It was the outdoor orthopaedic consulting room of a busy government general hospital - for short, the Ortho OPD. Ask any clinician, and s/he will, without a moment's hesitation, say that the driest (read that again!) branch of clinical practice is Orthopaedics : the doctors there have no heart, no mind, just carpentry!
The Corona epidemic was showing its fangs again and the patient numbers were dwindling. On one such morning, a 58-year-old man brought along his adult daughter for consultation. The daughter looked about 25 years.
Before I could begin interviewing the patient, the father told me that his daughter was deaf and mute, and that all the others in his family- his wife, and two other adult children - were similarly affected, that he was the only one able to speak and hear.
Immediately in my mind, the aphorism, " I cried that I had no shoes until down in the street I found a man who had no feet", came to my mind. (This aphorism - in its various forms- is attributed to different authors, and it is difficult to say with authenticity as to who wrote it - Helen Keller, Leo Tolstoy or Saadi Shirazi (1210 to 1291, Persia- Iran. The link to an interesting article as to the origins of this aphorisms is here)
I decided to use whatever common sense sign language gestures I could muster to try and communicate with the patient. The girl was wearing a mask, and hence her facial expressions were not of much use, except when she would nod her head in agreement or otherwise.
Then, I thought, maybe she reads some words, and started writing the questions I wanted to ask her in the Gujarati script. She answered in one-word responses, in English. Surprised, I looked at her father. He told me that she had passed her 12th standard in the English medium, and that she was the most educated amongst them all in their family! Indeed, it was my time to look the part of a carpenter now! Sorry, I don’t mean to insult the professional Carpenters, but then for the want of a better word to tease us Orthos, that is how we are addressed.
The interview with the patient went off fluently thereafter. All the questions were posed and responded to on paper, in English. She was examined duly.
As she got up to go out of the door, she gestured a friendly elbow-elbow nudge (remember the Covid protocols!).
I was happy the girl felt understood about what ailed her. While exiting the door, she turned around and gestured a thumbs up. I knew she was smiling from the widening of her eyes and bulge of the cheeks from behind the mask!
I had earned my days’ worth -every carpenter has his day!
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(C) Dr Tushar Mankad 2021
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