Undue Consultations

One day just as a man walked out of my office, a general practitioner walked in,coming to consult me for her daughter's issues. She noted the man who had just walked out, and asked me in a hushed tone as to how I was connected to that man. Making an exception to the professional confidentiality clause, I told her that he was the son of one of my patients. She sighed and narrated an experience she had with this man, a young autorickshaw driver. A few months prior to this visit of hers to my office, that young man, she said, had started dropping by in her clinic every few days complaining of a marriage not consummated. Maintaining her professional courtesy this colleague had heard the man the first time but had firmly asked that he bring along his wife thereafter. Seeing that he had not followed her instructions she was forced to be rude to him and warned him of the possibility of reporting him to the police for indecent behaviour. At this point I told this colleague that as far as I knew of that man, he was unmarried. I could see disgust on her face for that man as she left my office.

Three Men and a Mannat

Many years back I had set up my practice as an orthopedic surgeon in a small town. Looking out for staff, I hired a young man for the night duty.His name was Razzak. He was recommended by the local government official I had come to have some acquaintance with. He had clearly mentioned his religion to me and asked whether that was alright for me. I brushed it aside and asked him to join my team, asking him to feel as comfortable as he would in any other place outside his home.

Surprisingly, the very next day one of the town's leading merchants sent his staff to me and conveyed that I was to remove "that man" from my staff right away, if I wanted to practice. My instantaneous response was that I would never remove Razzak on my own, except if he committed an offensive act against a patient or another human being. The incident simmered away after a while. But, it continued to surprise me that I defended Razzak in a firm manner. He was not in any way dear to me. So, what was? The answer remained elusive until I could correlate the following incident from my infancy; it was told to me during my years of  growing up, long after it transpired.

As an infant, I had remained unwell for an extended period of time, long enough to lose a good deal of precious baby-weight. After some concerted efforts from many people that went on for a few months, including my parents, grandparents and others, I finally came on to the road to health, much to the relief all my family members.

Soon after my health was no longer a concern, three young unmarried men staying in the neighborhood came up to our door one day and asked permission from my parents to take me to a Dargah (a muslim shrine) to offer namaz as a thanksgiving in return for the health bestowed upon me. They said that they had a mannat ( a solemn resolve) that should I become well again, they would take me to the Dargah they had faith in, to offer prayers and thanks at the shrine of a holy man buried there.

By the grace of God I have remained away from serious or life threatening illnesses ever since. While I am certainly grateful for the good health I continue to enjoy, I am especially thankful to those (then) young men. They demonstrated by their deeds that humanity is beyond religion and beliefs. They also sowed in me seeds of something very valuable. I now know that those young men could have least cared what happened to a hindu infant; but they cared. Not only that, they cared enough to see that, in their belief-system, a spell of disabling  ill-health would not afflict me again, and for that they went out of their way, rising up against the fear of potential ridicule and rejection from people they did not know (my parents).

For the better thereafter, I haven't been able to discriminate against a person because of his religion.  That's not to say that I don't have likes and dislikes about people I interact with, but just that a religion different from mine is no deterrent to a decent relationship. For this Value, I shall forever be grateful to those three men and their mannat.

What’s Not in A Name?

How do you like the name Schiklgruber?

You may not care to have an opinon on that but the person named as that did not like it one bit and changed his name and perhaps thereby changed quite a significant part of human history, dubiously.

Not On Oath!

This is literally, a tale of two cities with a twist. More correctly, these are two tales from two cities with two twists. And, this is not fiction. Let’s find out.

A family, known to us, shifted to another city as the elder son joined his new job there. The senior, the boy's father, had just retired and was looking forward to some relaxed time with his wife and family in the new city.

The Business of Pet Therapy.

Mahesh* is a 49 year old former site foreman in a road construction company. He is well built and handsome. He came to the clinic as a part of his annual check up. From his looks he didn't need any.

However his past medical history was a shocker. One harsh summer afternoon, seven years back, he was found comatose at a  road construction site by his colleagues.

Dr. Machine, M.D.

The other day I met with a professor who teaches computer chip design amongst other things. He is from a generation who has also lived comfortably in an age without the internet and mobile phones.

The professor was a multi-disciplinary person and his interests were thus wide ranging. He wanted to inquire about how doctors take to technology in their professional lives. 

He asked me if I was comfortable using more and more technology in my practice, and if so how far I would go with it.

Why is the patient a patient?

The answer to the question in the title of this post is almost always very evident as soon as one sees the patient. He or she is sick and needs help to cope with the sickness or illness and get on with life.

There could be other reasons as well: fear of suffering, seeking relief in a manner better than what is being offered now (second opinion), seeking reassurance and so on. Almost always there is a child like need that has to be addressed by the doctor when seeing a patient.

In being a patient, it is assumed by the doctor that the patient is not there to increase her suffering. It is also inconceivable that the patient has any malicious intent in presenting to the doctor.

