Last evening my eldest sister in law had a long chat with my wife on phone.
She asked her "how are you? This work is so difficult. How do you handle all this?"
My wife is Intensive Care Specialist. Doing Covid work since April 2020.
This is the first time anyone from extended
family asked about her well being.
She gets numerous calls everyday from multiple relatives and friends asking about medical advice, second opinion for their friends, vaccine queries, and what not.
At all times of day and night.
This is on top of her exhausting Covid work.
Whole of last year, like most of my doctor colleagues in India, she hasn't had unbroken 4 hours of sleep.
It is unimaginably difficult. Her hospital @symbiosistweets supports her really well and her own innate resilience has seen her thru so far.
So I write this tweet to appreciate @docurvishukla 's superhuman work and spirit of service.
Special thanks to our group of close friends who always keep our spirit up.
Let's hope this pandemic gets over soon.
You all can help by wearing mask and avoiding socialization.
Remdesivir-
As headlines scream shortage and photos of hapless relatives standing in long lines are on front page,
public impression is that scores of people are dying as this life saving elixir is in short supply.
Nothing could be further from truth.
A thread.
If remdesivir was the fabled "Sanjivani buti" we wouldn't see millions of deaths all over the world.
After initial enthusiasm in Feb/March 2020, well designed clinical trials put question mark on superiority of Remdesivir over standard care.
As even more data gathered, clinicians suspected that a small subset of patients may benefit from remdesivir. (There are enough papers to support every claim and more)
This thread is about - 1. harm caused to doctor-patient relationship due to corporatisation of healthcare 2. corruption in govt machinary and 3. laws that govern practice of medicine.
It is about my father who passed away few days ago.
Few months ago when my father was diagnosed with autoimmune vasculitis on top of his chronic kidney disease secondary to lifelong diabetes, we knew his days are numbered. He knew it too.
Doctors gave us a very clear idea about seriousness, complexity and prognosis of it all.
So when he stopped eating solid food in adequate quantity and remained in his bed all through the day, we knew where this was headed.
Two months in and out of ICU, alternate day dialysis and high level of care given to him by family, nurses and doctors wasn't going to make
Psychiatry is presently not as ostracized as it once used to be, confined to asylums.
Now a days you may even find psychiatrists invited to public functions.
A welcome change but likely to be short lived.
Why?
Read on -
#stigma has always been a huge problem for psychiatry.
We got mental health away from Shamans but managed to get stigma in the process.
Persons with mental illness were always feared and hated. Hence confined to asylum, away from sanitized life of people.
Anything perceived as threatening (mentally ill, free thinking women, disenfranchised minorities, political opponents, sexual minorities) was labelled as "madness/character flaw/unsoundness" etc and sent to asylum to spend rest of their life.
2 essential components of healthcare are a doctor and a patient. Everything depends on how this fundamental relationship works. Similar to hoe mother-child relationship defines humanity (or mammals)
All knowledge and further directions of prevention, cure and healing; all other healthcare personnel and other agencies exist to support this most fundamental relationship that is the reason of existence of everything "healthcare".
So it is natural that we put a proper label and work category to this relationship. This label will decide everything that goes into and around it.
Appropriate anger has already been expressed about this comment in all media and suitable explanation and retraction done already. But I want to look at this as citizen.
North America and Europe have democracy for long time. They had chance of rebuilding their countries through two devastating world wars.
Their building was done before world became aware of rights of endogenous people, environment protection and corporate giants.
Only large country that managed scorching pace of growth and pulling population out of poverty in modern times is China. They are not democracy and there is no word for human rights in their language.
18 month old child is brought in by parents as they suspect autism.
Pediatrician saw the child 3 months ago and advised them to wait till second birthday.
Parents were worried so they self referred to me.
Should the parents consult me without knowledge of their regular pediatrician?
(Hearing test is already done. Normal.)
When I meet the family, child has definite delay in speech related milestones. All other milestones are fine. signs of autism are absent.
Parents ask a pointed question - "are you sure my child does NOT have autism?"