A Hypocrite's Oath

[exclusively for the reading pleasure of medicos]

Someday in January....(or was it February?), patients of medical college hospital found it difficult to find their way through 1st and 2nd floors due to a group of about 200 hooligans who appeared to be everywhere.... running around asking aloud "where's ward 3, 4 7 8 9 and so on???", and the funny thing was, all of them were wearing sparkling white coats............and had brand new Littman steths around their necks.....it were just those faces that gave them away........
And among them, there was wide-eyed poor little u, still wondering how u ever got here; after an hour of sightseeing, u reach a room where the chief greets; “welcome to 3rd year”; and u venture to say “sir, its second year..”........ when a friend stamps u in the foot and u drop short, this guy even knows the date he'll get mbbs degree in 2009 and the only thing 1st yr has taught u- when he stamps your foot, u better keep mum... So u stop and think deeply, “whatever happened to 2nd yr?”; “did u study so well so that u could skip one year???”. As u meditate on the meagre possibility of the above thought, your unitmates take down the timetable and so your surgery posting officially begins..........
U rush eagerly to the wards --- smiling patients, not so smiling patients, patients who just didn’t care, naked patients, stinking patients, there was an ex army who wouldn’t let go of his conviction that the oedema in his leg was untreatable “no drug in medical history can ever relieve me of this” he said, his eyes stressing on each syllable so much that even u doubt its true..........he told us to go **** ourselves...................(now its April and I hear he’s still there)………..then there was this retd mech eng from ONGC who had none but a servant with him he managed to pay with his pension.....he also told us to do the same...................patients fighting for beds come to u and insist on u solving their fight - u manage a stupid smile and reassure them everything will be all right….. u become paranoid and fear everyone- patients, pgs, sirs, and even the nurses till when one patient comes stealthily to u and report- one of the nurses were not doing their duty properly and goes back with a fully contended smile thinking he had just informed the supreme authority and saved the nation..........
U come late to 9:30 class and while running up the disinfectant smelling stairs, u happen to see a grey haired woman, she stands out because she’s the only one not moving, she’s just staying on the one step she happened to be while she thought of something; but for the tears flowing in progression from her wrinkled face, she was perfectly still. There was no wailing nor whining, just those tears..... Anyone would have thought her dead; had anyone time to notice....... u pause briefly and ponder on the cause of her misery: some ill relative? No money? No medicines? No energy to climb the next step? u reflect upon some oath u took some months before and think about something to do: give some money? Help her up the stairs? but something reminds you of the blessed class that u were late for (u dint want your sir to know u had bunked morning wards) and the fabulous treasures sleeping in the A.C would bring- attendance, and the egotistic dog u are- u trot on as u had come. In class ,u can’t concentrate (as if) and u keep chanting “I came, I saw, I went to class”. And after class u go back - u don’t expect her to be on the stairs still and naturally she’s not there.......

