Hunting for Clinical Examination

So, over the past few weeks I've been hunting for videos of Clinical Examination of various systems and joints and all, to help me gain some confidence with my own skills. Found a great blog called http://imedrxtv.blogspot.in...it has the MacCleod's Examination videos and also the Dr. Ghanshyam Vaidya clinics. Any one who needs either of them, can definitely have a look.
Today, I watch a youtube video of the Knee Examination. Thought I'd put it in here. its a big help to all those people like who have had to manage Ortho all by themselves, and need some help with the practical part.

From the Heart

There are a few singers who manage to touch your soul with their voices. Here's to you Adele, for touching my soul too....

My most favourite Adele song yet: Rolling in the Deep

Death

Its 3 am in the morning and I can’t sleep. I’ve gotten up to news that always shakes my soul, no matter who is concerned. It’s a death, and one of a close relative. Did I see him in the past 10 years? No. Do I remember his face? No. But my grandmom told me a snippet of how cute a thing I was way back when I was 4 years old. And that snippet is enough to pull me into this mindset…a place where I can’t decide, again, how to deal with the trauma inflicted upon us mortals by something called Death.

I don’t know what everyone is going through. There isn’t much crying, but there is a hush. A hush that is heavy with all the regrets about things that could’ve been done, should’ve been done, that may have been done and better sense prevailed. There is a hush that usually surrounds such news …it wants to say a lot of things, but somewhere between the brain and tongue, it stops…as if not wanting to come out, lest it unleash a cloud of emotions we can’t deal with.

He was beyond 80 years old…he was ill…there was a huge chance this was going to happen…but, when it does, this thought doesn’t make it any easier. The only consoling thought could be that he was restless…he didn’t like being the way he was…he was getting angry about his situation…this was the only way out…but, it doesn’t make it any easier when you ask yourself, “Was it?” It wasn’t the doctors’ decision to make it happen, it was made by Someone Somewhere….Someone who thought it was time to go.

Such thinking doesn’t make it easier either. Who would wish things turned out this way? Who would want to feel all the rush of emotions at this moment? When you begin to realize that you will NEVER see that person again, it hurts….in that pit of your stomach that isn’t even a part of any happy feelings that could make it easier. It hurts, because along with that knowledge, comes a load of memories…when he first held you…saw you walk for the first time…watched you get your first award…saw you in your darkest hour to give you strength that only a parent could give…all the fights, all the good times… and then, that so-called consoling thought doesn’t seem so consoling any more…

In death, every hate that you’d ever felt towards that person seems to evaporate (unless it was a murderer or something…in that case, things would be different maybe)…you end up saying to yourself, yes, it was stupid…maybe I shouldn’t have gone so far. But, it hurt that time, and maybe for years after that…and so you never really ended up taking about it. Now that is what you regret. A lot.

Death is the rule of Nature. Is it just us Humans who end up feeling this way? This barrage of emotions that erupt with such news…a turmoil that we can’t deal with? And, why does everyone say time heals everything? It might suppress the memories, it might bring new ideas, new avenues…somewhere deep down, the old ones still remain…and this transition. This transition from right now to then, isn’t that a painful process? How should you deal with the idea that somebody has gone to a place where he can’t be reached, can’t be seen, can’t be felt. A place, we say, exists, but don’t know much about…does it really? Or is it just the end. An abrupt end to a mortal life that had to end from the very time it began.

These questions come up every time. Is there any answer to them? Life goes on, as it should. But, there has to be a moment when these ideas get overwhelmingly too much. What does a person do? How do you deal with Death. How do you manage to let go of all those regrets, all those happy memories that hurt so much? Most importantly, how do you run away from your own mind that refuses to want to deal with it all and move on. This moving on process, reducing a person’s being to a mere memory….is that fair to him? He lived a life….a life that was pieced together by his own work and those around him. He lived A LIFE. Is it fair to reduce that life to a memory that threatens to disappear when it gets too distant? Would you want to remain just a memory? In that case, this means we’re selfish enough to wish the people close to us shouldn’t move on at all. Yet, that is not how life is supposed to work.

Maybe some day, I’ll find answers to all these conflicting thoughts that eat me through and through. However, if there’s something I learn from this, it’s that, you have to say everything you want to, to every person in your life. Tell them you love them forever, whatever may happen in the future. You shouldn’t want to say it when its too late.

May his soul rest in peace. 

