Electrifying!

Electric News!

I’ve been in Allied postings nowadays and that’s probably why its taken me so long to get a story out of my hospital but this one’s a doosey!!!

I’m currently in Anaesthesia and was called upon to induce a case for cystoscopy (where you put in a scope to view the bladder ) for a guy who had come with complaints of hematuria ( blood in urine. ) I was also shown the Xray which blew me to pieces!!!!

Let’s get straight to the point. This guy had a huge bladder stone 22mm X 25mm ( Sid, get this ) sitting around in his bladder which had to be removed suprapubically.

The case was induced, cystoscopy completed, stone visualised and removed by supra pubic incision. The stone was really that big and hard. That’s when I got the full story.

The X ray showed that this stone was no ordinary stone, in fact it was one I’ve not seen yet! It had formed around a foreign body in the bladder. The kicker is this……the foreign body was


A METAL WIRE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The history given : Two ppl held this guy and shoved the wire up his urinary tract ( for fear of using graphic terms )

The Actual Story ( Obtained after much probing and frightening ): This guy was pleasuring himself and had shoved the wire up his own urethra for reasons only he understands. Hehehehehehe I am still dumbfounded as to how he got it all the way in?!?!?!?!

So being the good Doctors that we are we proceeded to break the stone to get to the core of the issue ( excuse the pun ). After breaking it, we found that this was ELECTRIC WIRE…the insulated kind. Apparently it had lost all insulating potential.

I’m telling you…There is no place like Mumbai to see the weirdest cases!!!

Till later

Right To Strike?

I'm tired of reading letters from people saying things like the Government has in principle agreed to all the demands of the doctors except that of the stipend. On what basis are people making this assumption? Also talking about how we should not sort to extreme measures just because of some irate relatives is just not right.

Let me clarify a few things

1.) If we did not care about patients, there was no reason for us to spend a good 8-10 years of our lives studying to become doctors.

2.) The Government has agreed to improve our living conditions in principle so many times before that its now time to question those same principles!

3.) Most Importantly, are we really prepared to wait till someone gets stabbed or beaten black and blue before addressing the question of security???

I have personally had a patient who stood up on the bed in the casualty, grabbed a tube light off the wall, broke it and threatned to stab himself...in the prescence of ONE security guard who could do nothing but watch. Would our demands be fair if either he or one of the doctors attending to him would have gotten stabbed!!

Just to make a point, it was two doctors and not the security guard who finally got that patient to calm down and saved his (and maybe our) life.

With respect I remain.

Strike Strike Strike

Where have we heard this before!

The overworked, underpaid, underprivileged, slum dwelling, unrespected ( I know its not a word) resident doctors of all government and municipal hospitals are on strike....Again!

Only this time I think something has to give.

The story so far... In two separate incidents, resident doctor's working at KEM Hospital and Bandra Bhabha hospital were assaulted by relatives of patients. One of these was a lady doctor who simply told the mother of an expecting mother not to enter the labour ward with shoes on and she was slapped!

We've heard of doctor's being slapped around for far too long now and this time the entire Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) has extended support with Doctor's from all corners lobbying for support.

The Government has issued termination notices and threatened to evacuate hostels which now becomes the no 1 demand to be taken back.

In the meanwhile, we're enjoying a break doing things we didn't have time to do, studying as much as we can and hoping for a speedy end to all this.

One thing to smile about though...Our lecturers, the replacements offered by the Govt (Naval and Armed forces Docs) will now realize how much work we do in conditions where I'm sure they will not survive more than a week or two!

Hoping for the best.