Future of surgery

      It's 12.39 am and I'm trying to sleep. That's when all weird thoughts start coming to our minds. And I couldn't stop my brain from thinking about the surgery of the future. I don't know how did this thought come to my "Cosmo-cortical" pathway, but that was enough to fire some corticospinal neurons to direct my hand to pick up my phone and begin writing. 

       If we can manage to miniaturise the robots and teach them how to...

      Hey wait, it just occurred to me how did I begin thinking of this-

I had this doubt about- why the peritoneal cavity in females is open. I finally got the answer in embryology. That reminded me of what a sir in my college had commented about embryology, "embryology is not real. There's nothing like embryology. All what we are studying is abstract". That lead me to pondering over the fact that our embryology is limited to- explaining why the defects occur and the underlying basis of that anomaly. (How fascinating it is that we don't need to think of the whole sentence to think of that whole sentence that my sir had told. In a jiffy, I am reminded of all the words that my sir had told. I mean, to recall an entire day of your life, you don't need to spend that much time recalling it, it will take the same amount of time as you take to recall one word! That's just by the way). Then I started thinking of-if we would use knowledge of embryology to help people. Then it came to surgery while an embryo is still growing. But how can a human approach it? So I thought of robots. Microbots, the size of bacteria may be handy at that time. 

   After making giant leaps in the sphere of technology, we may one day be able to produce robots that have the capability of normal robots. Storing power, computing, operating, commanding, seeing, hearing, connecting and doing its job. 

     So imagine, a women is on the operation table half a globe away from me and a friend of mine just invents a new way to fight a disease. He codes it and instantaneously sends it which I forward to the master computer over there. It is then shared to the million Microbots all piled up in an injection. They are made to connect to the computer via wifi and download the lastest technique to fight the disease. They all also can talk to each other. When first one goes in the body, he may send a message to all others like- "oh it's dark in here. Oops I just got pushed into the right coronary artery. I ll do my work over there. Take care and good luck". The other Microbot may reply, I m having some difficulty in the 8th zone of the right lung. I need backup immediately". Robots will be carrying packets of drugs that can be injected selectively into each cytoplasm. They may be able to enter the nucleus, obtain copy of the main DNA via PCR and replace the mutated DNA with the new one. 

They all will work as a team. 

   That I think will be the future of surgery. :)

Tracing the roots

I would like to share a message that I received-

"The 8 Monkeys

(This is reportedly based on an actual experiment conducted in the U.K.)

 

Put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling.

Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable. Soon enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up. Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder.

One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious. But undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the ladder.

All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea why.

However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder.

A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out of him.

This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he's not on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he's attacking the new monkey.

One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why.

And that is how most company policies and religious traditions get established and followed.😃"

"Indifferent" is the new "attractive"

   I was watching nat geo while having lunch. And what they showed, took me by awe!

   A study revealed that- the more common or indifferent you look, the more attractive is your face to others. Pause! Ponder! And a second thought will tell you that you can not agree more! It's indeed true!

   Test it out- the actors and models in Hollywood and Bollywood actually have faces that are very normal. Those which obey the golden ratio...the Fibonacci series ( you may google it!)

   Reason- this thought is basically hardwired into our minds. Since life began on earth, one always tries to find a healthier mate that ensures continuity of the progeny. One would always try to go with the common one...one with more probability of survival. 

   So a boy friend who tells his girlfriend- "I no longer find anything special in you",

finds her attractive or no, is for you to decide!

Silent screams!

 Exams are round the corner! And it's a battle which will leave Varanasi lagging! Thankfully, we get what is known as "preparatory leave" before exams.  For me, PL is as good as vacations 😝

   So today morning I was studying in my college library, and there came a senior- "the documentary film of burn survivors and the camp diaries, will be screened in the J. Mehta lecture theatre in 5 mins". Few jobless people like me bothered to even look up at him...others were busy engrossed in studying! I thought, I can read anytime. What's there in the book is not going anywhere but there will be only one chance to see the film. So I thought of sparing an hour for it. And within the next minute, I closed my book and came to JMLT.

   The compère was fidgeting with his laptop. (Being a medical student, How could I waste time!! And I began to read the soft copy of that same book on the phone until it began). He welcomed the audience and set the wheels in motion!

