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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Dark side of the DAY

Yesterday is unyielding. It leaves you in a lull, full of eerie emptiness. It stirs you and shreds you in slices. Yesterday is a shadow. Yesterday fails you. It is a vast void with a poignant poise, a recluse in disguise. Yesterday is apathetic. Yesterday is a transcendental torrent of the crushed conscience, beaten brain, deserted desires and sulked soul. Yesterday is a cocoon of crusading crossovers. Yesterday is insular. Yesterday is self-seeking. A zombie of burnt zest. A sinus of numbness.

Tomorrow is a travesty. A Masquerade. A marauding mirage. An itinerary of illusions. A school of hard knocks. Tomorrow is a blur. A whirlpool of random trajectories. Tomorrow is a ruse. A greedy gimmick. An anuclear orbit with zillions of particulates. A blatant brush with the bizarre and the barren. A roar of the unknown. A castle in the vacuum. A desolate delusion. A plethora of programmed pauses. A perplexed and arrhythmic perspective. A fake bystander.

Today adores you till you keep spiraling the hallucinating grooves of life. Today is beautiful. Today is the only constant besides death. Today is your soul mate. It is the flowerbed of your existential reality. Today is hydra-headed and argos-eyed. Celebrate the buoyancy of today. Today is you.


Take a Sabbath, its pink sunshine all over. Its today !!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Berserk Beauty

Do you have to sluice the cerebral fluid to know what is beautiful in its appearance and what is not? I am sure, not. Your senses know the difference between sensuous and boring, pleasant and unappealing; within microseconds the image forms in your retina and perceived by your subconscious (what is superconscious?). How our mind does appreciate the difference of pleasant and unpleasant sights? Does it have to do with acquired knowledge or compulsory gimmick of genetic assortment? Have you ever wondered over the fact that a person is called beautiful and the other, ugly even while both of them are blessed with largely similar facial attributes? Difference lies in minimal disparity in the shape of smile, size of eyes, and pattern of hair, which is blessed with birth and only the creator knows the cause of blessing the variations. Ok, we have different attributes but why our mind perceives someone with a broad nose to be ugly, someone with a low forehead less appealing, someone with less luminous skin as unlikable? Why not the other way round?

The deviation of a smile can spell a doom if gone the wrong way, but why? Why rough skin is repulsive and lustrous skin is captivating? Are our brains fitted with the some mystic and unyielding encrypted equations that force us to accept something to be beautiful if it matches certain standards, which are predefined (that is by birth, or may be beyond that) and not in our control?

Why hadn’t the creator made our brains to react indifferently to everybody with regards to physical attributes? Why do we have to categorize people and things into beautiful, average and ugly? We, as humans, vociferously advocate the law of equality for mankind, but what notions were taken into account by the creator when the souls were being enveloped by bodies? What do you think of this draconian yet divine law that forms the basis of obstinate inequality? When some of us hold the broad vision of not being judgmental and biased by the external aspects of the people and things, do we behave in ungodly way? Or by doing this we challenge the restrictions sewn in our genes and let our spirit fights off the innate impunity, for which we are not responsible? What can clean the Augean stables that harbor the jungle of our chromosomes?

Monday, February 21, 2011

Zimbabwe Vs World... Its not a ONE day

It was a heart-stirring story, I happened to catch this night in a leading news channel. In a barren paddy-field adjoining a remorse hamlet in Zimbabwe, an elephant was found dead. Soon enough, as the news spread in the village, a flock of people turned up at the site with their hands full of buckets and empty containers. Soon the dead elephant (weighing about 6000 kg) was slashed to tiny bites by a hastened artwork of crude knives. To be precise, it took approximately 1 hour and 47 minutes and there was nothing left but a dominance of blood and broken skeleton of a dead elephant. The hungriest batch of poor and unfortunate people couldn’t resist eating the raw meat, with blood smeared faces. A ghastly sight to observe, I watched it with ptotic eyes on my television set.

Soon all the empty buckets and containers were flooding with elephant’s tissues and some of the unlucky ones, who couldn’t lay their hands on the meat, got hold of the breakable bones and carried with them in the hope of making meat stock. It is said that at any time in Zimbabwe, every 4th person needs some food so urgently that a delay can cost a life. Isn’t it so pitiful and a shame on the name of International treaties that average man’ life in Zimbabwe is mere 37 years and that of a woman, 34 years. Most of the deaths are due to prolonged starvation, potentially preventable. Getting your knees weak? I felt the same few moments back. What an ill-fated pity. Few days back, I got a forwarded message on my cellular which enlightened me with the fact that 280 lac crore rupee worth of Indian currency is deposited by Indians in their Swiss bank accounts. As ordinary citizens, what options do we have? Should we frown and forget yet again as we do everytime we hear of a bigger scam?

