Hiatus Hernia

Wow! It's been 3 months since I last put in an entry. Hmm.... looks like I may have to do something about it. Maybe not. Exams came, left and exams are about to begin again. All you out there not in med fac, count yourself lucky... (maybe not lawyers)...cause seriously you guys get long holidays, while we get at best 2-3 weeks from now on. You have papers, research reports, lab reports, and so on but you don't have to have lessons at ungodly hours (like 5pm to 10Pm for E-med posting ala year 3, including weekends). The next academic year starts as soon as the previous ones end. Stressful but I like this life!! At least you're always kept busy with something.

Today is exactly 2 years since I enlisted in the army. All my batchmates have ORDed and I've been reflecting now about my interview for medicine. I once said that I want to make the world a better place, cure people this and that. The after 2 years, I've come to realise that that was a bunch of crap! Curing people is just one fifth of the story.

As someone once said sometime ago, "You cure a few, treat some but comfort all" That summarizes the story doesn't it. We cannot decide who dies and who lives. Some one up there does it. We try to prevent it but after all we are nothing but human. But the main idea is to comfort all. Reduce the pain. Help them in their passing and make it as painless as possible. Give a listening year always, as that is what will give us a clue to what is wrong. The emphasis on patient history is that great. Communication is vital. Be open and truthful. That is what we're taught to do.

With all the medical advances, we can only do so much because, the truth is, as we progress deeper and deeper towards a cure, like a bog pit, we just keep sinking deeper and deeper. We have indeed created "monsters" in our pursuit of treatment. Multi drug resistant strains of organisms were created due to the overexessive use of antibiotics. Common cold--> antibiotics? Where antibiotics should only be given for bacterial infections. That's why we have come up with restrictions to the use of antibiotics, but is it too little too late?

I guess its everything has consequences. Every action has an equal opposite reaction. Something that we should all keep in mind!

Without Wax
Shariff