Watershed year learning

I do not have much lasting impressions from this year, since in Medicine this is the watershed year. The 4^th year, with Social and Preventive Medicine, which was generally seen as a necessary evil (which I regrated in latter years - I should have given more importance) Forensic Medicine, and couple of other departments, was seen as a season to get through to enter in to the final year! Of course, the campus election politics was a good distraction too.

A few events stand out in memory. One was the SPM tour and some of the learnings in that trip. The highlight was the one visit to a rural hospital at Ambilikai, Oddanchathram and the stories I heard form Dr Cherian, the founder. Walking into theatre where he was doing a major abdominal surgery under open Ether, and then hearing stories of how he had operated on some challenging patients under open ether. An Esophageal resection and a Stomach pull through for a Carcinoma Esophagus, A vascular surgery for a Axillary artery AV fistula with one hand gigantism, and a few other stories, from a Khadi mundu wearing internationally trained surgeon. These left me dreaming that, this is the direction that I might follow! (It did not happen, and more about this later). Then in the nearby CF hospital, a double FRCS (Opthal and ENT) cycling and coming to hospital again in a Khadi mundu challenged my paradigms of thinking!

I was observing that there was another way of practicing medicine! One can be an internationally  trained good surgeon but have a lifestyle which is different from what I had seen in my limited exposure of my Medical college!

Of course I cannot forget, how we missed one of our class mates during the stay at Ambilikai, all of us going in search of the person, and finding him happily sitting and sleeping in the toilet after a full stomach and spirits!

The other memory was staying in a small PHC for a month and visiting the homes and the PHC Outpatient department, generally seen as a relaxed time away, to make most of it.  An expreince which opened my eyes to understanding health from a slightly different way. Understadings that I did not cultivate much those years, much to my regret in later years! I would see the need of this much more in later years.

These experiences would go a long way later in life, in my choices of life directions. Though I would give up surgery intentionally, these life experiences would challenge my context and way of engagement.

There were many other life role models in the medical college, that challenged my thinking, some that were disturbing, some that were motivating and some others that were worth emulating. 

These left a lasting impression, that my life is being watched, and what is seen by others could either confuse or motivate someone else! We learn by observing life!