Uninitiated, unaffected and unmovable, our insulated & cachexic souls probably need an electric-shock. Mere words of solicitousness or whiffs of compassion won’t stem the starvation deaths in Zimbabwe, or in any part of world. Why can’t the governments commonly pool in some blatantly bright brains and make some out-of-the-box policies to ensure that people don’t die of starvation anymore? There is a strong possibility that after going through this blog, you will click over another link on facebook, or check your email, or stretch your nerves to find the best possible ‘search’ word to feed to the google toolbar. Don’t do that for few moments and spare some time for our devastatingly poor fellow humans who have to face the doom of eating raw meat, butchered from a dead elephant, to save their lives, and it’s a feast for them. If we feed our souls enough, there won’t be starvation deaths anywhere.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Confession in Delhi Metro Rail

Hustling crowd making detectable attempts to take the best available position in the platform, in the hope of putting their best feet forward in the Delhi Metro Rail without getting inflicted with emotional asphyxia or soft tissue strain, makes a regular scene at most of the metro stations during busy hours in Delhi. Here comes the metro and the center of gravity of the passengers’ queues starts fluctuating, elastic strength of Achilles’ tendons grows manifolds, near vision focuses over the nearest metro door and far vision spots the potential space for accommodating two legs, in unison.

Inside the metro, a usual scenario would include a lot of college kids with headphones stuck to their ears and eyes in the search of eternity, few shabbily dressed office goers with continual twittering using a blend of swear words, producing remittent moan of dying cellular signals, few levelheaded and self-possessed individuals with busy brains and empty faces. Scheming glances with chillingly commonsensical attires prevail in the snobbish air. The chaotic life in Delhi has contributed to the anesthetized emotions and aloofness from self; in turn we all are racing madly, but to pull of which goal? There is more meaning to the life than to put out of your mind the existence of soul in your body and behave as slaves to your desires, wishes and worldly masters. It’s high time to let Delhi Metro witness a cumulative mea culpa.

The rail religiously crushes the steel track, and gets crushed by vehement pounding by people; what crushes the people?

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Before moon, Afternoon

What a better joy than stealing a subtle snooze after succulent lunch, to watch the catapulting crowd from the glass pane of your sky scraper, to listen to frenzied fracas of your kids on phone, to await the pleasant knock of evening with luscious, foamy coffee amidst an disorganized whirl of chirps, to plan for the arcane of approaching activities for the day ahead, the afternoon fills the vacuum of our life and gives us some tame time to replenish our minds with the scuttled supply of freshly secreted neurotransmitters.

Post pubertal phase of the day, afternoon, is like middle age of our lives. It is passed with little realization of its presence and we seldom halt our hollering steps to appreciate the effervescent efficacy of afternoon. With the superfluous streamlet of fresh morning before it and the sulky shadows of nubile night after it, the afternoon is mostly shorn of of its existential importance. But I love to soak myself in the rapture of immeasurable perspectives that aftermath of morning provides.

The afternoons provide us a much needed buffer from the pulsating mornings full of fuss and frills and from the esoteric establishment of mystifying nights. It’s so pleasant to appreciate the slow pace of clock pendulums, to feel the tender tentacles of easy-flowing breeze, to organize the disordered cords of dust-worn guitar, to cuddle up with the cushy soft toy you were gifted by your spouse, to sip the fizzy lemonade and let your taste buds bathe in ecstasy. The afternoons are big-hearted and breathtakingly sensuous, provided you make some attempt to swirl your soul from the accustomed attachments with mornings and nights.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Cheer the electric eleven

-How many souls will splutter and how many brains will bubble?
-How many stumps will be scattered, how many balls will achieve martyr hood, how much torment will the chest of bats bear with?
-How many hearts will hop in disapproval, how many frowns will cross the boundaries of forehead, how many screams will crusade the tympanic membranes?
-How many run-of-the-mill kinds will be worshipped as legends, how many stars will sway and sulk, how many corneas will work overtime and overcapacity?
-Who will turn the ball to a lightening comet and who will run 22 yards with wings ablaze?
-Who will make apocalypse seem imminent, who will make the giants bending down?
-How many eyes will swell, how many middle fingers would be raised, how many cartilages will be torn?
-Who will toss in trough while emulating the extremes and who will laze around in glory with head high held?
-How hard the hormones would rush in the mad drive?
-How many billion will blink together, yelp together and think together.
-Who will sabotage the opposition with cold blooded precision and with venomous vengeance?
-Who will embezzle the legacy of glory by holding a taut grip on the array of neuronal integration?
-Who will bring the cup and kudos home?
-Who will win the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011?

