If you’ve started reading this, thinking it’s going to be about the records I made/broke, I’m sorry, you’re wrong!
BTW, I haven’t made/broken any “records”, yet!
My Twitter friends would know what this is about because I’ve been ranting about the record-writing work I’ve got to do now. I even warned them that I might be coming up with this blog post since I was so obsessed with the record work I’ve been doing.
I’ve been writing this Social and Preventive Medicine record for quite sometime now. It’s not a big deal, since we’ve finished half the record already. But I hate doing record work, no matter how much!
My experiences with records and record submissions have been tragic. I am that person who keeps writing the record till the last minute of the deadline. And the last minute, well I spend it for covering the record with the laminated brown sheet, which, most of the time, I manage not to make a mess out of it. Thanks to the adequate training I already got in school for the covering-under-emergency skills!
One probable reason why I hate records is that, after the record submission and after the professor corrects it, the one word he/she is going to write on my record note is going to be either “Rewrite” or “Redraw”! Yep, I’m so bad at it! There was this one time when one of the profs asked me to redraw every diagram in the record. I was so pissed off, I just erased those “redraw”s and submitted back, without redrawing! God knows what happened to that record, as I had to go back to that department only during exams.
But this time I’m giving my best shot at this record-writing thing and I just hope things turn out well! Okay, now I guess I should get back and resume my war with the SPM record! Ciao!
Yeah, that’s me!
Once upon a time, there happened a cooking competition! And some idiot enrolled me in it without even asking me! After all how could he know that my cooking skill is only as good as a dog’s ability to fly!
And there I was, forced to take part in the event, and ‘honour’ it! So what?! I can learn cooking in a jiffy! This competition wanted us to cook something using Mushrooms!
After hours of whacking my brains (when I said “jiffy”, I didn’t actually mean it!), I came up with a “brilliant” idea! I’ll make Mushroom 65! But how?! I’ll use some ready made masala and just deep fry the marinated mushrooms and then display it in a presentable manner! Duh! Atleast this is enough to take part in a competition just for the sake of participation!
The day came, when I had to ‘compete’ using my cooking skills! And things went as I planned! There were other participants who had come with amazing and equally tiresome recipes! They were working like hell in their counters to make the mushroom taste good! But here, I was like a cool keg! I didn't care if it would be good enough! But, will it work out?!
Seems it did! The judges came, tasting the mushroom stuff from each counter. And then they came to my counter too! They tasted ‘my’ mushroom 65. I was keyed up to know their comments. And then one of the judges exclaimed, “Aaha! En amma senja maathiriyey irukku!” (“Wow, it tastes just like what my mother used to do!”) So, it was tasty?! I was totally excited! I was sure I’m going to win!
Time for the results… I was still excited about it, though I knew I was going to win anyway! They started announcing! “The third place goes to… some blah blah blah!" Who cares?! I’m gonna get the first place! “The second place goes to… some blah blah blah!” Come on… I know that already! Announce the winner know! “And here goes, the winner is…” My heart was pounding! “some blah blah blah!” “Uhhh?! What?!” My pulse was racing! They had called out my name and I couldn’t hear it properly in all the excitement and adrenaline pumping! “Hey announce it again, I didn’t hear my name!” I wasn’t sure if I should stand up and go to the stage yet!
And then, someone else stood up to go to the podium! So the winner is “some blah blah blah”! And they hadn’t actually called out my name! Oh that explains why I didn’t hear it! But how come I didn’t win?! I was astonished and shocked at the same time,
Because little did I know that, the judge’s mother used the same ready-mix that I had used and that the judge knew how his mother made Mushroom 65!
Damn!
Don’t worry… I’m not going to present a case here!
Case presentation… This is a page which, I’m sure, will have a place in every medico’s diary! This is something over which we would have given enough thought during our clinical years.
To the non-medicos out there, case presentation is nothing but we’ll be given a patient, we’ll have to ask his history, examine him and come to a diagnosis and then present it to a professor. Sounds simple, right?! But it isn’t so! Why?! That’s what this post is about. Read on…
The case presentation part of the clinical life is never going to be easy. The problem lies not just on one point, but on a variety of factors, which makes the probability of you screwing your presentation near infinity (I know that the maximum probability of an incident is 1. But let me tell you, case presentation is beyond the limits of mathematics).
