Curtain Falls

It has finally happened!! My ICMR Project report is out, and it says -

Wait for it!

APPROVED!!!!!!!!


 I'm so relieved!! I have had so much trouble with this whole project idea this year, I can't actually believe my eyes which read that "Approved". Yes, everyone around me told me that it was a good topic, that Diabetes is a subject that no researcher can ignore, that the effort I had taken was for real and that the authorities would see that, that I deserved to get the approval.....but, my whole experience was one big roller-coaster....I never believed that I would touch solid ground, until I did for real. Yes, I have finally touched solid ground.
From the complications that arose from our Symposium Competition and the submission of the Research proposal clashing....to the missing of the date for the Ethics Committee Meeting...to the decision of almost giving up this project, irrespective of whether the ICMR allowed me to do it or not....to that provisional certificate that was given and then revoked (after I'd completed my study)....to having been called to present my topic before the Ethics Committee (something that has never happened with ICMR projects before)....to running around behind the new Head of the Ethics Committee to give me my approval letter....to having to buy the Lipid Profile Kit for my project....to having to make the numerous trips to the lab to get things moving...to having gotten my mom to college to collect the blood of my first two patients....to getting so nauseous out of worry that I did not eat for two whole days...to coming everyday to college compulsorily to get two (and any more being called 'bonus') patients of Diabetes everyday....to having trouble with the Statistics of the project....to waiting till the last minute (after my Prelims got over) to create a report out of whatever I'd managed to find....to that final horror of a day when things got unruly at home, and I still managed to send the whole report to ICMR.....yeah, it has been quite a journey.
I made mistakes along the way, I hated my life along the way too....I made life hell for all the people close to me, friends and family included. It was tough, but it was an experience...something that I shall never forget for the rest of my life. I know what it's like to conduct research, I know the pains people take to do something that can get them something more than just plain knowledge (the feeling of having done something great, found something new)....I understand why people fall in love with their papers and hate it when they get rejected from Journals they are sent to for publication. I landed at the other end of the scale...instead of falling in love, I hated it....I thought I could've come up with something grand, and I did not. Which hurt, yes it did. But, I think it is grand now. Out of the 1000s in the country who applied for this Short-Term Studentship, they selected around 200, and out of those 200, they approved my whole research. Yes, this is a good positive feeling.
Looking back, I probably don't want to miss the Ethics Committee meeting date. That is pretty much it. I wouldn't change a thing about my experience while doing this project. I met some really good patients...I was told many good things by a lot of patients....my 70 patients, who shared a part of their life with me deserve a big thank you. I learnt a lot about talking to you, being kind, appreciating the problem you have, trying to make things better for you...as I said in the assessment of my experience, I grew as a doctor, I learnt to be a doctor and a human being. I might not be very gentle during my internship, but I do know that I have a responsibility to treat every human as human, give importance to everything the patient has to say, and always be kind, no matter what. Yes, that was my biggest lesson.
It would've been such a bummer to not have got this approval...I'd have probably been chanting all sorts of negative thoughts, hating those 4 months, wanting to have followed my heart and not wasted time in my project. But, God has been there, and been there in style :-) Thank you so much Dear God. You have no idea how much this means to me!!
So overall, yes, I hated the year. I took on a lot of things apart from plain studying-
1. The Symposium on Islet Cell Transplantation
2. The ICMR Project
3. The Seminar on Hospital-Acquired Infections
4. The Paediatrics Quiz
5. The TB Quiz
6. The Medicine Quiz
7. The Asthma Quiz
8. The load of my Final Year studies
Phew. I think I've done decently well then.
Oh yes, the reason for that 'decently well'-
My Final Year results are out....I've gotten 72.33% :-)
No distinctions though...missed the one in Paediatrics by one mark :-p
I'm 4th in College. Which is sort of cool :-)...a let-down on last year (73%, Rank 2), but after looking at that list above, I think I've done better than I thought I would have.
Results were declared on 28th February. Since I was doing that BLS and ACLS course, I'd decided not to check my result. The tentative date was always 28th Feb, so that day, I was on tenterhooks all day long. You can imagine my delight when I got a text from a friend saying that they were not going to be declared on that day, but maybe the next day. I was on Cloud 9. I've been ranting about how I don't want this result, haven't I? It was an answer to all my prayers.
I was so happy about passing my BLS examination, I updated my FB status to "I can save lives now." Turns out people took that as my status response to the results having been declared. Oops. A few phone calls down the line, I had to delete my happiness over my BLS course from FB. Weird thing is, the moment I deleted it, I got another text saying, "Results declared." Now, you would obviously think there was still some confusion over my just-deleted status. Which is what I thought and replied also. Fate had decided t play a trick on my me and my jolly mood though. Results did get declared. Hmm.
I thought I'd just check out the college list to see whether I'd passed or failed. Seeing that "PASS" against my name gave me a sigh of relief. At least there was no further exam to take 6 months down the line. Again to soothe my nerves down a bit, I called up my school friend, talked for half an hour, then decided to check my marks.
There they were- 651/900. Was I happy? Umm. Was I sad? Umm. I was actually empty on emotion. I had now gotten the tag of Dr. to my name, and I was still feeling empty. That was strange. I didn't really care about anything. I knew I hadn't topped but that did not matter...I knew I hadn't come 2nd, but somehow that did not hurt or matter either. These marks just proved that I was done. Done with this jam-packed final year forever. That gave me a calm, a serenity that did not budge for a long time (now it has, because the thought of internship scares the hell out of me). It has been that way about my results this year. I don't care. As long as I pass, that is all that matters. I feel more satisfied about my Project and my Course. Maybe that sounds strange....but it sounds good to me. And it has put my mind in a state that has come to terms with these marks much faster than ever before.
Done...now I can only look upward from here. No going back. 