I put my hope over INDIA. Let the best rule the roost.

Moaning Morning...

The timorous darkness of the massive night fall prey to the rising roars of dawn with scintillating hues of unlimited colors. This morning appeared bathed in abundance of hope and happiness. This is the time to unleash the spirit and the Beaujolais, to uncork the veiled wishes and radiate ardently with the hope of tranquility on earth and kindness to all its citizens. New Delhi chill is yet again having its pre-geriatric spurts, arguably the most totemic ones, and the valor of frothy fog rules the spaces of the city.


The sound of bunched newspaper hitting the roofs and floors, the glow and blush of toddlers barely able to hold their mothers’ hand and waiting for the school bus, the cantankerous cab drivers relaxing after the marauding spell of screeching the highs and lows of the road, the fumes of freshly brewed ginger tea springing from the aluminum pot with black bottom, the infectious vigor in the public parks with a sight full of joggers, yoga buffs and bird watchers, Delhi Metro being hoarded with eclectic horde with floating frowns, brooding bellies and imprudent squeak of airy annoyance, we live in a city which deserves bowing salutes for its rich diversity and impeccable capability to keep pace with hurriedly changing times.

The moaning mist of morning refuses to keep mute, the sparks of shines striking windowpanes stagger in a riot of colors, the traffic signals start witnessing edgy sedans making jittery sounds, the mobile towers start getting pre-term labor and the cell phone signals start fading furiously, the coat of smog steals the real vision and ruby red turns into lathered pink, the temples are brought to life with earsplitting chants and sounds very close to those of primordial fusion rock, welcome to the high rise morning of New Delhi. Let’s make a joyous day till the sun drops in the ocean again and moon swells proudly and let’s make an easy night to observe yet again jaunty and idyllic morning.

A feast of facts you will love

The longest word is English language is pneumonoultramiscroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - an inflammatory lung disease caused by the inhalation of fine silica dust

- I could not get the inventor’s name. If anybody gets it, please pass it to me. I hope medical textbook publishers are not reading this or else the inventor will have to bear the bully of lacs of medical students for the punishment of memorizing the tongue twister

The average human eyelash lives about 150 days

- Thank God, we are spared from keeping a mini comb. The fine senses prevailed in the nature. Prejudice for humans is so obvious.

Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush

- Well, bless the newly developing cramped housing societies. What choice do they have to comfortably indulge in? Using the flush or brushing their teeth?

The air released from a sneeze can exceed the speed of 100 mph

- Its fascinating to know that our very tender laryngo-pharyngeal musculature is capable of achieving such a feat. Think what can be done if our biceps and latissimus dorsi get to know this.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men

- Well there has to be a scientific explanation about that, or a sociological one. Have a clue? Please share.

In a public bathroom, the stall which is closest to the door is usually the cleanest, because it's the least used.

- The obvious enemy is better than the occult friend.

You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television

- I was sure of this, as our mind is in highly turbulent stage while sleeping (refer to my blog titled ‘Where is the remote control’)

Synesthesia is a rare condition where the human senses are combined. Synesthetes can 'see' words, 'taste' colours and shapes, and 'feel' flavours.

- If this rare medical condition can be artificially induced, there will be a flurry of aspirants, I am sure. And their next query would be ' What are the other combos available doctor'.

An average person will spend two weeks of their life kissing

- Hmmm…

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Paranormal Poise

The food is more delicious when it is cooked with calm psyche and ample of interest.

It’s a fine morning, you wake up humming a long forgotten tune, and only to find that song is being telecasted in TV at the moment.

You remember an old pal and your phone sings (Its him/her).

Your computer system gets down, the moment some special person works on it. (And it happens everytime)

You feel someone’s presence nearby when you are physically alone in the house.

You feel an instant connection with a stranger and feel happy beyond boundaries.

Certain sights, though ordinary in their merits, remain embedded to your memory lifelong and you keep on forgetting the occurrences which are reasonably important.

Fits of laughter chose you over a PJ (Pun Joke).

The pets somehow smell the impending crisis and start behaving anxiously weird before you have a clue.

Serenity sweeps in the moment we enter a place of worship.

Your first instinct almost always is right, no matter how incongruous it seems at its appearance.

You remain hostile to some people though they tend to do their best to get into your skin.

