A Varied Week

This is the first week of second-year, when I've actually felt tired and bored of college. Frankly, I shouldn't be feeling like this at all. It wasn't even 6 days of college. We had a holiday on Monday, and since then its been just 5 days, as usual. But, I am pretty bugged of it all. We haven't done much. In fact, its been an average week throughout. The exception being Wednesday. The day of Borse Unit's OPD has been shifted to Thursday. And our ward is now ward No. 13, as opposed to the earlier No. 15. So we had to go to the ward on Wednesday, instead of the usual OPD.
Sadly, our lecture that day was taken by Dr. Dushyant Pawar. To say the least, he is a little scary. Not lookswise, just the way he speaks. He expects us to know everything, which isn't the case. After all, we're just 2nd year students. And this is our first medicine posting. On top of that, we don't read up a case before taking it. Its always the other way round. So, we were told to take a case to examine Splenomegaly ( the patient also had hepatomegaly. We could actually palpate masses this time, unlike last year) . And, so the first thing we told him was that this was a case of Splenomegaly. But, the chief complaints of the patient didn't match at all. So, to put it in blunt and army-terms, he took our case. Completely. So much so, that the girl presenting the case, ended up in tears, and didn't want to do it any more. If Dr. Pawar is reading this, I'd just like to clarify, I'm not insulting you in any way. I'm just pleading here: We're just students, babies out of first year still trying to find their own footing. Please have mercy, and spare us a little bit.

OPD was pretty good on Thurday. I felt the irregularly irregular pulse for the firt ever time, and an irregular heart-beat too. The girl suffered from atrial fibrillation.

Our case on Friday was one of Pneumonia. This was taken by another lecturer. This experience was poles apart from the previous one. He showed us the systemic examination of Respiratory system. I learnt a lot. And, of course, at the end of the lecture, we had a lot to read up on our own. One thing, however, I do have to mention here. Stuff taught in Physiology is just a baseline. It is applied, not word-to-word, in other branches of the field. And this is true in the case of Clinical Examination of the systems.

Our HOU ( Head of Unit), Dr. Borse himself took a lecture on CNS. He made it look very simple. Of course, its not. But, he has a very different style of teaching. Methodical, concise and ver clear. This was easily the best lecture we've had all term.

Well, so because I was so bored of college, I decided to attend a workshop on Laproscopic Surgery, held in Bharati Vidyapeeth Medical College, here. Yesterday was the Live Surgery session. Its the first time I've attended it, so obviously it was very, very, very gruelling. We watched 14 cases in the entire day. These included Inguinal Hernias ( direct and indirect), Incisional Hernia, Cholecystectomy, Gjostomy, Rectoplexy, Hysterectomy, Appendicectomy. There was also an MIPH ( Minimally Invasive Partial Haemorrhoidectomy) which got postponed. They were extremely well-done, and all successful. It was definitely a day of learning a lot. But, of course, it did take a toll on me. I don't think I'll be watching surgeries for some weeks at least. :-) However, the session did get me interested, and now I can say, that I would include 'watching surgeries' as one of my favourite pasttimes. And I feel that's an achievement in itself. I, obviously, am developing an interest for them.

The Student Council has finally formed its committees, and everyone is neck-deep into work. We went to our Juniors on Thursday to talk about the magazine. Of course, our reaction was one of " How dead can a batch be?!" Normally, annoucers of announcements ( thats a funny phrase :-)) encounter a lot bench-tapping, ssshhhh noises, claps, chatters all around, and everything that we can do to make them feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, and forced to raise their voices to decibels unknown. But, we got pin-drop silence, a serious and eerie atmosphere, and the feeling that the people we were talking, weren't exactly awake! That's a batch!! A first, really.

And I guess that is it. Studying is part and parcel of the whole thing. I only seem to mention it when things aren't going my way, or I'm simply out of topics to talk about. So, just a line here, its going well. I'm not exactly worried about it. Hopefully, this week would be less boring and definitely more interesting that last week has been. But, then, its probably a case of 'high apple pies in the sky'!

P.S.

1. I'm missing my vacation of last Diwali. Every day I think about that day in the USA last year.....

2. Our college magazine needs a name. We're thinking of a Marathi name or a medical term. Help would be gratifyingly appreciated.

3. Our seniors, exam-going now, are thoroughly bored of their PLs. Give them their way, and they'd finish their exams this week itself..