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bulletjourneyy · 5 years

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Top 10 Things I learnt as a Pseudo Doctor: Part 2

7. You are your patients’ best (and sometimes, only) advocate: In ward 15, we dealt with patients who primarily had neurological or cardiovascular disorders. However, we sometimes treated children with non-communicable diseases like jaundice. ‘M’ was one such child. He was ready to be discharged, but his mother was nowhere to be found. “She has gone to work, and she needs to watch my little sister.” At all of 7, the boy was not worried that his mother was not with him in this large, noisy ward of a big hospital. “There’s no one to help her. My sister was hungry and my dad passed away last year. We only have our mom.” The doctor continued her examination and declared that M could be discharged provided his pale pallor improved (this could only be done through proper feeding). “Who’s in charge of this boy until his mother returns?” All the caretakers shied away to their responsibilities. Not one person stood up to help. The doctor and her residents had a conference amongst themselves. They declared that the boy did not need to spend another night and waste a hospital bed that could be used for another sick child. Internally it was decided then that since everyone was busy, we would feed the boy for the rest of the day. And we actually did—we played games with him, improved upon his English skills through games and ensured that he was on his way home by the end of the day.

8. Certainty is a rarity: I was reviewing some mammograms with one of the senior-most doctors at the radiology center. One particular one piqued my interest and truly showed me, live, for the first time, that in the medical field, and in life in general, certainty is a rarity. The woman had come in to get her left breast scanned prior to surgery to remove the tumor in it. However, the doctor had suggested she get both breasts scanned and the patient agreed. Lo and behold, one day before she was scheduled to go under the knife, they found secondary, tertiary and quaternary tumors, all of which she was able to get removed during the surgery, and she did not have to get a double mastectomy!

9. Every patient has an undying will to live: “I’m sorry, but there is nothing more we can do for your child,” said the doctor. The patient’s eyes welled with tears, his wails subdued by the ventilator keeping him alive. I vividly recall his mother’s screams as they drowned out the screams of babies in ward 15. His father fell onto the bed, unable to understand how his 15-year-old boy had become so ill. “I advise that you turn off the ventilator, we’ll ensure he is not in any pain, however, there is no more we can do—the ventilator is the only thing keeping him alive.” Clinging onto one another, the parents consented, their hearts heavy and aching. But a weak nudge to the doctor’s leg said otherwise. The boy was trying to speak, to express his dying wish. The doctor quickly passed him a pen and paper, and he wrote one simple word—NO. “What do you mean?” He wrote, his hands shaking, “I don’t want to die. I will live. I will live on the ventilator. Do not turn it off. I will live to go to school and to work and to die when I am old. I am too young. I will live.” I was stunned. I could understand the boy’s will to live but I couldn’t see how he would live—he could only survive. But I learned from him that the only greater advocate for life than a patient’s doctor is the patient him/herself.

10. Teamwork makes the dream work: I observed several wards, but in my honest (and -maybe- biased) opinion, ward 15 demonstrated teamwork to the next level. It operated better than a well-oiled machine, with the nurses, or ‘sisters’ running the show, the ward-boys or maamus watching over the heavy lifting, the attendings diagnosing and overlooking, the residents and volunteers charting and constantly rounding all the patients. Each child’s guardian had bonded with the other guardians in the beds next to them, and they formed a bond filled with pain for one another’s children and a sense of protectiveness for their children. Even us observers played a role, filling in and covering up any unfinished work within our capabilities! And the best part was, no matter what the work was, everyone covered for everyone else (and everyone crowded around lunch didi with their plates and spoons—ready to eat and to feed!)

Bonus (and one of the most important): Every moment counts: A father came rushing with his unconscious newborn (not breathing) into the ER. He screamed for help. The ER jumped into action. The doctors asked the agonized father questions rapidly, he asked his wife in turn. The infant had been unconscious for eight minutes; she had a fever and was lethargic before she fainted; she was 45 days old. The beeping of the monitor continued in the background. The trauma team tried to keep the baby alive. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep. “Time of death: 12:01” Heart-wrenching wails echoed through the stone walls of the hospital. The mother crumbled into a pile on the floor, while her husband tried to hold her up. The doctors tried to console them, told them they were one minute late and explained the difference between six, seven and eight minutes. Eight minutes had rendered the infant brain dead, and because she was so tiny, her organs collapsed almost instantaneously, and she had passed. The father cursed his fate, regretting having been at work when his wife had called, knowing that she would have been at the hospital as soon as their daughter was ill had he allowed her to travel alone. He let out a cry of sheer agony, like a man being tortured in the pits of hell. The doctor placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and asked if they had anything to wrap their child in. Tearfully, the mother handed over her dupatta, and the doctor handed her her swaddled child, her little baby, who she had nurtured for almost a year, their flesh and blood. The flatline was ringing in her ears. She looked at her baby willing, the little girl to breathe, to show any movement, any sign that she was alive, but she got nothing. Just one minute had killed her child. Just sixty seconds. The amount of time it took you to read this paragraph—that time would have saved her baby.

^Pre-OR Picture; one of the best and coolest days of my life

#doctors #medicine #learning

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