dermatology........

******this post has been long overdue,but finally i managed to put it through.....to those who were expecting this one.....sorry for the delay********

Dermatology, my first posting was my optional posting.Ichose it with two things in mind..one during my MBBS i did not have much exposure practically & secondly it is an upcoming branch so in case I, by any chance chose it as my post graduation subject, it would serve as a precursor......(hmmmmm.....ya right....thats happening!!.....hehhe).
first day and we had to report to our SRs (senior residents).On that day only two of us made it on time (due to unavoidable circumstances the rest 4-5 reported later).First the SR made us sit in his room along with 2 PG students, 1 more intern & 7-8 3rd year students. Add to this atleast 10 patients in the room. Believe me it was crowded. it had started to become suffocating for everyone.After 10 mins or so we were told to go to the minor OT(operation theatre)/procedure room. Searching through serpentine queues of patients and maze like area for the room, we reached to find a 1st year PG student and a nurse & no patient( well that was a rare sight cause every day after that the room was never empty). The PG student Dr.Jug was very happy; actually so happy that he could not contain himself & he started chatting keeping aside the book on Leprosy that he was till now reading!! Anyhow the patients started to trickle in & Jug took the responsibility of teaching us......from cutting sutures to giving intralesional injections, taking scrappings and biopsies .....we did it all.Not together or on one day but over a period of few days......for all this we are very thankful!!

The next day again we reported to the SR's room.Now there were 7 of us......3 of us remained in the room n the rest 4 were distributed amongst other rooms of specialists, etc. Now we had our opportunity to see a variety of dermatological cases. But fate had other things in store for us!!Everytime we would get to see the patient, the SR would make us sit.he must have asked us to sit atleast 7 or 8 times till he issued us an ultimatum that we better stick to our chairs!Now we were in a dilemma.From the college where we came no senior or professor was ever so admant to make us sit!!So we felt that we were being given a lot of respect.On the other hand we were absolutely depressed that we were not being able to see cases.

Anyhow by the end of the day the chaos had come to an end cause a new schedule was charted out dividing us into groups of three & distributing us in OPD rooms n ward. well in the ward we had an experience that neither we nor our patients will ever forget.we had to do sampling that is prepare vials, withdraw blood etc. Having said this i would like to mention that please consider that we were absolute novices & i'm not trying to portray the situation in a jestful manner....When it came to withdrawing blood ....on the first day Dr.Jug demonstrated on how to do the procedure....next day we were on our own.....We took up the task n with full confidence...after all it had been very easy atleast to see.......

But ..........yes.......BUT......it took numerous unsuccessful attempts from each one of us to withdraw blood from the very first patient only.Kudos to him for having tolerated us!!Same story got repeated on the next patient & the next & the next .........But finally we managed.....

Next day our SRs informed us that some blood had clotted which shouldnt have happened for investigations like blood sugar.......anyhow we were spared ........that day also we could not withdraw bood in one successful go!!
By 3rd day our SR had a grim look on his face.Clotted blood hampered the reports for some patients again & he gave us a lecture (a mild one) & one to another PG student( a harsher one) stating thay since we were new it ws not our fault but her responsibility to make sure that everything went well ....Anyways by now the patients were scared of us and had already complained to the SRs & no one wanted us to withdraw blood from them.....some were actually giving us pointers on how we should go about the whole procedure....like how to tie tourniquet,etc..Ofcourse both patients and we were relieved of our misery when we were to change to the OPD.

OPD went extremely well.We saw numerous cases....we excelled in diagnosing psoriasis, P.versicolor, Scabies,P.rosea,leprosy, alopecia areata,warts,melasma,etc,etc.....

meanwhile we had befriended Jug & another PG student Aru. Both of them were very helpful & not only taught us practically but gave us pointers on how to tackle the post graduate entrance exams ....esp Dr.Aru......thank you for that...i will make use of all the advice!!

All in all it was a good learning experience & i was glad to have Dr.Aru n Dr. Jug as my friends.We all were also happy that our seniors were satisfied with our performance.

As my first posting i'll always remember it for more than one reason...........

(contd.....)........ i was greeted by unaccountable number of people........men, women and children .....in various sizes & conditions ..... & from different backgrounds......
with my entry into the building i suddenly sensed a rise in temperature of the atmosphere by atleast 4-5 degrees......i got an unpleasent whiff of air ....loaded with carbon dioxide and many other molecules unimaginable........
serpentine queues is only what i saw....the rest of the inner building was obscured from my view....(later i was to know that the queues extend to outside the building ........welcome to a govt. hospital in capital!!)i couldnt see where they actually began.....
since i knew the floor i was to reach n since i didnt really rely on my frail frame to take me up that many flight of stairs i began my search for the lifts.....now i don't ask for directions n that cost me another 2-3 precious minutes.....finally lo n behold at one corner of the building i saw something which resembled a lift.......i slowly and carefully made my way through the sea of human beings towards it.....after i finally reached it i realised that the actual task was to get on it rather than get to it....well there were three of them and all of them took another two miutes to reach the ground floor.....the doors to the 1st lift opened and closed and i found myself way behind in line to get to it....the second one came and went too; the 3rd one i realised was my only hope so i fought and struggled n squeezed past a few cribbing old ladies, a mother with a bunch of wailing kids in tow and many burly uncles and finally made it into the lift and i was pushed to the end of it.....by this time i was having a feeling that i wouldn't probably survive this for many days( i was to discover later that the staff lift is no better...just a namesake!!)........all except me got down at the penultimate floor and guess what i had one more to go.....seconds ticked away and the door to the lift would not shut....i waited a few more agonising seconds but the doors wouldn't budge....now i am not a claustrophobic but i had had enough so i decided to take that one flight of stairs up!!guess what? by the time i reached up so had the lift.....i found myself grumbling but attention was taken off to the empty, almost deserted look that this floor was bearing........in a sharp contrast to just what i had witnessed a few minutes ago....

i kept on wandering really not knowing exactly where to go....but as luck would have it i was in the right direction.....i was instructed to report to the PA to the HOD at 9am.....here i was standing outside the room reading the name of the PA contemplating my next move.....(as if i was planning a war!!)....i finally decided to take the plunge and i entered the room....seems like the PA had a PA who informed me that the PA was on leave....well howzzat?anyhow this guy was really helpful so he told me to report to a certain doctor and gave me the room number too....it was already 9 so i thought it was hardly a matter of time before someone showed up ....but as it turned out i was wrong......minutes after minutes passed and my watch ticked past 915....i thought i probably heard something wrong so i made my way back to the PA to PA and guess what i hear?the doctor whom i was supposed to report is also on leave....and now i am supposed to report to another doctor.....though it was some relief to know that the room hadn't changed....so i made my way back again to where i was.....

ofcourse in all this while i was busy.....busy doing what? you see if you have forgotten i had this white coat on which gave me the distinction of a doctor .....and from directions to diagnosis to queries about doctors and timings i had a lot of answering to do.....some directions i managed others i had no clue so i politely had to decline and inform that like most of them it was my first day too........some grumbles and some apologetic smiles later i found someone enter the room and so i did too......... with hopes of a new beginning....a chance to learn thigns that i had lost out on earlier on the personal as well as academic front........Amen!!