...And Then There Was Computer...

:D

Cheers,

-Arps

Occupational Exposure

Once again one of Pi's posts got me recollecting another one of my stories.

(This may not be exactly the same thing- themewise. But the context is the same--Med Students.)

------
A couple of days ago an intern (let's call him S) was assisting in a laceration repair in the Surgery Mini-Op Theatre (MOT, for us)
He was standing there, helping out the resident working on the wound. When all of a sudden there was a gush of blood and he felt a searing pain.
The resident had placed a scalpel cut on one of his fingers.
There was severe bleeding.

The scalpel had punctured through the gloves and cut over the PIP joint of one of his fingers.
While everyne rushed to help him out and bandage the wound, the bleeding continued for a whole fifteen minutes.
It stopped eventually.
He came back to the hostel.

After he was back and settled for once, did it dawn on him that he had been in contact with potentially contagious fluid.

He called up some friends to check-on what to do. He talked to some doctors.

He visited the hospital again to get details of the patient. But to his horror-it being a OPD patient, just the mention of the name and colony was found in the records.

Apparently, the patient was supposed to return three days later to get the stitches off.

He visited the ART incharge next.He was counselled and given a box of post-exposure prophylaxis, to be taken for about a month.
He starteed the meds, hoping that the patient would come back three days later for removal of stitches.

Three days later:
No sign of the patient. Apparently she decided to get the stitches removed someplace else!

Seven days later:
S stopped taking the meds coz of the horrible horrible side effects! Fever, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting!
Twelve days later:
(ie today.)
S's absolutely fine just now. And I'm sincerely hoping it stays that way till an antibody test is done six months from now.

Things that I realised:
1. This entire episode, occured at a hospital full of doctors, residents and nurses. no one realised that it was a contact with potentially infectious fluid, and an assay of the patient was required.

(This was one case where the student at least bothered to go the ART centre and find out about the pros and cons of meds. There are hundreds of instances where the ever busy residents come in contact, and don't even bother to get the patient tested even though he's right there!!)

2. The concept of universal precautions- is not something that is very much followed here.

Heck, in the labour room, the residents have just one plastic apron to protect them from any kind of fluid. I've heard of instances where the resident came in contact with the patient's fluid in the form of spurts hitting the face and eyes!
(And oh, PPTCT is optional for the women!!)

3. Doctors in general, tend to consider such a contact as a minor thing, and therefore tend to give you an option to take meds or not.

(Maybe its because they've been in contact with blood and all kinds of fluids since eons, and nothing's ever happened to them!)

4. Being a medico/doctor does nothing to improve your compliance for meds.

Its always the side-effects that win in the end.

On a lighter note:

*Thanks to CartoonStock!

That's Me :)

I'll Be There For You!

I was just checking out the sidebar, when I realised how long its been since I saw a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. episode.

(One of those OMG moments! ;D)

So, I decided to watch some on youtube. (Yes! I'm a net addict these days. Everything I do, is pretty much online!)

I came across this, and man, I was so happy watching the ol' Rembrandts singing with the cast! One of my favorite ever- both the song and the video!

:)

So Says The Wise Owl

I came across this article about sleep-wake cycles yesterday.

According to this article some people function best in the mornings, while others do so at night. It is biologically set into their bodies.

Excerpts:

"If you have a hard time crawling out of bed in the morning, it could be that your body is biologically programmed to start the day later.

Experts say a spectrum of natural sleeping and waking rhythms exists, ranging from extreme morning people to extreme night owls."

"That may be because evening people show increased motor cortex and spinal cord excitability in the evening, about 9 p.m., meaning they had maximal central nervous system drive at that time, Lagerquist said.

Although night owls may maximize their strength in the evening, they are at a serious disadvantage if they have to compete in the morning."

This news could not have come at a better time for me.

Since the past 3 days, I've been trying to work my body clock into going 'early to bed and early to rise', but have been failing miserably!

Here's my story:

You see up until last week, I had gotten into this habit of going to sleep in the early hours of the morning and then waking up past noon. So, as everyone says that you're supposed to wake up early, I started feeling guilty about it all.

Then I decided, that if I've got to study, the circadian rhythm must be changed. Hence, the effort.

