Com Med Day 2

8 November 2006

DAY 2
This time, Dr RP Pai came to and spoke to us. We were to be going to Dr TMA Pai Hospital at Udupi.
Interestingly, the local people still refer to it as the ‘Law College Hospital’ as its located in what was once the Law College Building. Ofcourse, now it looks very different, they’ve expanded and renovated it.

He also told us a gruesome story about how he once had to deal with a burns patient, a 75 kg weight woman, whose synthetic sari caught fire while she was working in the kitchen. A ‘75 kg human kabab’ he called it. Said he would never forget the smell of burnt flesh, and everytime he sees a lady entering the kitchen wearing synthetic clothes, it brings back acute memories of the stench of burnt flesh. Point being(Carry Away Message being), clinical medicine is all about the sights, smells and sounds that you must be adept at recognizing. These are imprinted on your memory forever.

Then he said we’ll need to write a project report at the end of four days. GREAT. Just what I needed.

The bus ride to Udupi, lasted less than 20 minutes, but was lots of fun. We were randomly dancing and singing. Once there, same story…we were divided into batches. The hospital itself was one of the cleanest, whitest and brightest I have ever seen. Its more appealing than KH, with airy corridors, and huge windows. The OPD’s are cheerful, the wards have pretty blue curtains all around, even the ICU looked like a more hopeful place than the one at KH.

They don’t really do much charity work though. Each Dept can allot, at any given point of time, two free beds to needy patients. However, the cost of medicines and disposables must be borne by the patient.

We ended up meeting with the head of OBGYN Dept. She told us that now that we’ve chosen to be medical graduates, we better be good at it.
Also “Medicine is one profession where you don’t require much intelligence. All you need is Average or Below Average. The only requirement is that you have to be willing and able to SLOG, day after day, no weekends off, no partying, no slacking off. All your life”

WTF
a) WOW it does my self confidence a LOT of good, knowing that all I have is avg/BELOW avg intelligence
b) Could these people be a little LESS motivating??
c) I don’t want to be a doctor anymore
d) I want a life beyond hospital
e) I am NOT good at slogging
f) I have no choice now

Someone please help, show me how my life is NOT going to suck.