U're thinking of this lady still, she doesn’t seem to leave u alone while u're going out for lunch when this bald old man comes and asks u for Rs 20; u feel your heart will burst like a balloon with emotion as u happily hand it over, expecting some words that could ease your pain, he snatches the money and storms off and u look around like some beggar beaten up by someone he stole money from.......
U're confused................... and rush to casualty, which reminds u of a Spielberg war movie u saw some days before......there’s blood, blood everywhere, pulsatile fountains around you arising from whichever parts of the body that have names; Amidst the groans u rather prefer to rub sterilised cotton dipped in H2O2 , not on the wounds but on the big stains of blood and betadine on your only expensive white pants. your friends smile in between suturing sessions at you rubbing, but u recognise cynicism and u prefer to find pride in the fact that u are the only one left in your unit not having put a suture yet......... its as if all hells at casualty: from a 100yr old scratched by a cat to some Andhra guy who felt like cutting all his veins and going for a swim at kovalam..(You should have seen the confused face of the lifeguard who brought him...... I’m sure he quit the next day)
And then there was this guy reeking of alcohol, who was so covered with blood, i thought he would die, but he was smiling!!!! doctors had a hard time finding how many wounds were there actually... and he needed no anaesthesia at all : u as usual were there to pour betadine; and then u notice him watching u closely, every movement u make : u feel your nerves tensing, more so when he whispers, "I know what u're thinking now.......", u wonder whether this guy is god........till when he bellows out," U’re thinking thet im a drunk....a worthless good fonothin drunk" and then he starts sobbing loudly like a child, that u need to rock him to his original self----- casualty's fun!!! no wonder nobody bunks..........
Back at wards, one of your unit mates decides he has had enough of fooling around with asking history and believes he should get on with being the real doctor, and has the unfortunate experience of examining pallor........ at the same instant the nurse was pushing the syringe into the dorsum of the patients hand ;the patient quivering with pain frightened the hell out of my friend(he didn’t see the nurse), who thought he had pulled the patients eyeball out.....that was the end of the doctor in him, u never see him touch any other patient after that........
And without doubt the best part are the frequent walks through those corridors thronging with people who stare at u , at the cream of the society ramp walking past them , with steths around their neck; while walking, any attempt to recollect 'anything' about heart sounds makes u falter.......
Occasionally the tempo of this walk is disturbed by patients who ask u the way to some lab , or give you a chit and ask u where to go and the sly fox that u are, u look flabbergasted[what a simple qn to ask???] , point hurriedly somewhere exactly midway between 2 corridors and continue your walk, this time chatting over the fone loudly about some cardiac transplant that u just did......
And then there's the green operation theatre where u've fallen in love with a brave 10 yr old with some cyst in her tongue... never seen her again after the operation, that’s it --people walk in and out of your stupid life and u cant remember one face for an hour or more......... then the circumcision operation u'll never forget...... halfway through the operation u're awoken from the trance of watching it by doctors chatting, “I’ve heard chicken fry at azad's better than mutton masala at noor mahal" ; u're shocked but find solace in thinking "what the hell, anyway the patients unconscious..", and u move your eyes to make out something of the patients face, and u see what terror actually is......u see 2 full moons of terror underneath the thin cotton loosely placed over the mans eyes.... those eyes -- that's something u'll never forget for a long time.... imagine being able to watch your own foreskin cut away by doctors discussing chicken over your locally anaesthetised penis.......
And one day at casualty, your friends from school rush in with a girl unconscious (all in college uniform),u ask them to calm down, manage to say u have everything in control and wheel her to pgs , who stitch her in the scalp, u [the betadine specialist] as usual pour betadine and cut the excess stitch threads; but u see one of your friends watching (his gf??)through the space between those green curtains and u tend to pour laboriously as if her life depended on it..... Ever given some thought about how asking doubts can look like giving directions to pgs???? (from a distance).. After the stitching and follow up, your school friend thanks u ,wonders how fast u've learned medicine, and says, "I always knew u were a very gifted person"; And hearing all this gratitude(for pouring betadine), the nerve cells inside u arrange themselves to give u a feeling of absolute harmony (is this nirvana?) u realise what’s like being the real doctor; why some years before the 200 of us had spent sleepless nights preparing hard for ending up here..........the parents of the girl come soon after the stitching , my friend does the introduction , and they come to you with a flurry of qns asked between tears : "Is the wound deep or superficial?", u say its between deep and superficial; "Is there need to take a scan?" u say senior doctors are discussing the possibility; "What medicines to take?", u say paracetamol; finally when u feel they can see through u, u noiselessly slip away before they report u as a quack......
Girls fainting over hydroceles, laughing over our own ignorant stupid mistakes, that’s all the fun we've ever had since reopening, maybe that’s all we are destined to have......... u try to find fun in everything happening, and the wide circle of unitfriends who laugh at them grows smaller each day as one by one they decide to turn to serious doctors..........
The old woman, the cries, the pain , the agony, fear, misery, death, the simplicity of it……. everything takes formations around your head (like u see in those cartoons,when u get hit by a brick) even when you're miles away from the hospital, even when sleeping in college classes, they haunt you with some guilt u can't identify with...........like u were responsible ..............u do feel all this is happening too soon for even a mature 21 year old.......but the only person who seems to have any problem is u ,maybe they really should have a 2nd yr (whatever happened to it?) full of orientation classes or something.......and all the time, this particular last qn , which an exasperated biochem prof asks u before throwing u out(at university viva) keeps coming back to life to haunt u…… “How competent a doctor are u?”. .
Yesterday at casualty, when u're left in one of those many instances when u know u’re thinking of something , but cant make out what it is while u’re thinking of it, or what it was once u've broken away from it(u obviously have no idea of what I’m talking about, don’t worry, it just means you’re blessed with more sanity than I am), this good unitfriend of yours comes to u and asks u the exact qn u were thinking about- "eda" a big pause, "the both of us..............will we ever be doctors.......?", with utmost sincerity and absolutely no humour in it......... u hug him for a whole 30 sec’s.........and don’t reply.(he didn’t need one)............................Medical College Trivandrum, u've heard has the history of delivering a group of exemplary doctors every year. As long as u don’t go insane u guess u'll be one of them.....

Confessions of an incompetent Sophomore
By Saran Soman
2004 mbbs
Medical College Trivandrum