But then, the day I started to work on my new schedule, I ceremoniously closed down all my books before 0200. Now, since I had nothing to do, with not a wink of sleep in sight, I started browsing the net, visiting blogs and random sites and what not! And lo behold, before I knew it, it was already past 0500!!

What a sheer waste of what could've been a productive night! (well, it was intended for a good cause! :D)

Then came the waking up part!

The next day, to make sure I stuck to schedule, I woke up at 1000 (an early morning for me!) But by 1200, I was already snoozing over books and before I knew it, there I was cozy in bed sleeping for a full 3hrs!

This was not right! Frigging-not-it-was!!!

Well, continued on the same lines, hoping in vain, that one of these days, I'd sleep early, and then have a full day ahead of me the next morning... Trying. Trying. Trying some more. (Wasted three whole nights for the cause!)

But this person I was trying to turn into was not me.

I'm an owl-person and function best at night. (I used to think this 'being a night/morning person' was bull crap- but by personal experience I'd say, its true.) Everyone has his own productive hours-and mine happen to be into the night.

My cognition abilities are at their lowest in the morning hours, with a lot of time going into doing even the easiest of topics. (This is especially true, if I don't get those eight hours of sleep :D) The body has a way of telling me when am up too early (without enough sleep)- it hurts, I yawn, mind buzzes, myalgias- its like a withdrawl syndrome even without doing drugs!*

Thenforth, for my own good, I've gone back on my decision, and will now be seen up and studying at night. ( Although, just kick my ass if you see me wandering aroung on the net, will ya!)

PS: All this time browsing for the past days, I've added a new tweak to the sidebar. Check out the 'Label Cloud' :) Had to do some HTML editing, which was a first for me, so I'm really proud of my work here.

:D

*This withdrawl holds true only for mundane things like sitting down to study! Not so-much-so apparent for other activities.

Ra- Ra- Rasputin

Ma! look what I found!!

:D What treasures you find when you browse through youtube!

[Crazy video, but I just love the song!]

-One of my all time favourite songs! A lot of memories attached to this one.

-Been listening to Boney M. since I-don't-even-remember when! Mum used to listen to them, and I became a fan by default.

-When I was in 6th Std, it was a really pleasant surprise to know that, at least one person besides me listened to BM! "..the land of Rasputins.." was a line suggesed by Ma'am K. for introducing a Russian Dance at a Folk Dance Competition at school. The sad part was that none of the other teachers had heard the song. (And I was too shy to admit that I knew what Ma'am K. was talking about! :D)

-Then back in 10th, we had that silly Rasputin dance for our personal farewell to Ma'am U. (rememer Shruti!?) It was actually the craziest dance ever- with us kind of just miming the words... and going round and round during the music :)

And, oh, just if you are wondering what its all about, here's a link to wikipedia, that's about Grigori Rasputin -

:)

Street Smart

While I was reading a post -"Think about it- HARD" on Gupta's blog, I remembered this experience I was meaning to post about since a long time. Now seems like a good time to do it.

:::::::

Well, there's this 10-11 yr old boy in our neighbourhood who cleans bikes and scooters for a living. He used to do it around the area where we used to hang out (AFJ... remember.. ;)).

So we'd often seen him around, and even talked to him. Apparently he went to a school, and used to work in the evenings. We were mighty impressed by this (..us being much older and still whining about mere schooling!). To help him out, we used to give him 10-20 bucks each time, just for wiping a bit of out activas.. and rather talked to him listened to his stories.

One such day while wiping the activa, he asked us for some money so he could buy some drugs for an infection.

Now, this was our turn to help him out. We offered to take him with us to the Govt hospital, where he'd be consulted for free; and even offered to get him free medicines. At this he panicked, and started making excuses. At first we thought he was just shy, so we tried to convince him for some time. But he wouldn't listen and tried to back off, so we let him go..

It was then, that the shop-wale bhaiya told us that he used to make up such stories to anyone who'd listen, just to con money out of them.

:|

[And must say he did it pretty convincingly too!]

Later, while we talked about it to other friends, it turned out, that he'd told one of my friends that he'd stood first in the class, while around the same time he had filled me up with the story of standing second in class and ". . just missing out by a margin. .which I'll cover up the next time.."

--He didn't even go to school!