   The film first introduced us to the plight of the burn survivors. They had travelled to the village of the survivor in some remote place in Maharashtra. Incredible! They talked about how Yogesh, standard 10th student got burnt in childhood because of the explosion of the stove, how his family couldn't afford anything more than just saving his life.  Then was a talk by the principal of his school about the attitude of his peers towards him, about his academic performance. 

   Then came the turn of Yogesh's life when he visited KEM. Those very familiar corridors being projected, those needy people waiting in the OPD. Then the head of plastic surgery department of KEM explains about the case. Told us how he was when he first came here. And how they ameliorated his life.  Then from the Dean's desk was a talk on the mental state of burn survivors.

  The plastic surgery department of KEM was toying with the idea of having a camp for these survivors, first of its kind in India. A place where they get to meet and enjoy with people who could best understand their agony and pain, the other victims of burn! 

  The camp was in a suburb of mumbai. They left in a bus with survivors and volunteers. There they danced their hearts out! Played various games. More importantly-they opened up!

  The head of department talks-"I would like to share an incident with you. There was a kid who used to wear a scarf around his head to cover the scar. I told him he could remove it after the surgery. But he didn't. And during the camp, today I saw that his scarf was off. That was the best compliment to me"

  Though I hadn't participated in it in anyway but I still felt the joy of changing  someone's life for the good, forever! I'm proud of my will-be-profession!

  Back to cramming now.....

The change in me

   One year is not always enough to have a life long change in a person! My case proved it otherwise.

   Maybe it was a part of growing up, maybe I was destined or perhaps this was the path that I chose. And I'm proud of it. 

   We all know about this story of a frog-

This frog was born in a well in a village. The village was in an arid region and thus the water levels never rose high. The frog liked his home-the well, well enough! All he bothered about were- the sky, the walls and the ground. And food and sleep. He always thought- there's no world outside this well; the frogs that I know are the only creatures present. And he never ever realised how much of world he had actually seen!

   I was more or less the same. My world was my city. Though I had travelled my city enough, there was never a chance to explore other parts of Maharashtra. And then came NEET, through which I got admitted to GSMC and KEMH.

   And believe me- I learnt more about the geography of Maharashtra in my college than what I had learnt in school!! I have frequently heard that KEM has a continuum of patients. But never knew about the various spices of the country that my college had on its platter!

   Meeting them and getting involved in various activities with them was as good as travelling the whole country! The different language, the nature, the way of life, the clothes, the knowledge, the people! 

  Now I am that frog who has virtually seen the world outside the well though my friends! I'm happy to realise that my scenario will no longer be same as that of the frog. Since this frog has already taken the leap to get out of the well and explore! Till the last breath- learn and explore!

How could you forget!?

You have indeed done a lot,

Lots more needs to be done.

You were chosen to serve the society,

You were that special 'one'.

You have enjoyed a special status,

After you added those two coveted letters,

Maybe that has fuelled your pride,

According to you, that's all what matters!

I know you were beaten like a dog,

That incident-when you were humiliated,

I don't know whose fault it was!

I'm sure you were infuriated!

You chose to protest in your way,

Which ever you felt was correct

But Don't you forget-you were special

Your deeds should also reflect!

You have a right to retaliate...I don't deny,

You called a strike in the state

Fearing the future, others joined too,

No one checked if the fault was of their mate...

O friend, try to introspect!

There was an oath that you took,

How could you forget!?

There's a child waiting for your look!

His family couldn't be consoled

When his corpse was brought home!

Why should he pay the prize?

For no fault of his own!??!

Can we add another dimension?

 Human beings have been endowed with 5 special senses. 

•sense of touch- we can touch and know about shape and texture. Can differentiate between fine and crude touch. Can feel warm and cold. Can feel vibration, itch and tickle. Can we even begin feeling the weight, volume?

•sense of taste-we can identify 5 flavours. Maybe with new receptors we may have new tastes!

•sense of smell-our sense of smell is not so well developed. But if we can we smell how true a particular statement is! Or can smell the nature of a person!

•sense of vision- we see in the visual spectrum. we have developed cameras that enable us to see in infrared and ultraviolet. And skiagrams are a way of looking at the X rays. We can see a particular thing from far. Can magnify things. But What if we could see the past and future of a person? Could see many more different colours. Could see temperature...

•sense of hearing- we can hear the conversation going on in a room. Mobiles enable us to hear voices in other side on the globe.

 We can modify, amplify or engineer these senses. But cannot add any new dimension to it!! We cannot have a sixth sense!