You wake up very fresh on some oblivious days and wake up very tired on some very important days.

Do we chose the color of our clothes or do the colors chose us?

You make a mute wish for the person moving ahead of you to exchange a glance and he/she turns to make it happen.

You and your friend spurt similar phrase altogether, which was unrelated to your ongoing communication.

When you try to become aware of your breathing pattern, you tend to become breathless.

Kill the expectations, let live

We are born to lead this beautiful life in the most unobtrusive way. To walk is fine but to walk on the cost of barricading someone’s path is perfidious. Have we ever spared few seconds to think what a sin of unmentionable quantum we create the moment we expect someone to behave or do something as we desire? Expectations arise out of our own thought process in which we tend to visualize the bigger picture keeping us in the centrum and the hoods of our hydra-headed desires get entangled in the necks of our subjects. Unknowingly enough, we fall in the belief that our expectation is justified and in turn this is to help our subject (may be anyone, our spouse, relative, colleague) and sometimes us, but we commit a sin, I believe, by causing our subject a situation where he/she has to act in accordance with your desire, to fulfill the dream that you visualized. Thus we force our subject to do something, the idea of which is alien to him/her, which mushroomed and obtained mass in our mind. How can we be so inhuman by forcing someone to love the things that we love, to hate the things that we hate, and in more malevolent cases to get ruled by our commands verbatim?

To put it simple, let’s take few examples. A girl marries a boy and they both become preys to the erroneous array of egregious expectations being bestowed over by none other than supposedly closest pals, the mutual families. And far often, this vile web of expectation catches hold of the breaths of the boy and girl and ordinarily enough, out of sheer respect and devoid of the courage that is required to hear the voice of ‘inner-self’, they crawl their entire lives trying hard to fulfill the hunger of the monsters of expectations, they had been gifted while they married. Haven’t you ever expressed your expectation towards your spouse to lose weight, and if you ever did this, I believe you minimized the chances for the desired outcome because you created a high-pressure environment and not everyone can find an escape with a smile. Haven’t you ever expressed your expectation that your boss gets transferred, your in-laws don’t interrupt any more, your kid excels in everything YOU want him/her to pursue, the price of petrol doesn’t sky-rocket anymore, the queue you are standing moves faster and blah blah. It only breaks the pulchritudinous note of your existence and causes arrhythmia in the natural cadence of life.

Thought emanates from energy and energy is the most miniscule version of mass (remember, energy and lass are inter-convertible), so now we should stop throwing weighable mass in others life and let everyone live without the added burden. Any performance is optimal when the entropy is minimal. A person can relate better to the sounds coming from inner-self, let alone the idea of bombarding him/her with added expectations. Respect a person’s thought process and don’t cause head on collisions by putting your thought in his/her way. Why to slow someone’s pace, why to steal someone’s chances, why to take someone’s concentration away from one’s objects of interest? How do you feel when you encounter a big rock in the flat as a pancake road that you were crushing with your ample tyres? Give you mental musculature a break and pledge not to trespass a person’s core spirit. Remember, expectations seem benign but its implications are malignant.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Where is the remote control?

Why are we destined to experience the sights and sounds every night that we haven’t called for? Why do we dream? Don’t you think that dreams occur involuntarily but compulsively, who or what controls the nature of this obvious occurrence? Are the dreams just an outburst of suppressed subconscious or do they represent the designed deliverance of planned but occult messages?

What I believe as a doctor is that every phenomenon associated with body has a special goal, if pupils don’t work we can't appreciate the light, if heart doesn’t pumps our organs would stop working due to lack of oxygen. The body is crafted by a super brain and every cell is destined for some special but vital function. So it would be a little bizarre if we yet again jettison the occurrence of dreams as something without purpose. Enough of imprudent heedlessness. Moreover since about one third of our life is taken away by some forces in making us see sights that we don’t have a control over and the nature of which ranges from subliminal to horrendous, I guess this phenomenon must have an imperative role in our lives. Who controls them and with what purpose? Are we being given some clues every night? How else can one explain the immense infiltration of our minds with sights and feelings carrying the assailant force? Where lays the remote control that decides & shows us sights of its choice? Had the scope of this role be more evident, who knows what kind of power is waiting to exalt our mind & body.

Some hidden but very powerful message, must be of essentially vital role (evident by the quanta of time it swallows up in our lives) is waiting to be decoded. As it is known it took a lot of time and resources to understand the basics, spectrum & applicability of genome (300 billion base pair combinations and a single mismatch has a sense, bless the innovative precision of the super creator) and now we can relate how big a role it can play in controlling an ocean of fundamentally fatal and debilitating medical conditions. Why not its due share of importance is is being given to fathom the original source of sights that are caught by our neuronal radars and give our sensory system a superfluous hullabaloo.

