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Poignant Moments in My Life
Poignant
Pronunciation: 'poi-ny&nt sometimes 'poi(g)- n&nt
Means: painfully affecting the feelings
Having completed my Medschool, I worked in
Cardiothoracic Surgery Department (CTVS) for a month as a junior resident.
CTVS was a dreaded dept. for a JR to work in as you had to be on call
alternate days and a normal day would start at 8 AM and end hopefully at 11
PM. I guess this is one of the postings I enjoyed the most.
Ward 44 unlike all other wards in our hospital
had patients of all ages. There were kids who were 4-8 year old and also
adults. Having worked in pediatric surgery the previous month, I had learnt
the knack of befriending the children. This is the story of one of those
kids.
She was a 4 year old and was the friendliest of
all kids in the ward. Every morning, she would gather all the children in
the ward and go with me on rounds visiting every patient in the ward.
She would tell me "Doctor, Innikki Ramu ku
periya oosi kudunga! (Give Ramu a BIG Injection) He troubled me a lot
yesterday". Or she would go "Arre, inniki doctor cell phone edthutu
vandirkanga (Hey, Doctor has brought his cell phone with him today)".
She would never cry when given an injection and would always encourage other
kids in the ward not to be scared of injections. (This has started sounding
like Dr. Christiaan Bernard's story! with due apologies to him!)
I worked in that ward for one very eventful
month (indication that more stories to come) and I was transferred back
to Pediatric Surgery. One and half months later, I happened to be on the
fourth floor to meet one of my classmates at 11 PM (looks like I have always
been the night person!) and I thought, why not I drop in at ward 44 and look
around!
This girl came running to me and hugged me tight
but she wouldn’t speak! I asked her mom how she was and her mom told me that
she was scheduled for surgery (ASD - Ostium Primum closure) the next day!
Ostium Primum is a hole in the heart and its generally considered more
dangerous than its counterpart Ostium Secundum. I was pretty happy for her
and told her that I would come and visit her post-op.
I went to the ICU the next day and met her
distraught mother who told me that she wasn't doing too well. She was on
dopamine and other drugs to keep her heart beating. The verdict: she will
not make it! The resident added "50% mortality in these cases is acceptable"
(Freud would have called that Rationalization)
I could never get myself to go to the ICU again
for fear of knowing the outcome! I kept telling myself "the residents
wouldn't like me disturb them so frequently" (Freud would have called this
projection!)
Two months later, as I was seeing patients in the
Pediatric Surgery OPD, I see this girl's mother carrying her into the OPD.
She had come there on a referral for bedsores. I was so thrilled to see her
alive!!
The sad part is that she didn’t recognize me. In
fact, she hadn’t recognized her mom too after the operation! She had
suffered a mild brain damage because of the prolonged Coma. She was no
longer the cherubic girl i knew; she would stare into space as if she was
trying to understand why she was in a hospital!
She got well; She was discharged from the
hospital and was asked to attend the CTVS OPD! But, I never got to see her
again!
Musings of a somnambulistic doc !
J
Neo
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