Patients, still dumb?

   Gone are the times when patients were unaware of their clinical condition and used to reply solely on doctors' advice. On the other hand, they have become proactive in clinical decision making and it's implementation.

  The good thing about it is- there is more awareness. Involving patients and relatives will improve Health care in the country. This provides a thrust to the new form of therapy- "the information therapy" where along with the conventional "therapy", the health care provider will take informed decisions from the patient concerned and it's relatives. 

   However, we still continue to treat them as dumb people. I would give you an example-

   "We were having clinics in the side room of ward 12 on 10/9/14. The case which was being presented was of GI system. The presenter began- "my patient....present with chief complaints of jaundice, abdominal distenss " and the teacher snapped in between- "you shouldn't say jaundice. Because the patient will never himself say he has jaundice. What he will notice is yellowish discolouration of the sclera(first) and skin(later). So instead of saying "jaundice" we should say "yellowish discolouration of the sclera and skin"....even though the patient clearly mentioned he had jaundice. The Essense of Histroy Taking, I believe is a record of the conversation between the doctor and patient. So the same words should be used

     There comes an argument to this proposition-

•the patient may be wrong in his diagnosis as there will be differential diagnosis to yellowish discolouration

    In that case, none of the two know what really he has. So it doesn't make a difference, does it?

Why does brain control opposite halves of the body?

This picture shows three diagrams.

The circles show the retina, the lines are optic tracts and curved lines resemble the cortex

The third diagram in the picture shows what may have been the arrangement- the right cortex receives visual signals from right eye. But the images on the nasal side will be seen on the temporal retinas of both eyes, which will be seen as double. So the arrangement is not feasible.

Now we come to the first diagram, this is what actually is-

The nasal fibres (carrying impulses of temporal field of vision) cross over. 

And since right cortex receives impulses from left side, it sends motor impulses also to the left side

Now here is my question-

Why don't the temporal fibres cross?

If that would happen, the same half of brain will control same side of the body! Human anatomy could have been so much simple 

If you get answer to this question-

Plz post it as comments 

Thanking you

Trip to Pune

    I'm forced to recollect those days of exams, as I write this blog. Those were the days when each student would stop wasting even a single minute and keep studying (or "begin" studying for that matter).  While studying, my mind would drift start thinking of vacations that would soon ensue. So I noted the things that I would do in vacations. 

   So here was my first big plan of my vacation. The trip to Pune. All the memories are still flashing vividly in my mind as I contemplate the beauty of the mountains which I see passing by, during my journey back to mumbaaaaaai!

   The fun began from the CST station itself! Being an impromtu plan I had to travel by general compartment, without reservation. I met Ronak at CST in the morning at 6.30 am, three days after the summer solstice of 2014. As we reached the platform the train came. And with it began the mad tussle for the seats. The doors were locked from inside as the train approached. Ronak spotted an emergency window, pulled it up and we threw ourselves inside the compartment, with a feeling of victory we opened the door for others and secured our seats. There was no getting up from that moment on if we wanted our seats. So the journey was spent mainly by chatting, watching an episode of GoT and consuming the scenery of lonawala.

   Ajinkya came to pick us at the Pune Station. Had brunch at vaishali. Ate at ajinkya's place again! That was my first experience of a perfect marathi lunch. It was too good.  "What have you travelled, if you haven't even tasted that region's speciality".

   In the evening we played poker and pictionary at spruha's place. That board game was super fun. Aim of the game is to try to tell your partner the name that you get by picking a card. That brings out the insane creature in you. The dinner was outside. I saw the football match with them, though I am no fan of football! 

   Next day we went to a water park. Water park by itself was no fun, but our crazy and stupid things made it memorable. Dinner at Hard Rock Cafe of Pune. These were a few things where Pune is better than aamchi mumbai. :( . Time just flew by while playing it again. 

   Next morning was the last day. I'm happy we did something productive as well as fun on the last day.We visited Dinanath Mangeshkar Hospital. Saw CT-MRI, saw a live surgery, PCR machine, ICU and so many more things. 

   Here I'm, going home with a handful of enjoyment and a pinch of new knowledge. 

The Pune railway station 

CST station while leaving from mumbai 

PUNE, BRTS

During journey

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.....