What does this regular emotional tumult aims at? Can we control our dreams? Why in spite of all the cerebral somersault that we necessarily indulge in for a good 60-70 years of our lives, we are told that we use only 10% of our brain. What is the role of rest 90% isn’t the figure too large. Why aren’t the efforts being done to decipher the equations occurring every night in the lives of more than 6 billions of us? What accounts for maximum entropy in our minds at the time when it is least in the body? Why our subconscious roars and experiences turbulent flow of unbridled energy, when we are supposedly resting? Why are we chosen?

Don’t sink, keep swimming

When you seek unending source of discipline, look out for the sun. It blooms up every morning to salute us lesser mortals and showers shines in our lives with no casual breaks. And it has been doing this for millions of years (may be more), perfect example of bleeding discipline.

When you seek unending source of inspiration, look out for the bunch of cacti. With virtually no water or minerals beneath their roots, they continue to extract the best from sand and remain plump happy.

When you seek unending source of hope, look out for the face of an ailing person, who knows about the notoriety of underlying terminal illness, yet makes attempts with gusto to keep the spirits of acquaintances flowing high. (I witness it so often in medical practice and it strengthens my belief that faith flows in defined direction, it multiplies in its magnitude and produces effects appreciated by eyes and mind)

When you seek unending source of belonging, just try to feel what your mother must have gone through emotionally and what dreams she must have crafted and protected for you with eyes full of high hopes when you were cocooned in the womb.

When you seek unending source of happiness, look out for a bunch of teenagers, who chuckle & chirp with their eyes full of glitters, oblivious to the sweltering realities of life.

When you seek unending source of dynamism, just think what the heck our primordial 2 cells undergo to produce a body full of 100 trillion cells.

When you think lost in the lanes of learning a new language, Try imagining a member of the royal family of Thailand. Deeply revered by the Thai people, the royal family speaks a private and ancient language known only to themselves and a privileged few.

Spare 60 dedicated seconds of your life with closed eyes to think about the unfortunate folks who are devoid of sight and you will understand the power of blessing (that you have been bestowed with)

When you think you do enough hard work, think of ants. They travel 1.09 km in a day, and going by the approximate size ratio of 1:660, an average person must walk for approximate 720 km a day. Have you ever done this? (Will you ever attempt this?)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Biased Basics

Cult or Occult
Mortal memories or immortal amnesia
Raining sunshine or deafening darkness
Dizzying heights or nadir of abyss
Serenity of dew drop or anguish of red blaze
Placid moon or fuming sun
Sound of the silence or Mute shouts
Silhouettes of rainbow or might of black
Soaring comet or floating leaf
Chutzpah or recluse
Vastness of cosmos or shrunken quark
Glittering stars or hollows around them
Controlled shadow or uncontrolled self
Poised problem or disheveled solace
Acquired intelligence or innate innocence
Random relations or orderly solitude


What is the quintessential nature of forces that affect our lives? Do we have a bipolar existence? Haven’t we experienced belonging for one thing some time in our life and for a diametrically opposite thing at some other moment of our lives? Why do we change? Is the change brought by us or does the change chooses us? Why do we live and why do we die? Why is death only constant of life? Why do we don’t know the rules that change the game of our lives every now and then? Why are we programmed for such existence?

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Medicine and Music, Malady and Melody...

It seems fascinating to fathom that a lot of artists have used medical jargons / themes / conditions in their compositions. And these songs have not been washed down the memories; even today young folks could be seen humming these immortal tunes. It can be attributed to the mystical nature of occurrence of human body, mind and things associated with them that such jargons have been used time and again. When Pink Floyd, the giants of rock, gave birth to ‘Take thy stethoscope and walk’, a lot of emotional pools were flooded. The fact that one of the best heard and looked after band used the phrase; it stirred a flurry of feelings and in no time a lot of songs started mentioning medical lingo.