An exception to such a generalization is any work-related health issue: here there is some psychological game playing going on,sometimes subconsciously. I have rarely seen any malicious intent in a domestic setting.

Sometime back a lady in her mid forties started consulting me

Lovely Ambitions!

Ask any child in the preschool age what he or she wants to become when grown up, and the usual answer is to be like one of the parents. The parent is the child’s ideal. It is a magical world for the child to be like one’s parent. But then, during school age the ambitions change, sometimes twice a day.

As doctors, to get the child’s confidence and cooperation for the examination, we often engage the child in such talks, and before the child knows it the quick examination is done and we can then get on with further management of the child’s illness.

On the other hand, these questions can be quite a needle prick for the parents, because once the child is relaxed, heaven only knows what he or she will blurt out. So you are never quite sure which way the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”,  will lead.

Recently a family brought along their three year old daughter

Sample Coincidence.

Medical Representatives (M.R.s) and Doctors share a relationship that evolves over a period of time. Most times it is a professional relationship with all its protocols intact. When a M.R. visits a doctor, he does so to promote his company’s products. As a part of this process he is asked to leave behind him some samples, which are a reminder of his products. It is supposed to help the doctor remember the brand when prescribing a medicine.

A newly recruited and fresh M.R. is not expected to leave behind much, and he does not generally stand a chance in most doctors’ chambers till he has put in quite some efforts in convincing doctors over and over again of the value of his products. Thus, to perform (make the sales figures rise) he has to resort to gimmicks

Symbols are not just symbolic.

Symbols stir up something deep within you. Gestures are also symbols. The 'Namaste' gesture, or the Thumbs-up and the Correct mark in a student’s class work book are all powerful symbols that evoke emotional responses without there being much choice on the part of those coming to experience or receive the symbolic gesture .

A Deceptive Rip Off

Sometimes we fail to realize that we have been conned; but when we do, after the initial dismay, we are on guard not to be fooled again. But what if we stubbornly refuse to do the needful and willfully get fooled again and again?

The Breakthrough in the Witnessing.

When you fight, criticize, complain, groan, grudge, or pity, you become a part of the problem and in that mode you cannot be a part of the solution. When you observe, witness and stand apart, you open yourself up to possibilities that are not apparent when you oppose. When you wait and observe, you render yourself to become a part of the solution.

There is another observation about this:

When someone’s behavior tends to draw your reaction, that is the moment to look within and learn to be equiposed emotionally and yet be with the moment and see what happens next. For that is the moment when you can take an unprejudiced action. That moment when you observe yourself reacting has something very important for you to learn about yourself. But to start with, when you are not adept at this, it is a challenge to do this, and yet that is the only way out.  Robert Frost is often quoted in this context: “the only way out is through”.  A beautiful and very insightful phrase.

All this is easily said than done, agreed; but then one has to begin that process sometime, and begin it again every time one falters, as one often does.

This post has no story attached to it; it is direct; perhaps there could be a story to it someday, but then if there is none coming to mind, then there is no use fabricating one. Hope that is okay with those that read it. 

Also, your insights on this are really most welcome, please oblige.

Rough Cut

A Barber's saloon is a favourite with me: apart from reading the glossy film mags, the study of other people's whims and tastes, is complimentary! 

I have had several lessons taught to me, of late, by changing barbers! Firstly, like doctors, one should not change one's barber except under a very strong compulsion. You would rue the fact that you did.

Secondly, just because your barber charges more than he did the last time, do not give up on him, like I did!

The Shoe that Didn't Bang

There is this story that needs to be retold, for it leads to somewhere important, perhaps.

Due to financial constraints, a man lets out the first floor of his wooden house to an alcoholic. Every night the alcoholic would come in late, and just before he dozed off, would throw his shoes, one after the other, creating  two bangs every night. This disturbed the owner no end. One day he musters the courage to tell the alcoholic to stop the bangs. That night, the alcoholic returns late and unaware of the promise he had made, he removes his right shoe and bangs it on to the wall. He then realizes that he had made a promise to the landlord not to bang the shoes. He stops and doesn't throw  the other shoe. On the floor below, the landlord waits for the second bang, but none comes. He checks with the tenant, only to find him worried. The landlord was worried as to why the second bang didn't come through.
The expected did not happen, and that worried the landlord.

Young and Responsible-the new cliche.

The other day we had a late night conference to attend, and we had flown into Mumbai a bit early for the event, leaving my friend and I with some time to spare. We dared the rush hour in Vile Parle to get some work done in Andheri before returning to our hotel. The 'work' was shopping! (I remember a wag saying, "what you like doing is fun, what you don’t is work")

On our way to Andheri, we hired an auto whose driver was in his fifties and had been into that line of work for a considerable length of time-we reckoned this from his laid back attitude. My friend is a junior who works with my ex-boss now.  Though we were anxious about managing to get there in time, we were delivered without any hassle to our destination.

