1+1 = 2This is is just to show you that by mid-day I had 1 patient in the paediatric ward and 1 patient in the nursery. This is the lowest census I have ever had and it is worrisome. The wards need to fill up soon and I’m trying as hard as possible to do that! 48Thats the total number of children I saw in OPD today. Paradoxically that’s one of the highest i have ever seen!! Guess the inpatient and the outpatient numbers dont relate! 16That was the number of idlis I discovered in my dinner carrier after I picked it up from the mess and opened it up in my room. The normal number of idlis I eat…

The day started off fine with very lazy rounds and just as I was bout to pick up my lunch Sandeep called me and went off to his house and hogged on great rice and chicken with ice cream.But that wasnt the best part of the day!I then managed to sleep well in the afternoon and felt very refreshed. No calls to disturb me.But that wasnt the best part of the day!Had a long chat with Joyce who was leaving Vellore and was working on her US visa to start off with John Hopkins and get married. We discussed CMC, gowns, wedding etc etc!But that wasnt the best part of the day!Also had a loooooong talk with Becky as she…

Over the last couple of days I had several babies in the hospital with a little jaundice. This is quite harmless and we treat it by putting the babies under tubelights (“phototherapy”)As I walked into the Nursery today the babies looked really cute – sprawled out under tha lights and sleeping!! Just one of those cute baby moments i managed to catch on my camera!

After a loooong all-night chat with Becky on the phone, I left in the morning to Vellore to try and finish off some work on my thesis. After reaching Vellore I found that Dr. Anils daughter had had an appendicectomy the previous night and so I couldnt really meet him. I started working on getting the charts out and there was just a looooong wait once the letter was given. I felt frustrated, but just had to hold on…. I hope in the next couple of days I can work out what I need to get done. Everything is going slowly and it’s taking me some patience – need an extra dose of it.

Just as I was about to finish OPD at 5 PM and goto the Kailashapuram peripheral clinic, I had this patient with breathing difficulty and I realised after examining him that he had fluid around his lungs – probably pus(empyema). I explained that I would take 3 hours to come back and started the treatment and left for the peripheral clinic. I came back at 9 PM and saw the results which confirmed the presence of pus. However the kid also had a low platelet count and deranged bleeding parameters. In my opinion it would be very risky to insert the chest tube here as he could bleed to death. Although the relatives were a little annoyed, they realised it…

I went to work – my first day @ work at the CSI Mission General Hospital!It was quite busy and I saw about 30 patients in the OPD. Pretty much felt at place! The wards are not too busy and the evening OPD was quite light. So not tired at all.Appa and Amma called up and surprised me saying they were planning to visit me in 2 days and a little more stuff….. stay glued for updates!!

I woke up hungry and still feverish at 9.30 AM and had nothing to eat in the house. After a little enquiring I walked into a small supermarket and bought some stuff I needed. Sandeep and I then tried to do some mattress shopping and found the mattresses quite expensive. He then offered to gimme his old mattress which was quite unused and was just lying at home. So we drove over to his house where I had lunch (lifes lovely surprises!!) and then came back home to just laze around and sleep

The frenzy of packing is all over and finally early today I rechecked everything and loaded all my stuff into Bilals Tata Sumo. The room became barren and I decided to leave behind my mattress and a few things that were too worn down to use. We were soon racing towards Trichy and although the roads were not too good the journey was uneventful except once when we had to screech to a skidding halt to avoid a parked tricycle loaded with LPG gas stoves parked by some idiot right in the middle of the road. We soon found our way inside Trichy and met Sandeep and lugged my stuff into my allotted Quarters. Sandeep helped me around and I…

Friday the 13th: D-day!!After getting ready, checking, rechecking I finally got dropped at ICH by Appa and Amma and went to the exam hall early.To put in the experiences and details of today is impossible.To sum it up I was shown exactly where I stand academically. I did my neonate case quite well – reflecting the 6 months extra I spent in nursery.The rest of the exams were a mixture of answering questions I knew, stumbling on questions I didnt, being shown areas I lacked, receiving credit for things I knew.I felt the examiners were jumping questions and seemed to be in a hurry to finish off. There were moments of mutual humor, moments of uncomfartable silences, moments of appreciative…

With such a looong gap for my practical exams I decided to get back to work. Felt a little different getting back inside nursery. I did nothing much except attend rounds. I then scooted off to pick up my official notice about the exam dates and also get my Log Book.My exam dates are actually th 13th of October. Look it up in the calendar and you’ll notice it is ‘Friday the 13th’. Again no comments….The rest of the day was exciting. I couldnt get to church for practice as it was too late by the time I had lunch. Anyway there were enough people today (Sarah and Soniya were leading)During lunch Cynthia called up and requested me to help…