Girl, you have no faith in medicines by The White Stripes, Spinal Meningitis by Ween, Brain Stew by Green Day, The Jack by AC/DC (This song is about a venereal disease - "The Jack" is Australian slang for Gonorrhea), Spasticus Autisticus by Ian Dury and The Blockheads, Why does it hurts when I pee by Frank Zappa created their share of ripples and the trend immortalizes. An ordinary person related any medical connection with a disease, in turn with doom, suffering and majority of such songs imitate acerbic feel. As medical professionals, most of us can better understand the psyche used behind creating these anthems and the hollow energy doesn’t suck us as much as it does an ordinary individual. Music permeates our daily lives. It graces our weddings and funerals, fills our elevators and waiting rooms, and accents the messages advertisers want us to hear. It can be incidental or inspirational, sensitive or severe, torrid or timid, hilarious or horrifying. Amid all this remarkable variation, the fundamental intent of the music in our lives never changes: music is communication, intended to carry a message and to influence our responses to that message. “Message-songs” have served as elements of successful, multimodal interventions, such as prenatal care promotion efforts in Mexico and water hygiene education programs in Bolivia. It would be fine if more songs are created with use of medical words & messages that have inspirational, thought provoking and hopeful vibrancy. Indian composers have by far restrained from using this genre and subliminal attempts remind us of twisted euphemism of malaria (remember lovearia??)

If you have heard the song ‘Speechless’, a nice song sung by Lady Gaga for her father with the hopes he'll be convinced to seek the medical treatment he needed
for his heart condition, you could truly feel the colossal power emanating from the ruthlessly rich energy and there are high chances you would start feeling extra-responsible for your loved ones. Lets not make music part of our lives, but lets make our life part of music and feel the divine rhythm with every playing note.

Friday, February 11, 2011

End of turbulence

What appears a shell to the naked eyes can be visualized as a cosmic congregartion of indefinite particles by the knowing souls. We, ordinary humans, tend to see the things in their entirety thus overlooking or missing the finer details. Our minds are processed in this way that we associated ourselves with objects, rather than appreciating the minutest structure responsible for its creation. As its hypothesized (and proved as well) that mass is nothing but a package of energy particles, so what we see is what we are processed to see, thus overlooking the structures responsible for the overall appearance and character. That happens in real life as well, always. Our minds are preoccupied with gross thoughts and we most often deduce our assumptions which are not correct when visualized in the finest details. The gross and appreciable change can be brought in a structure by working out on its finest constituents.

The assumption that mind and body work on certain principles which can be deduced and explained by scientific studies thrills most of us. All of the contemporary physics rests on two foundations. One is Albert Einstein's general relativity theory, which portrays the world on the largest of scales—stars, galaxies and the vastness of the universe itself. The other is quantum mechanics, which portrays the world on the smallest of scales—molecules, atoms, nuclei and quarks. Both these streams have an army of intrepid followers. The truth lies in the eye of the beholder, and we should render our thought process to understand and respect the big picture and the smallest details in it. True bliss lies in knowing self and the reason for the same. The natural forces tend to practice symmetry in their existence and hence are everlasting and tranquil. A problem arises when symmetry is withdrawn, may it be any calamity. I am of the belief that if we tend to minimize the friction between forces that comprise us and regulate our aura and environment, we can achieve solace of highest degree. There is no quick-fix approach; you got to understand the fact that mass is a derivative of light and light is ordered energy. So the disorders that we witness in our lives can be corrected if we take away the negativity, worry, fear, anxiety as these tend to cause disharmony in the natural symmetrical energy fields of our bodies and mind. End of turbulence would occur if we focus our poised selflessness to the causes and derive pleasure in witnessing the change that epitomize the true message of nature; its important to be in order.

Maximal Invasive Reach; Web strategy for doctors

With the advent of new-era communicative tools, findings things of relevance has not remained a tough nut to crack. People all over search the internet for things that interests them and make their opinions about. I think it’s important in today’s fast-paced and interconnected world for a doctor to make some use of various collaborative tools in the web world. It won’t just leverage the quantum and authenticity of their practice but in turn would be helpful for the patients as well. Suppose, someone is desperately searching for competent oncologists in his / her area and he googles it, there are high chances that he will be connected to the profiles of some of the specialists in the region, who may or may not be super experts. Now the choice is limited as the person in need is unlikely to personally visit every specialist and form an opinion to select the best. Here role of web presence matters a lot.

By understanding the need of projecting your special interests and capabilities as a clinician, you can help patients in dire need of your services and believe me its not a web developer’s job to highlight your profile or to enhance your web reach. By virtue of simple tools (your personal website, basic social networking tools i.e. facebook, linkedin etc, bookmarking tools i.e. stumbleupon, delicious etc), the profile’s visibility can be increased multifold. If you can write a blog, make it a point to do it regularly and keep on updating about your professional inclinations and techniques. If the target audience is a patient, the goal should be to equip him / her with the knowledge and options of various treatment modes.