We spent some time mixing work with pleasure (just sipped a glass of cold coffee ). On our return we hired another auto whose driver was perhaps not even in his twenties. He drove the auto as if he was on a  grand prix circuit. I commented to my my friend that the previous driver was like my ex-boss: experienced and measured in his driving, while this one was like my young colleague,  energetic and fast. Thanks to the driver's  incomplete knowledge of the major roads we overshot our hotel by about ten kilometers before we took an equally long road back, and finally reached the hotel, late by an hour in our estimate.

All the clichés about the young being inexperienced and careless came to my mind. Somehow, the conference that we attended later that night made us forget the unease we had with the young auto driver.

But the next morning that image of the young brat came to haunt me again as I saw two very young and handsome looking pilots climb up to the cockpit

Loneliness and Solitude

Some time back a friend asked me to consider, as an exercise, thrashing out the differences between loneliness and solitude. It has been a beneficial effort for me. 

When lonely, a person is in a state of wanting of somebody; feels left out or without, and there is some inherent sense of sadness. The lonely person wants company but cant seem to get one because of the very nature of that state. It is a state of emotional deprivation and lends itself to depression. Being lonely is not something one asks for, either for oneself or for one's enemies. It feels like a curse.

Solitude is a state of joy, and in that state the person feels in communion with oneself, happy with being in his or her own company. A person could crave or pray for solitude and in that craving there could be a sense of want or sadness, but once in that state, there is a sense of completeness and joy. It is that state of bliss where one is wakeful, aware, and yet very much conscious of oneself in a very pleasant sense. It feels like being Graced.

Any comments or insights on this are most welcome.

A little interesting side-line: an experience and reflecting about it are not the same. Consider meditation, for example.

This way or that?

Making a decision is sometimes an exercise in self observation. It throws light on the double edged nature of the mind.
This is most apparent when the choices on offer are of equal measure but divergent in nature: career decisions, choice of a life partner, and, changing professions in midlife are examples of such junctions of life.
What appears as solid and most apt looks like an illusion and completely unworthy after a few hours. A few words of well meaning advice from friends and family can turn the tide and yet again you are back to thinking, "what if I chose the first option, rather than this one?" after a while. It can be tiring. You feel as if your own mind cannot be trusted for suggesting to you the right direction of action. You are left in the lurch by your own mind!

All options are good to start with, and yet in practice, you can go along only one path. What to do, becomes a harrowing issue.
One small way out is to imagine how it would feel some ten years down the line if one chooses one option versus another. The emotion attached to that option would perhaps be a more accurate guide. If the option works out well, good, if it doesn't, at least your heart is not pained about the decision.
Have you come across a better way of dealing with such issues?

Caller Id

This morning I saw my mobile screen glow up with the caller's name: a prominent individual of our city, who has been consulting me for some time now. By default I greeted him with, "Good morning, Sir". No sooner had I done this  I realized that, in another perspective,  I was only greeting a cell phone number that was identified with an individual.
There are times when another family member uses an individual's cell phone to make a call, and, I am sure, that there are funny incidents occurring on such occasions when the person answering the call greets the caller assuming that it is the same individual with whom the cell phone number is identified.

Our names, our identities and our social images are like the cell phone numbers: these are tags to help others recognize us from amongst a whole lot of others- a simple code. The trouble begins when the code takes us over! The disease is universal, and blindness to it is equally all pervading.
Are we our codes (names, and our other identities)? What was just a matter of facilitation has gone amok.

The Physician's Grin; What Does it Mean?

Many years back, when I was a last year medical student, I came to know of a physician with great diagnostic and academic powers.We medical students were in awe of this man.He would always be present at all academic meetings of the medical college and he would share his vast practical knowledge and acumen with flair. At the end of every such meeting junior doctors and medical students would flock around him and ask him questions pertaining to cases they had in the wards, and he would oblige.

However there was one aspect to this man that went beyond my understanding: everytime he was out of the hall where there was an academic meet that had concluded, he would have a grin pasted on his face. This grin was very difficult to make sense of : it was in part acknowledgement of another's presence, in part just a hint of a scoff, and in part perhaps a bit of self amusement. His trademark grin has remained with him ever since I have known him, even to this day. I often wondered about it and thought as to what must be making him smile the way he did; what must be making that smile-grin stick on for so long even when there was hardly anyone around to smile to.

Now let us fast forward to some twenty five years. Recently I was visiting a patient of mine at a tertiary care hospital. Every few paces I met a face that smiled at me because each considered me as being one of the doctors of that facility, and I was in some sense, their senior. The trouble was that I did not know most of them personally, and could only make out that this person must be on the staff of this hospital. If I ignored them, it would be very bad manners, and if I smiled at a person who in his opionon, I just did not know at all, I would risk being a little crazy. What to do? It was then that I noticed that I had had a smile on my face for the entire length of my stay at that hospital: smile just in case I met someone who smiled at me, even if  I did not know them- it avoided the embarrassment of having to embarrass someone who showed the courtesy of smiling at me. It was that physician's grin. Now I knew what it meant!