Tis been a long time since I blogged on my 'Peter Parker' blog. But don't think that I've not been blogging. I'm blogging as always on the 'Spidey' blog! Haha... Kay

Living Your Dream

Before, I make my way back to the hospital, I thought I'll just give you a chance to listen to the demo recording of my new song 'Living Your Dream'. Listen to the low-quality mp3 here. Just tell me if I should proceed to adding the drum and bass tracks to this.

One grave point to note: I'm singing in the demo. Therefore, just neglect the finesse (the absence of) of the vocals and just judge the melody. I'll get my band's vocalist to sing it if reviews are good.

‘Living Your Dream’

[modified on 14/08/04]

After what seemed like eternity
I redeemed some dignity
Head held high, beaming face
I saved myself from more disgrace

If you want to know why

A few years back, I recall
On a rainy night in fall
I discovered a hidden charm (which)
Saved myself from more harm

I wanna tell you why

I won't get paid for this
But it's something I can't miss
I want to run and scream
Nothing like living your dream

It was a busy day
I missed a movie today
A routine With my best mate
And more of this I can take

If you want to know Why

Because Now, I have realized
A dream, from the day I cried
And it gives me what I need
Without which I would bleed

I wanna tell you why

I won't get paid for this
But it's something I can't miss
I want to run and scream
Nothing like living your dream

Living Your Dream

‘Living Your Dream’

[modified on 14/08/04]

After what seemed like eternity
I redeemed some dignity
Head held high, beaming face
I saved myself from more disgrace

If you want to know why

A few years back, I recall
On a rainy night in fall
I discovered a hidden charm (which)
Saved myself from more harm

I wanna tell you why

I won't get paid for this
But it's something I can't miss
I want to run and scream
Nothing like living your dream

It was a busy day
I missed a movie today
A routine With my best mate
And more of this I can take

If you want to know Why

Because Now, I have realized
A dream, from the day I cried
And it gives me what I need
Without which I would bleed

I wanna tell you why

I won't get paid for this
But it's something I can't miss
I want to run and scream
Nothing like living your dream

Hypoglycemic tremors and ego clashes

After about 2 years off, I have re-started working at the hospital. As a voluntary trainee in Orthopedics. I'm totally enjoying it. I'm already getting to assist major surgeries!

I have this problem. I get tremors when I'm hypoglycemic and I can't control them. Today I had trouble in cannulating a patient because of this. Normally, it should have been over in a minute. But I wasted a couple of cannulas.

Apart from that, the patient I tried cannulating had tortuous veins with a lot of kinks. All the regular veins have been used up due to prior cannulization.

One question in general. Do peripheral venous valves affect cannulation?

I really wish that we could get rid of ego problems at the hospital. Yesterday, a suspected case of Osteosarcoma turned up at the OPD. The unit chief decided to post it for open biopsy. But a very well respected associate professor, from another unit, advised against it to the M. O. posted with the duty of doing the biopsy. He said that the soft tissue swelling and vascularity might lead to alarming bleeding. He suggested an FNAC or true-cut biopsy instead.

Totday morning, during rounds, the chief was discussing this and I said the opinion was changed after the suggesting my the other professor. He clearly was offended and said that he was the chief of the unit. Therefore he, and not anyone else, decide what was to be done. He asked me to not mention such things in the future.

I am a fool to have mentioned it. But I thought this other professor is valued high by the whole department.

AIDS Vaccine Still Years Away

"Despite minor progress toward developing an AIDS vaccine over the past few years, efforts still fall short of what is needed to develop an effective preventive vaccine, researchers said here Monday. At a press briefing during the XV International AIDS Conference here, Seth Berkley, president and chief executive officer of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), said, “Only a vaccine can end the epidemic. Yet vaccines were not even mentioned in the opening session.”

I'm very suspicious at a headline story in a local newspaper in India which claimed that a microbiologist in India's premier medical institute - the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi has invented a vaccine which is about to be available commercially! I can't imagine why such newspapers consult with some expert before publishing such stories.