The top trends in web and social media usage of internet tools are increase in the number of websites that target to social networking of health care professionals only & a high rise in web version availability of all medical and scientific journals. Its high time that we start contributing actively our scientific papers to online journals that would add up the credibility and serve as a cornerstone for our patient in his / her selection of care provider. Patients are looking for authoritative but personal information to help them navigate all of the health information they find in today’s media, and I find that using social media helps me to reach more than just the patient in my exam room, hopefully saving patients and parents unnecessary anxiety and saving physicians and other health care providers unnecessary visits.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Stomach pain, a virus in your hard drive !!

Almost all of us have suffered stomach pain at so me or the other point of our lives. It can be boring, throbbing, stabbing, cramping or burning in nature and hampers our mental and physical activities. The cause of stomach pain can be innumerous; there is little point in illustrating all of them. Its just that as a virus harbors your hard disc and hampers the overall computer functioning, the stomach pain as well keeps you down till the time it is there. As there are different types of virus attacks in your hard drive (Trojans, spywares, malwares, bots etc) and severity differs with the type, similarly stomach pain can be grumbling enough to keep you on toes and screaming for help.

Formatting your body is sometimes the solution for getting rid of stomach pain by virtue of gut sterilization (by medications), surgical interventions (to fix the issues in body organs / tissues responsible for abdominal pain) etc. People who have propensity for development of recurrent abdominal pathologies need greater care of their bodies. Its just that some computer systems frequently need formatting which needs time, energy and involves great discomfort to the user. Try asking a web developer how does it feels when an unknown Trojan horse causes multiple syntax error and corrupts all the project files permanently. But then there is no permanent cure, one has to fix the acute issues and try to install good antivirus programs, frequently update them, not to attach corrupt external discs and most importantly to take maintenance contract with a good service provider. Its just like the notorious abdominal pain, once it occurs, it disturbs us and to minimize the chances of its recurrence we have to consult and follow advices of good doctors, not to indulge in things that are likely to exacerbate the problem and take a good mediclaim (health insurance) policy, so that we can be comparatively safe from the expenditures involved in hospitalization, medical bills etc.

The most difficult type of abdominal pains to handle for a clinician are ones who have psychosomatic etiology and a clinician can do little to prevent the relapses and to control the acute flairs. Similarly some of us, I am sure, must have noticed that their computer systems don’t just run brilliantly, though no contributory cause are being mentioned to them by their service providers. Its just that sometimes they work magic and the other moment they are dying to crawl. Certain things in life are beyond the scope of proof, logic or fact, they happen at their own will and desire and we have no choice but to go on. Abdominal pains will keep on bothering us as will the crashed internal drives, keep on formatting and taking the precautions.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Hail mercy on little angels…

Yesterday a cute kid was admitted at my hospital in extreme distressed clinical state. She was having severe breathlessness and had probably caught most virulent variety of lung infection. In view of her sick general condition, she was kept in ICU and put on injectable medications with application of BIPAP Mask (a sealed mask which delivers high flow oxygen with pressure to assist in respiration). Her face looked pale, distraught and frightened. She was seemingly in enormous agony with no clue as to what has happened to her and why. Being the center of all attention in the ICU, she gathered courage to ask one of the nurses and her question created a wave of emotional stir. She asked whether she will be able to celebrate her birthday this year (due in June 2011) with an expectant glance. Though nurses and doctors in ICU are well oriented to handle such emotional issues, the charm of her innocence caused my eyes getting welled up with tears. I deep dwelled in the thoughts of life, birth, happiness, hope and misery. Its difficult to find a single constant in the life and I was perturbed at the fact that happiness is always followed by sorrows, health by illness and life by death. Why can’t small kids and children be free from the burden of diseases? Aren’t they too small to bear the harsh realities of life to which they owe no contribution? Isn’t it unfair to bestow sound health to one little angel and to render the other one on death bed?

As medical professionals, we are supposed to provide physical and mental healing to the sufferers even if we feel like mourning high. I fuelled up the optimism of our little patient and promised her that we will celebrate her birthday in a grand way and all her friends (which included me and 2 nurses as well) would bring nice, little gifts for her. It was a depressing sight to have a cute, chubby kid connected with machines, intravenous drips fighting to survive for her own life, and quite not knowing why she has been chosen to face this holocaust. Her parents looked as sucked up of life as dry wood, wrenched in agony, praying to almighty incessantly. I decided to re-arrange my schedules and spent a fortune of time with my priceless patient. Call it faith healing or turn of lucks or medical miracle, her seemingly very bad condition responded dramatically to subjected treatment and before she could have succumbed to the labor of breathing, her body started showing improvement. She was taken out of BIPAP machine today morning and is presently very stable and continuously showing signs of improvement. Her effervescent smile and chirpy talks are keeping the hopes alive that no malady is for forever and that true faith shines amidst the hazy clouds of uncertainties. I am still lost in the labyrinthous lanes of the mystery of nature and finding my answers. I am sure almighty can’t punish someone who has just bloomed to life and the realization of this fact makes the other facet more emboldened. If it is not God who is responsible for the unseen incidents in our lives, then who or what drives us?