The difficulty in a case presentation starts from us. First of all, the fear in students is the most important factor. We are scared that we would go wrong in our presentation. And that obviously poses serious troubles when you are about to present a case, standing in a special location in the hall, in front of the professor and 50 students. And of course, it goes without saying, we go wrong in the examination part. Examining a patient doesn’t just have few/some/many/too many/way too many rules. It has loads50 of rules and even more exceptions! Here again the probability of missing out on relevant point shoots up.
Okay, if you get through all this and if you are one person who can fly solo, hold on… You have the professors and the patient himself to make things worse! However, I don’t blame them!
The professor is there to teach us, to correct our mistakes. But because of our clumsy presentation he/she ends up only correcting us. Sometimes we start feeling if the professors are there only to point out the mistakes in the presentation. And some corrections will be pointless. But you will have to stand in front of them, not to have a nervous look on you face and correct your presentation even if you are sure that the book says otherwise. Here comes the most important problem, “What is right? What is wrong? Should you add this point in you presentation or not?!”. This is because, there are instances when the text book is wrong and the professor corrects it. But it’s not the same with another professor. He/she might want to go with the textbook. So, it is upto the student to decide which to follow, and how to present, depending on the professor. Most of the time, we won’t know what a professor will be expecting. So, no doubt we are going to go wrong in presenting!
If you had been wondering how the patient will be a problem, here comes… Most of the time the patient gives different histories to the student and the professor. There have been a lot of incidences where the student presents that the patient has some particular complaints and when the professor asks the patient, he/she comes up with a few more complaints (which, with our ill luck, will be vital details taking us closer to the diagnosis!), the professor stares at the student presenting the case and he/she looks helplessly at his/her classmates who will be giggling at their dismal friend by then!
Whatever, case presentations are meant to be a learning process. You are allowed to make mistakes (but only as long as you are ready to correct them and learn quickly). When you are about to begin your presentation, you will feel that you are going to end up as an epitome of embarrassment, but by the end you will have only climbed two rungs on the ladder of your self-confidence and four rungs on your ladder of knowledge!
Case presentation is definitely a thrilling experience with some pit holes, rugged terrain and a saccharine destination!
The past month was a real test to my character! Had so much going on around me, over which I had no control! This is one truth that hit me hard right on my face! Till then I was thinking I was on top of the world, I always had a feeling, everything is under MY control! And last month taught me it isn’t so!
I was made to face completely new situations, situations which I haven’t experienced even once in my life so far! There were a lot of incidences which made me doubt my own abilities… And this is one thing that I haven’t been exposed to very often! I hate evaluating my capacities! I would say I’ve always been a go-getter!
There were days in last month when I felt if I should even get up from bed! (No, I’m not talking about my laziness again here! I mean, I was just reluctant to start my day!) I was actually scared to face my life! I was worried about what might go wrong once I set out on anything! I was worried what MORE might go wrong if I did anything!
And about 75% of what went wrong wasn’t under my control! I had no power over them! And this realization of life’s frailty came really bad on me! And last month saw me losing faith in life, losing faith in me… for the first time ever! I could see life wasn’t so cool, it had its share of shortcomings!
There were so many things that went really wrong last month! Don’t ask me what! Not just one thing! It was a month of realizations for me! Realization of bitter truth!
Hope I can face difficulties boldly in the future! I have never been a coward! But I’ve had problems in sorting out what went wrong last month!
But now, things have improved. And I’m happy to have found my groove again! I guess my life is cool and back!
How many of you can relate yourselves to your name?! I know, when I think of myself, I don’t think about my name. It’s just me, me to myself! But when others think of me, the first thing that comes to their mind will definitely be my name!
From nowhere, I’ve got this question suddenly… “Am I nothing without my name?! Is my name, my only authentication?!” Even in this post I’ve used My Name And I instead of My Name And Me so that I become the subject, not the object! I want to be recognized beyond my name!
