Santhosh's ramblings

I remember my early years in the Medical college where I studied. We had Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Atheists all under the same roof. We knew where each one was in terms of their religion and faith. But it never mattered. What mattered was, we were the batch of 1978. We are still the batch of 1978. My roommate was a Hindu and a Marxist. Yes we had our share of politics, but that was in line with the dominant political movements of those times, but never in the name of religion. Some of us who were not happy with the dominant political movements, remained apolitical and that was respected by the politically active. Some of us were strong in their religious faiths. I being one such example. But that never reduced our friendship or relationships in any way.  We respected each other’s faith and beliefs and gave space for that.   I did not even know the caste of any one - nor do I know till today! I remember five of us deciding to go on a tour. This tour took us to a Christian Missio

I do not consider myself to be an expert in pain management, but I do manage the same on a regular basis. Not only have I been managing pain, I have been helping others to manage the pain. By teaching, helping in planning treatment for the patients admitted to our wards. I have used the WHO ladder, pain ruler etc. to teach and build capacity of JMOs to learn how to manage pain. But all this have been a based on a professional assessment and fairly detached and logical management of pain. We have had multiple discussions on rounds on how best to manage pain, why the PRN (as and when required - Pro Re Nata) never works. And PRN can be read as “personal responsibility mitigated” by writing an order and passing it on to the nurses, who generally never give the drugs because the patient neither complaints nor relatives ask for it. Because in our culture we are expected to tolerate pain. “Ethana dard to hoga, sahana padega….!” The principle with which we doctors practice. But

I see organization and movements as man-made structures. There is only one organization or movement God established – that is the Church. (Not the one that we see today, that might be part of it!) All the rest are man-made. But definitely many of these might have been established out of God enabling and giving vision to people, fulfil a particular task which is in line with His Kingdom purposes. The structure of the institution or movement is not “God given” but man-made based on the then socio-cultural and political requirements. Which bring the issue that, all man-made structures bring with it the fallenness of humanity and all its failures and weaknesses. But like all fallen systems and individuals, they have the potential of redemption and being in line with the Kingdom purposes and holding on to the values of the Kingdom. This alignment is the role of the leadership. Not the supreme leader or CEO alone. The leadership of any organization, movement or institution has to co

Fruitfulness is result of rootedness – the river was able to facilitate fruits because “river originates from the sanctuary”. It is our rootedness in the source that facilitates fruits in our lives and our ability to facilitate fruits in others’ lives. Not our skills, talents, hard work or striving. A river does not strive to facilitate fruits, it naturally does it because the it keeps itself connected to the source. Daniel and his friends, protected their rootedness in their God. Daniel from the initial days itself, even at the cost of life saw that that relationship with his God was kept alive and active though the context was challenging. How many times have we limited our fruitfulness by blocking our lives from the source or focussing on our abilities, talents and work more than rootedness? Limitedness of our influence comes out of we taking control of our life planning - A river flows where ever it finds space and as it flows it widens, deepens and facilitate life all a

I just finished (along with a friend) editing a small write up which my father wrote. He was asked to write some memories of his time in a parish he pastored in mid-1980’s. Being in his late 80’s of age now, 89 to be precise, he is losing some of his memory. But he managed to put down a few key highlights of his time there. Reading through that, one thing became clear. Towards the latter part of his life, about 30 odd years after he left the place, it is the memory of “relationships he cherished” that remains most prominent in his mind. I do know that he had innovated much during his time there, but in his memoirs, all what he has done, only find a passing mention. We were recently sitting with a young boy and his family who have been with us for more than 2 months. He went through more than 2 weeks of ventilator support, suffered multiple cardio respiratory arrests, and almost of month of rehab and was going home. In his broken Hindi, (they are more comfortable in Bhojpuri) the f

I was recently reviewing the stories of the patients about whom I had written, and was trying to reflect on them. As I reviewed a pattern emerged. The patients whom we had to struggle to care due to issues other than “Medical”, has been either women, elderly, or the challenged.  In other words, those whose life was less important than other issues affecting the family institution or care givers. I was left wondering; whose interest are we holding on when we care for people? For e.g., the 12-year-old girl with massive bleeding from her stomach. As we were getting ready to admit, organize blood replacement, Ultra Sound, Endoscopy etc. the mother, father and a relative got together and categorically communicated, that no way will they give blood. Anything else we want they can do, but do not ask any of them to give blood. We heard them, tried to reason, threaten, plead but with no use! They were adamant. They were not too well off, but money was nowhere in the discussions. We were he

This boy came to OPD with bleeding from gums. He was seen in Dental OPD and was brought to us to rule out any systemic issue. His clinical evaluation revealed multiple purpuras and petechial areas (bleeding spots) suggestive of a bleeding disorder. We asked for his blood parameters and while we were looking at the details, I kept asking the story. Any history of travel, any past history, any other illnesses, any drugs he is on etc – the routine screening for causes of such an illness. He had a pancytopenia – low Hb – 8gm/dl, TLC 1700 cells/cumm and Platelets of 2000 cells/cumm. And as we were trying to get his story, his mother who accompanied him was asking him, why are you not telling everything? Tell what you want to tell. I thought he was going to tell me some major past history which will give some clues to his illness. But he blurted some “inconsequential details” of some “night fall” weakness etc, which he thought was the cause of his illness. But I was not sure, if he was tell