Theory Examination Over

Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve realized the following:

1.       I hate exams. I thought I lived for them, but I don’t.

2.       If Final year is supposed to be hard, it doesn’t even compare to the stress you go through during the exam. Looking back, I don’t know how I made it through in one piece.

3.       Papers always turn out differently this year. They are all expected questions, yes, but you don’t feel like you’ve written expected answers (or this might just be me talking).

4.       The age old superstition : the lesser you’ve done something, higher the chance of it actually ending up in the paper. It sucks through your brain. Oh, it SO does! And probably, that’s why you end up staying awake the whole night.

5.       Everybody but you, seems to be less concerned about the examination. It’s almost as if, you’re in one boat and everybody else in the other. It actually isn’t like that, but that’s how the world looks to you.

6.       The MUHS does NOT care about us students. They prepare papers full of spelling mistakes, repeat short notes in the same question (which is: Answer any three out of five. So that effectively reduces us to answering 3 out of 4. Or taking that bold step of writing the same answer twice hoping you’ll get 3 marks two times over.

7.       Surgery still freaks me out. I did it almost twice. Almost, because, there were a few chapters I did not do twice. Yet the day before both my papers, I was freaking out. And I was almost wishing I hadn’t taken up this course of Medicine.

8.       I always fall sick before my exams. Thing is, the week before my immune system decides to take a holiday, and I suffer. Surprisingly, this time, I got better like 2 days before the exam began, to reach my designated centre and end up with the flu AGAIN. Seriously, there was a time during the paper I had to allot to clearing my blocked sinuses!!

9.       I am exhausted. I don’t want any more testing, I don’t want any more theory answers to be written. I’m so tired of taking all this stress, it’s reduced my weight to more than is normal during a preparation leave.

10.   And, did I mention, I’m still hating Final year? Oh yeah, I’m still hating it, and I simply can’t wait enough for 13 Jan to come.

So how were these exams? The same exams I was so worried about, the exams on which nothing depended, my parents had absolutely no expectations from, I had no expectations from, the exams for which I literally turned the entire household’s lives upside down….yeah they were ok….all of my papers were more or less the same…I didn’t find any paper extremely easy, but no paper was pathetic either….I liked my Obstetrics paper best, because I drew a lot of diagrams, and they didn’t ask the questions I’d dreaded. I think I like my Paediatrics paper least, but that’s just because I couldn’t give the finishing touches I’m so used to giving all my papers. And it sucks to end your undergraduate examination on that note.

It’s what I’ve been through in these past 2 weeks, that’s so important. I suck at managing stress. Oh man, I really suck. My mind plays all sorts of games with me, and it’s so freaky. My usual method of calming myself down went to the dogs this year. When I told myself, “Shut up, stupid little girl, you’ve prepared well!!”, another louder voice used to come up behind me slowly and say, “Oh yes, little girl, you’ve prepared well. Tell me, do you know that you can’t remember the treatment charts? Or diagrams? Oh and by the way, you’ve not even touched contraception yet….and what about Skin….and you have even done your usual dose of MCQs this year.” It’s so hard to get rid of that voice once it starts.

This past month has been dreadful. I don’t think I’ve ever suffered so much in any preparation leave. It has been a combination of low confidence, sucky memory and a vast portion that refuses to even come close to the finishing line. The result : a complete wreck of a person, worried parents, indecision about the future and an ardent desire to just let go. They say Medicine is tough, so this is just the beginning. I’m really worried about my brain and its tolerance capacity. So, yes, there are some tough decisions to make in the coming month- regarding my future, what I want to do, how I want to do it, and the best way to keep my brain stable. I almost resorted to some anti-depressants and I don’t want to go down that road ever again. That’s why this decision will be so important to me.

Right now, I’m already worried sick about my practicals. The worry doesn’t make it any easier to start studying again, but it does affect the general day. I wish I had some confidence in myself. I really do. I hate this low self-esteem I have about my case-taking and practical skills. Of course, I have good enough reasons to feel this way, but I also have good reasons NOT to feel this way. Our timetable isn’t out yet. All we know is that, practicals in our college will be held from 1^st to 12^th of Jan, 2013. Nothing more. I want to know the exact details as fast as possible…that way, once I have a deadline to get to, it’ll make it easier to manage my study timetable.

God bless me and my case-taking skills. One ordeal over, another to start very soon. Oh I hate Final Year!