme is happening next week and it would be overdose.

  • Microbiology Internal

    Questions from Anilkumar

  • Pathology first internal

  • New Year, New Heights, New Directions

    It’s often good to be resolute even if it doesn’t last in you for more than a few days, because you end up doing something rather than waste your potential.

    I’ve made a few impossible resolutions which will let me have fun for the next week at least.

    I’ll be getting a mountain bike from Schwinn or Giant tomorrow. That’d be in line with a resolution I made last year.

    And I’m gonna be blogging a bit more frequently thanks to my resolution to quit fapping which was more or less a daily practice.

    And then I need to think of some project to be done for ICMR STS.

    Then in the self improvement sector, I should break out of my addiction to routine. (If anything irregular happens, I get disorganized badly)

    Should learn English. It so happens that since I’m an Indian, a lot of words would have wrong pronunciations associated with them, in my little brain. And I’ve decided to look up the dictionary wherever a doubt arises.

    And I recently noticed that Ubuntu is indeed an African word meaning “humanity to all” and that the operating system was named after the concept.

    Still making up resolutions. Are you?