Army rations rehydrated by urine | New Scientist

"Would you eat food cooked in your own urine? Food scientists working for the US military have developed a dried food ration that troops can hydrate by adding the filthiest of muddy swamp water or even peeing on it. The ration comes in a pouch containing a filter that removes 99.9 per cent of bacteria and most toxic chemicals from the water used to rehydrate it, according to the Combat Feeding Directorate, part of the US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts. This is the same organisation that created the 'indestructible sandwich' that will stay fresh for three years (New Scientist print edition, 10 April 2002). The aim is to reduce the amount of water soldiers need to carry. One day's food supply of three meals, weighs 3.5 kilograms but that can be reduced to about 0.4 kilograms with the dehydrated pouches, says spokeswoman Diane Wood. The pouch - containing chicken and rice initially - relies on osmosis to filter the water or urine. When two solutions of different concentrations are separated by a semipermeable membrane, with gaps that allow only water molecules to pass through, the water is drawn to the more concentrated side." Read more >>

This is ugly to read about! I pity the US Army. First, they have to fight for something imaginary. And while doing that, they have to eat their on excreta.

Commitment during internship

I happened to be engaged in a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine last week. We talked about the commitment shown by interns in doing their work in our hospital. We actually compared us with the new set of interns. And we both seemed to think that the present lot is very insincere in their work and a lot less committed than we were.

We, being the perfectionist-workaholic kind, strived to do everything right during our internship. We set high standards for ourselves and kept on pushing ourselves harder to get even better. We tried being nice to the patients, greeting them and interacting with the bystanders. We tried to be like a family member of theirs, always wearing a smile and being cheerful. In return, we got a great response from our dear patients and we took pride in it.

We always used to obey our seniors and carry out all orders without even a second thought. This meant that the seniors (ie. residents) always enjoyed working with us. This too has been highlighted in their comments at the end-posting reviews. This is not to mention that we enjoyed impressing our professors with some quality work and used to get high grades on the end-posting assessments. Altogether, we were like med-geeks.

Now, two years after we have done our internship, two batches have completed theirs and the standards, at least from our point of view, are capitulating. These days the interns don’t do their ward work properly, don’t know the details about their own patients; forget the rapport-bit. They also think that preparing for the pre-PG entrance is the only thing that matters and internship is a farce. This ideology leads them to inappropriate behaviour with their residents. I could go on and on about this. But, is there a point?

I am wondering if we are being too harsh. Or maybe we are deluded by our own high held impressions about the way we did our internship. Or maybe we were the more dedicated ones from our batch and therefore, we cannot compare ourselves with the other batches. I hope one of this is true as otherwise, my dream to see the day when teaching hospitals are trusted and respected by the public will remain like it is; as a dream.

For once, I would love being a pig...

I was mentioning about a friend who developed a prodrome after being in contact with a patient of Leptospirosis. Thankfully, the tests have returned negative. He has returned home after being clinical diagnosed as having Infective Hepatitis.

I've been slugging it out with my HTML lessons. Although I'm improving considerably, I'm sleep-deprived and beginning to develop neurotic tendencies. When I was watching the TV other day, I almost thought I had turned psychotic. I had, what I thought, a hallucination. I was eating breakfast with CNN on the telly. There was this promotional about its sports show 'World Sport'. And when I took my eyes of the TV for a split second I heard this "... you can't miss this show!" I know you are not getting it. What I meant by can't is that it was said in the British way. It was no hallucination. Some effort the CNN guys are putting in to woo the viewers in the the post-colonial nations!

One strange feeling that is seeping over me is a desire to become a pig. Not any darned pig, of course. I would give up all of the rest of my life; rest meaning the part I haven't been talking about, for becoming a piglet like the one in the picture below. For those still not getting the point, I love Cats - specifically Tigers and a certain breeds of Lions! The only disgusting part of the photo is it's source; NewsIsCrappy.com. It's a pity that these people find such cute stories unattractive.