Storytellers

The right thing to say Vijay Gopichandran It is very challenging to exactly know the right thing to say and end up saying it. Often in the flow of conversations, we say things that can be interpreted in other ways than what we intended. Today I saw a patient who had a cough, cold, breathing difficulty, chest pain for three weeks now. He has been coming to me for the past three weeks, every Sunday. When I saw this 18-year young college boy today for the third consecutive week, I started getting worried. What is wrong with this guy? Why is his symptom not going away? I examined him thoroughly. I found that the air entry in his right lung was diminished. He was also pointing to the lower part of the right side of his chest and complaining of pain. So I clinically diagnosed him to have a pleural effusion, the medical term for a collection of fluids around the right lung. The most common cause for this condition is tuberculosis of the lung. I know this boy’s father, as he is also ...

What it means to be a clinician? Vijay Gopichandran As a teacher in a medical college in the city, I am confronted by a dilemma on a daily basis. The question is what does it mean to be a clinician today? I am not actively practicing clinician. I volunteer my time once a week delivering clinical services in a rural clinic. I work in a resource-poor setting, with a serious financial crisis. There are very limited infrastructure and facilities available in the clinic. Therefore, the medicine I practice there largely depends on careful listening to the patients’ stories, a thorough and astute clinical examination and a lot of instinctive processes. This is in stark contrast to the health system in which I function during the weekdays. The doctors practicing here and the students learning in the hospital have access to cutting edge technology and a good amount of resources at their disposal to help the patients. This leaves me with the question – “Today, what does it really me...

Emails and miscommunications… Vijay Gopichandran Emails can grossly mislead the tone and tenor of the content written in them. How we interpret the content of an email strongly depends on our state of mind at the time when we read the email. I have experienced this several times. However, email communication has become inevitable in today's’ digital world. Recently, I faced a problem with a colleague of mine with whom I had email communications regarding a manuscript I had submitted for peer review in a journal. There were misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what was written in the emails on both our parts. This led to some bitterness which we are currently addressing (…or not addressing). A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for consideration for publication in a reputed journal. It was a commissioned piece, my colleague who works for the journal had invited me to write the piece. After substantial work and several drafts, I prepared the manuscript and submitte...

Think Globally Act Locally Vijay Gopichandran  A student of mine attended a medical conference in a five-star hotel and was all excited about it. When you are a medical student who lives in a hostel, these five-star hotel conferences are fascinating. On the morning of the conference, we walk around the rooms in the hostel, borrow the best shirt available in any of the rooms that will fit us, dress up, and go to the hotel. There are usually two main objectives of attending these conferences as a medical student. Excellent free food and an opportunity to take selfies in various ornately decorated places in the hotel and sharing them in the social media pages. Most of these five-star hotel conferences are heavily sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies and patronized by the who’s who in that speciality of medicine in the city. There are a series of lectures and talks on cutting edge medical practice. The conference that my student attended was in one of the poshest hotels in the ...

Purpose in life Vijay Gopichandran I have been questioning the purpose of life for the past couple of weeks. I would like to start with the analogy of the compass and the map, which was told to me almost 5 years ago (it is strange that I don't remember who told it). "A map shows you the exact destination where you have to reach. It is like the goal of your life. If one wants to go to the movie theatre, they type it on the mobile application that shows the map and it tells them exactly which road to take, which turns to take and how to go to reach the movie theatre. However, if the same person is lost in the forest, and generally knows that he/she has to travel northwards to reach the city, then a compass helps the person. The compass only shows direction. It does not show the destination. While the goals in our life are like maps, purpose in life is the compass. Having a purpose in life is like navigating the journey with a compass. The purpose in life gives direc...