BLS and ACLS

I thought of writing about the two most important things for me right now, together, but then it didn't really make sense. Let's have two different posts then.
I managed to complete the Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support Courses. I am now a certified provider of both, and man, am I so confident and happy about the two!!
Day one was really good. One of my chief problems has been talking to people. Somehow, the two years higher secondary school and the four years of college taught me everything except communication. I haven't been the kind of a person who makes friends everywhere she goes, and these experiences just added to that trait more than ever. I haven't been doing a lot of out-of-college stuff, so the chance of trying to get out of this trait never came. I was worried about the experience of doing this alone. But, you know what, I'm not that bad after all. I did meet new people and definitely made a new friend :-)
Going back to the actual course- BLS was fantastic. Initially, the task of doing 5 cycles of 30 chest compressions with an interruption of <10secs :-="" :-p="" a="" after="" aha.="" aha="" an="" and="" anything="" arm="" as="" association="" at="" been="" between="" beyond="" bls="" but="" by="" can="" cardiopulmonary="" certified="" course="" day.="" designed="" do="" end="" examination="" got="" had="" has="" heart="" helps.="" hurt="" i="" if="" in="" into="" involves="" is="" it="" learning="" man="" merican="" method="" mode.="" more="" my="" nbsp="" now="" of="" on="" over="" p="" perceived="" period="" plus="" practical="" protocol="" providers="" really="" resuscitation="" s="" see-and-learn="" session="" step-by-step="" stupid="" superb.="" teaching="" technique="" than="" the="" there="" things="" this="" time="" to="" tough.="" under="" was="" we="" well="" were="" which="" wrist="" written="">

ACLS was more taxing. The whole process was beautifully organised. We were shown videos of teams managing cases...step-by-step videos....followed by putting-it-all-together videos, so the idea of an ACLS team was put through to us via visuals than mere didactic sessions. Those videos were a class apart. I have always admired the importance of protocols and organisation given in the Healthcare system in the US. This course provided perfect evidence to my previous heard-from-others respect.

From my point of view, the ACLS was more demanding. I haven't worked in a hospital before, haven't been a part of a team that needs to save a dying patient, haven't ever needed to think fast, act fast, be on my toes all the time, manage a whole team, think of what everyone is doing and ensuring that it done well. That is exactly what this course was about. I was the youngest person there, having just completed my final year of undergrad (and not even a doctor on the first day, our results were declared that evening). I was quite taken aback, when they said that we were going to be tested on our ability to be team leaders and guide a team to perform an ACLS service. Yeah, here I was, fresh out of medical school from India (where they don't teach you anything not-theoretical)....having my own doubts about calling myself a doctor and now, I was supposed to consider myself the most experienced out of the whole team and order them around as if I knew what it was exactly I have to do. I've always had my doubts about my own capabilities, but the second day of our course, those doubts stood out like tall pillars hiding me from what I knew was to be done. The instructors kept saying that when you know the algorithms by heart, there isn't much difference between a doctor and a non-medical person. All you have to do is follow the protocol and the algorithm.
Then came the task of identifying cardiac rhythms. Have I ever mentioned how stupid I am, when it comes to cardiac rhythms? Those ECGs were never taught to our batch (our bad, and only our bad. All my friends in other batches came to final year knowing how to read ECGs). They gave me nightmares during exams (and my final university examination, luck stood by me. I got an Inferior Wall MI to identify, the only rhythm I could identify). So, when they said you have to analyse rhythmns, yes, I threw up inside of me. I'd rather do something else. What added to my stress further was that everyone else already knew the rhythms (thanks to being doctors working for years, or doctors who'd completed their internship.). I was terrified. Let alone having ever seen a defibrillator or a TCP device before, I couldn't even identify rhythms. How was I to know whether to shock the patient or not?
Day two left me a little bruised inside. I was wondering how I'd fare in the examination the next day. I was wondering whether it had been a good decision to do this course now, at the start of my internship. A lot of questions swum around in my head, as I mugged up all those algorithms and tried out all sorts of permutations and combinations of them, thinking of patients weaving out of one rhythm and going into another.
I don't know whether it was the feel of a new day or just the fact that I'd studied hard enough to finally get hold of the idea, but next day (i.e. yesterday) when we practised again, I was understanding things, thinking for myself, looking at myself as a team leader, and gaining confidence as I did it all. It helped that our instructor was very pleasant and very nice about all the doubts I had, explaining every little thing to me. So as luck would have it, my practical went really well. So well that the examiner asked me where I worked :-p Lol!! When I told him that I was yet to start with internship, he gave me this surprised+satisfied look and said, "Very Good then. I thought you were working in some institution." Such a boost. The theory was a little tough, but I managed to get the required percentage. Yay!!

So now I am a certified BLS and ACLS Provider for two years....I have the confidence to know and do exactly what I need to save a dying patient in the casualty....and yes, I feel more like a doctor now than I felt immediately after our results were declared (when I officially became one :-p)