:|

Cell-ing Through The Ages

I just realised, I need a new phone. But no one's ready to buy me one. And with my...littli-ish stipend, I don't think I can afford one in the near future.

So right now just reminising on the all the mobile phones I've had till date.

2002: Grade 10: My first mobile. Well, actually it was pa's, but I got to keep it, since he never used it, and I went alone to the tution class :)

It was some ancient Siemens model. Had a display screen with some 2-3 lines and a crass sounding ringtone. It was never really a favorite with me.

Well, the charges of mobile services were sky-high back then. Forget about the 'free SMSes' that we have today. I think even incoming was charged! Haw. Lived in the stone age, didn't we, back then.

2003: Grade 11: My first 'official' mobile. Oh! It was heaven!

[I actually conned me dad into buying it. The old cell kinda broke down. Now, although I had no real need for a cell,I talked to dad over the phone and made a huge deal out of it. Ha! got permission to buy a new one, then and there. *I'm rotten to the core, I know :D*]

It was a beautiful Nokia. It had a blue body and hold-your-breath....a color screen. The best part were the polyphonic ringtones. Can you believe it *polyphonic*! Wow! So, now I did not have to listen to those crass mono-tones. It even had GPRS! (of course I could use it only after changing services to Hutch..)

[And with Hutch came the everfamous 'FnF' service that has survived all changes, and stands tall till today :)]

So with GPRS in hand, there I was downloading zillions of ringtones (polyphonic, yes) and some games (ermm..they cost like 50 bucks each, so didn't spend as much on them!)

I remember I even downloaded that FRIENDS theme song ringtone, that people refused to recognise instantly!

Also, this mobile was the central subject of the legendary 'mobile-episode' at Neeta's place (Shw, Shilps and Neeta have it etched in their memories. Oh yes they do!! :D :D)

But this cell lasted a year or so, until I got selected into Med School! Ha! Another excuse for upgrading.

2004: May: Got the new Nokia 3660. It was a beautiful thing with a 1.3 Mpx camera. Oye. This was the cell that got me nice and hooked to GPRS. Browsed the net like there was no tomorrow. There was unlimited browsing at just 100bucks a month.

Around this time, the HPmania was at its peak. Made a number of hardcore HP pals and WAP pages (yes, there's no typo here-for the uninitiated, WAP is the mobile version of a webpage). There was 'Firebolt' (yours truly's page), 'The Three Broomsticks' and more! It was HP heaven for lil ol me :) My mobile became my best pal, and I churned out hours ans hours worth of stuff on the phone.

And then there was MMS. The phase reached its hilt somewhere in the middle of first year. What fun we had with that!! Sending each other random pics a nd lon---ng notes, in those dreary summers of the First yr exams. (those epic notes from SARS! :) and those crazy pics in the middle of the night-that were meant to scare me, but landed up making me laugh no end!) Oh! MMS was undoubtedly the ultimate source of timepass in those days.

Well, GPRS was also the coolest thing, since hey, I did not need a medical dictionary ever in my med school life. The cell was there, net was there, and, voila!

2006: Jan: Got me a new N-70. Okay. It was for Pa. But then....

Anyways, like I was saying, my new cell was the high end gadget in those days. It was soo much better than the ancient 3660. Had all the cool features with an awesome camera.

Annnd it came at about the nest time. When clicking pics was the new fad, with zillions of pix being taken each semester. Every activity was clicked.

Then, Hutch decided to bestow upton us the magic of free SMSes. Hah! Every little thing was messaged. Forwards came down from e-mails to mobile. (oaky, i admit it was fun initially, but now its just repetition people!!)

2008: But then came Final, and everyone forgot about pics and fun. Though the same cell was still in use for the GPRS (the best thing since sliced bread)...to browse social networks and medical resources.

The charisma of a high end mobile was absent last year, since I had no need for it. That might've been coz I was too busy studying (?). I evidently had no major use of cell besides browsing the net and SMSing (..and sometimes talking) back then. But people, now is a different story.

(PS: Statistically speaking, this was the year for me to get a new mobile anyway! ;D)

2009: Come 2009, and I've been craving for a new mobile. There's just one glitch. Ermm, no one's willing to buy me one.

PS:If any kind soul wants to buy me an iPhone, I got just two words for you -Do It!!

:)