Do I sound weird?! Oh come, on… Please bear with me, this is one of the abstract thoughts that hit me every now and then!
But why?! May be because I want to be known for what I have done and my name has got nothing to with it! Confused?! Let me put it this way, I want to be identified by my soul and not by name! My parents named this soul Preethi. But it’s me who has grown and shaped this soul! Weird again?! Forget it!
Now, if somebody can imagine me, without my name and yet identify me, that would be an accomplishment for me!!! I would consider it an accomplishment, good enough for a life time!!!
How do I do it?! I’m searching for the answer…
(Enough of this confusing post, I guess! Hey I keep getting stupid thoughts like this very often! And this is the first time I’m blogging about it! Let’s see how many of you get these kind of ideas too!!!)
Why should keeping a promise be so difficult?! I guess, anything that goes by the name “Promise, duty or responsibility” becomes a real tough task for me! I made a lot of promises to myself this week, and they turn out to be a headache for me!
Some of my “resolutions” for this week…
Unable to sleep, unable to eat… Hmmmm…. NO! I’m NOT in love! Definitely not! If you are unaware, FYI, in this era, nobody is going to have sleepless nights and empty stomach when in love! And I don’t think I’m going to fall in love when 99% of the guys around me are AGMARK dumb idiots!
Hey skip it!
Okay, coming to my problem, (is it even a problem?!) the differential diagnosis could be “ASE” syndrome! Anorexia and Somnolence due to (or during) Exams syndrome! Seems I am one person who is not going to have insomnia during exams!
Promises…. Noooo…. They suck!!! I shouldn’t have even made them in the first place! I doubt if I will ever even think about the spelling of praamise! Or is it promis?! Oh I don't know! I'll not make any promise anymore, I promise! (Obviously, anything that is a "Promise, rule, resolution or glass"... is meant to be broken!)
For Robert Frost, it was
“But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
For me, it is going to be
“It is very difficult to wake up from sleep
And miles to go for the promises I have to keep
Just so that after exam results, I don’t have to weep!”
With the Hockey World Cup matches on, I was just wondering how come our National game suffered such a downfall in our country. It is really heart-breaking to know that a Cricketer is needed for promoting the event on TV! It’s time we woke up!
5 reasons for why hockey should be our National game:
And there are about a thousand reasons for why hockey should not be our National game!
Some of the reasons that I could come up with, right now:
I guess may be the games on Playstations or Cricket should be made our national game. Cricket has more aspirants for it in our country than any other game and it generates an enormous revenue! Needless to talk about the stardom and glamour enjoyed by a Cricketer!
And there’s another game that we all really enjoy… That’s Dumb charades… I’m almost sure it would make a worthy competition with hockey in the contest for our National game!
Watching My Name Is Khan, has aroused curiosity in me about Asperger's syndrome. (My text books have a lot of syndrome names in them, and none of them kindle my interests though!) This syndrome is not new to us and it has been already well portrayed in Rain man (Raymond Babbit played by Dustin Hoffman).
Asperger's syndrome is a mild form of Autism. Though in Rain man, Raymond isn't picturised as a person with Asperger's syndrome, he is clearly potrayed as an autistic individual with characters so similar to Asperger's syndrome!
Watching the mannerisms and body language of Shah Rukh Khan, reminded me of Raymond babbit throughout the movie. (And seriously, MNIK would have been just "another" movie if the hero isn't an Asperger's syndrome patient)
And the movie is said to be an Indian adaptation of Forrest Gump. However, I didn’t feel so!
About Asperger's syndrome... It is named after the Austrian paediatrician Hans Asperger who first described this disease in his patient. People with it show significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests. There is relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development.
The linguistic problems include abrupt transitions, literal interpretations and odd pitch, loudness and rhythm. They appear to have particular weaknesses in areas of non-literal language that include humour, irony and teasing.
The patients enjoy social aloofness and show lack of interest in other people. They are characterised by an excessive preoccupation with a very specialized interest (such as timetables, just like Raymond babbit!)
Intelligence level can be normal or enhanced!
The cause is unknown and treatment is based on behavioural therapy
Written on: 22-2-2010
Posted on: 28-2-2010