Hope, a marvel !

Hope is the force that enlightens a person’s real and virtual world. The turbulence gathered with burdens of anxiety, despair, and fear vanishes away when rays of hope infiltrate in the person’s domain. The juxtaposition of hope and despair is the key to appreciating and fighting for one's survival. And hope itself is not one-dimensional. Hope must work in tandem with trust, again establishing that devout bond. Hope is an innate realization of being able to survive the biggest of holocausts and to come out stronger.

Hope, if used as a medical weapon, can be surprisingly effective in aliening out a plethora of undesired physical and mental conditions. The depressed person can no longer perceive and differentiate an effective connection between a plan of action and the aim he or she has set. This, in turn, leads to a loss of self-confidence, which results in the person's depending more on others. Hope has its roots in spirituality and nothing can bolster the chances of sound health than the realization of one’s own existence. In medical world, we should give its due share of impact to spiritual health as well. If used tactically in wholesome approach, I believe we can decrease the disease burden globally. Ideally, importance of hope & spirituality should be given its share of magnitude right from the childhood as its better for a person to identify his / her own self, the earlier the better. Spirituality is the seat of hope, giving one a sense of meaning in the face of adversity. With hope, inclusive recovery becomes a pleasant possibility.

COLLLABORATIVE APPROACH FOR OBESE PATIENTS

Managing a patient with bariatric issues requires high level of dedication and team-spirit approach. A person who has tried for achieving optimum body weight and has not been successful requires motivation, disease education and an inclusive approach by the team of attending clinicians. Every case has its own merit, while sometimes it may be possible to achieve the results quite fast the same may not be true for everyone. An in-depth analysis regarding dietary schedules, physical regimen, family history is important as many vital links can be obtained regarding future approach. Though Psychoanalysis remains a separate specialized stream of medical sciences, the chief attending clinician should be able to make out the emotional and psychological factors associated with the disease. Patient’s can provide unmatched compliance if the rapport is established well with the attending team. Obesity in patients poses a challenge to clinicians, especially if the person is unreceptive, but sometimes it is unexpectedly easy to break through hostility and gain patient trust. If I recall, most of the rapport establishing sessions have been a blend of bitter-sweet experience, then. But there was consolation in knowing I had learnt something useful and brought a little light into my patient’s life. I couldn’t ask for more than that as the road to health begins when mutual faith is born between doctor and patient.

The disease burden was known to be high in developed countries, however in past few years; it has silhouetted even developing nations in a big way. Escalating prevalence of obesity in children will lead to higher obesity rates in the adult population, resulting in a greater health burden caused by obesity-related metabolic and cardiovascular complications. In fact, obese children may already exhibit early signs of disorders such as hypertension, elevated cholesterol levels, and insulin resistance. A patient should always be made comfortable, giving attention to his / her small needs, and after establishing the rapport, treatment options should be narrated along with their merits and limitations. It is highly recommended if the patient could be shown animated videos of the bariatric surgery (if the person is required to undergo surgical intervention) with highlighting step by step approach in a nice way. It helps the patient to be mentally prepared and to be equipped with a lot of questions which in turn will help the outcomes, as the expectations turn to be more real. Clinician should always tend to involve the patient’s family support in the applicable capacities as post surgery the outcomes can radically differ if the optimum mental and physician care has been imparted and patient’s emotional solace is a very important factor.

Importance of keeping up sessions with obesity support group has been highlighted every now and then and I believe this is one of the best methods for the patient to understand the best postoperative measures which can help in achieving adequate weight loss. Acquiring bariatric surgery support is essential to letting the patient effectively navigating his / her own struggles after weight loss surgery. In order to get a decent jump start on exactly what to expect after weight loss treatment, the patient should join a support group meeting prior to having the procedure. Mentors, found usually in obesity support groups, can be a concrete rock in moments when the patient doesn’t seem to really want to move further on his / her quest to weight loss. There’s a wealth of answers that individuals will provide in a group environment and ground realities can be explored which mostly encourage the patient to undergo the procedure and follow the schedules thereafter.