Neocortical Impulses!

it was with mixed feelings that i had ended my last real post and i start this one with the same mixed feelings. i am happy for having been lucky enough to get a pg seat in my first attempt in bmcri-m.s.ophthalmology! yet,it was not the first subject in my order of preference..... i still miss my ug days at bmcri .... with great power comes great responsibility, haha .... i have quite a responsible job now,cant get away,now, with mistakes that might have been forgiven in internship. being in school was better than being in college was better than being in mbbs was better than being an intern was better than being a pg..... change is the order of nature and life has to move on,so be it.... onto greater (ad)ventures then!

tomorrow is officially our last day of internship, but because of a 4 day strike we went on, in the beginning of internship last year, we have got to do a 4 day extension:( socials coming up on 9th, graduation day on 13 th(as of now). am already feeling so bad about internship coming to an end,about college life in general coming to an end.... can`t imagine how it`ll be without your closest friends around you;am surely going to miss everything about bmc. am feeling pretty depressed even as i type this.... but life has to go on, we have to move on to greater (?ad)ventures in life,isn`t it?

my community medicine postings got over on friday,i began and ended it with postings in k.g.halli.,with isolation hospital and siddiaiah road referral hospital in between,not to mention the 4 day strike as well! i am actually sad that community med postings got over,it is the best and easiest part of our postings and what a pity it was first for me. this is the first time that i am actually sad at something getting over in comm med! will miss k.g.halli for sure! started medicine postings from saturday and i have been posted to the psychiatry department for the first fifteen days. have already seen some interesting and weird cases, including 2 schizophrenia cases and a social phobia case who was so overcome that he had attempted suicide 3 times. i was initially interested in psychiatry as a career,but seeing cases here, i am starting to worry about them more than they worry about themselves and more than i should be worrying about them. so psychiatry is not an option for me now.....

the d-day had finally arrived on monday,9th of march,2009. it was going to be my first day as intern! having gotten up earlier than i had in more than a month,i trudged off,full of enthusiasm and a little anxiety, to college to the community medicine department to collect the posting order and arrived at the place well before 9am. but not a single soul was to be seen,other than 2 0r 3 other first day interns like me.... it was well after 10.00 am when someone concerned with our posting order arrived, but it was almost 3.30 pm by the time we got the orders and my first posting was in k.g.halli, a.k.a kadugondanna halli.... not really rural,the place itself is in bangalore but the facilities are pretty rural! in the meantime, i did open an account in the nearby sbi bank where our stipends are sent and we also found time for a long overdue birthday and results treat of a close friend!the food and pricing were both awesome at roti ghar in basavangudi.... the next day was a holiday,but we s

finally,the final year is over! the exams got over,the results have come out and well, i got a first class!!!!!!! am feeling really,really relieved and happy now:) last time i felt like this was way back in 2002 and in 2004,when my x std. and 2nd puc results had come out! whoa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i finally can add those coveted 2 letters before my name now!

that`s the postings i have right now. we have had 1 and a 1/2 weeks of it and it has been okay, compared to medicine. like most people say, in medicine, diagnosing itself poses a big challenge whereas in surgery, it`s not so much of a headache. maybe i am saying this because i have liked general medicine all along my course.i liked physiology in 1st year, medicine is like an extension. i had not liked anatomy then, so surgery doesn`t appeal so much to me. also i don`t think i can stand the pain suffered by patients in surgical practice. some of the times, when the PGs are dressing wounds, ulcers in the wards, i can`t bear to look at the faces of those wincing patients or hear their painful cries! anyway, we have seen a few cases till now, them being a diabetic ulcer(i had to help dress it, thankfully, it was painless to him), a carcinoma breast, a hernia, a hydrocoele, a thyroid gland swelling. all these patients were really co-operative and we students have to be really thankful to t

could not blog for a week as i was preparing for my internals in medicine clinicals, it went quite well i think. i had got a hemiplegia(paralysis of one side of the body) case for my internals, the diagnosis itself was not a problem as we had seen the case earlier. it is the questions asked that is the tough part in such cases, our unit head himself took my internals. i answered most of his questions.... overall, it was the best and most interesting postings we have had this term(i am a little biased towards medicine you see, it`s the subject i like most). we saw many interesting cases and also most of the cases that can be given in exams, so aquite a fruitful posting! next up, surgery postings. don`t know if we will be posted in victoria hospital itself or to bowring.... right now, i am relaxing, will watch some movie, just enjoy for now!

so soon? thats what i feel whenever some test/exam comes up! but these internals do really come very frequently in the final year, what with internals in all the postings you attend and theory as well. well, obg internals fast approaching, am trying to fast reading! still have quite a bit to read. skin postings are still going on(no internals in this one posting,thankfully), get over this saturday.we saw a case of pemphigus yesterday and a case of hansen`s today. lucky the patient was so co-operative today, imagine 30 odd "doctors" examining your hypoaesthetic patch, palpating all the nerves that can be palpated superficially(half of them tender for him), each one asking the same questions, .... found an interesting and funny image!

That`s the postings i have right now, i am supposed to have anyway, but as the PGs have their exams going on, i don`t think it will start until friday atleast(more likely monday as thursday and saturday are holidays). that reminds me, saturday is the d-day,elections, its the first time i will be voting! The boy in the photo(photo is not mine, though i suffer from the same condition) has a skin disease called acne vulgaris . i have been suffering from this condition since 6-7 years, with exacerbations and (not exactly) remissions. i have been put on isotretinoin treatment since almost 2 months now and the pimples have cleared up(at long last!!!!!). its a 3 month course and lets see how long this remission lasts! The drug itself is a retinoid(a vit a analogue), has a page full of side effects! is prescribed only as a last resort in cases untreatable by other drugs and means(like mine).

it has been 1 week now since orthopaedics postings started and we have only presented 2(almost 2 , only 1 properly) cases. the proper case was a case of secondary osteomyelitis, secondary to an infected implant. the other half presented case was a case of avascular necrosis of the femoral head, we couldn`t diagnose this clinically, it was an x-ray diagnosis. today was another holiday, the birthday of our constitution maker, a great person he was. also, another festival for us -Ram Navami. with internals in orthopaedics coming up in 3 days, i havent studied enough, starting to get a little anxious. i am off to a small nap now!!!

well, its the end of our first postings in final year. OBG was quite good, though the internals on Friday did not go too well. on the whole it was a good 6 weeks postings, i think we learnt a lot more than we had till now. we have 2 continuous holidays now, a little free, as one posting has just got over and the next one begins from tuesday. i think i`ll go watch a movie now.

An introductory talk was given by the HOD of OBG dept. in the morning. then we continued taking the case we had already started taking( a prof. from our unit had asked us to take one). went in search of him to present the case, but we couldnt find him... headed home afterwards as there were no theory classes today. am writing this now... quite a boring day really...

Well, it`s the end of the so called holidays, final year begins from tomorrow. OBG postings. finished moscow vector, awesome book. saw India lose to Australia again, but this time they put up quite a good fight. it was a very good cricket match on the whole.

well, only one more holiday left before final year begins. 10 days seem to have just whizzed by. today i saw om shanti om, SRKs movie. was okay... played halo a little too. and am still reading ludlum`s moscow vector.

final year in medical college starting in a weeks time. have heard from seniors that we have to slog it out....will see what happens....