Hitting close to home : United to endTB

This one is dedicated to a TB warrior, a good friend, a caring nurse and a fantastic programme manager. It is a year old but it does not diminish the victory that was the rollout of outreach.

Another dream has come to fruition,

One more step towards decentralisation

A model for care we aim to demonstrate

Since proximity is our mandate.

A one step shop is our final aim

To reduce a DR-TB patient's pain.

A multidisciplinary force, we have formed
With medical and patient support arms.
To help a patient through two challenging years
A victory over TB, through blood, sweat and tears.
More than the disease, the treatment is a torment
"I cry every day", is our patients' lament.

With the Ministry of Health, we partner
And hope the confidence of the patients to garner
Pain we relieve, myths we purge
To rid a high burden ward of this debilitating scourge

The hospital's boundaries, we breach,

We are the final frontier, the outreach.

The Patient Is Not Always Right

Doctor Google didn't go to med school, I think
But her consultations drive mere (mortal) doctors to the brink.
I often wonder whether I was a fool
To spend time and effort in med school.
For all my patients know what them ails
And get rather annoyed when I fail
To tell them what they want to hear
And refuse with their opinion to concur
I've been extremely lucky so far , to be fair
That patient satisfaction does not have to dictate my quality of care
I know an educated lady who thinks that her anaphylactic shock
Was caused because something in her food went amok.
And therefore refuses to search for the allergen
And will be shocked (pun intended) one day without an EpiPen.
Or the patients who want to dictate their regimens
And ascribe all (hitherto unheard of) adverse effects to Imipenem.
As a wise man, once most aptly said
For God and doctors patients only care
When the disease has given them a fright
Once this passes, God is forgotten and the doctors they slight.

Liff As I Know It!

Who am I?

The question an Indian never wants to hear
"Do you remember me, my dear?
I last saw you when you were 2 feet high
You sure have grown tall, my, oh my".

And if, you try your best to fake it
Don't be under the illusion that you will make it.
For the devil (or is it God) is in the details, y'know
And the ordeal gets dragged out for half an hour more.

You will be asked to recite the relationship
And over those details, you will definitely trip
For if you climb up one family tree, you will clamber down the other
Probably find out that they're your parent's sister-in-law's husband's grandmother

For crying out loud, that was ages ago
Back in the days of Barbies and Lego
I have barely any memories of my parents from then
So you, infrequently seen relatives, are beyond my ken.

But instead of saying that, you mechanically nod
And flash a fake smile while you trace the family bond
Till a couple of decades later, you will, to your horror, hear
Yourself saying  "Do you remember me, my dear?"

Liff As I Know It!

Heaven is

.... a new coffee machine that gives you freshly ground coffee. #smellsliketeamspirit
.... a ticket home
..... a holiday.
.....temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius (yes, this is my new normal).
..... home.

             ♫ Home is wherever I'm with you. ♫ 

5000 miles away from home.

Today, I look back to my light hearted posts when I first joined MSF, as national staff in Mumbai then, I was just a physician, though it felt rather overwhelming at the time.

Here I stand, almost 3 years down the line, more than 500 miles away from homehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_XgghFZt1o, managing a team (hat's as much fun as it sounds), negotiating with the Ministry of Health and shivering (The height of summer = Winter temperatures).

I can't complain, the work is interesting, my colleagues are amazing, the MoH is very collaborative ... but I really, really miss home.


Liff As I Know It!

Just another day at work ...

A new doctor (a psychiatrist) joined our multi-disciplinary team the other day and the usual round of introductions were happening before we settled down to work out a plan of action for the next day.

"Hi, I'm Ganesh from Patient Support. I'm responsible for health education and awareness"
"Hey, I'm Parvati. I'm one of the doctors."
"And I'm the other doctor, Shiva.", says her colleague.
"No it's not. Ignore him, that's what happens when you smoke efavirenz on the sly", she retorted.
"Shows how much you know. There isn't any stand alone efavirenz around, the fixed dose combination doesn't have quite the same effect"
"Glad to know that you've been checking. Also, it's fascinating that you know the difference."
"Ouch !!! That's harsh. Aren't you the judgemental one?"
Ganesh breaks in, "Mom, Dad, stop fighting !!!"
"Haha ... you're a laugh a minute, G. But you know I wouldn't be able to toleare him over the weekend too. As for you, mister, it's either medical efavirenz or multiple personality disorder, y'know."
"Will do. Multiple personalities sounds way more fun anyway."

Liff As I Know It!

Nonpareil

An eleven-year-old was once asked
"Don’t you mind always coming a perennial second in class

Don’t you wish that for once you’d stood first?

Fate and the first ranker haven’t you ever cursed?"

She thought for a while, then, “Not really”, she shrugged

“As long as I’m on stage on Prize Day, it’s enough.”
”But, but … you MUST be jealous”, her classmate persisted.
”I’d be, if I was in your place”, she sceptically insisted.

The seventh grader had no answer at that time

But for years, that conversation stuck in her mind.
After much introspection, she found the answer she sought.

It harked back to what she was told as a tiny tot.

“Never ever compare”, her mother had oft repeated.

“It can either make you rather conceited

Or destroy your confidence in one fell swoop

‘Coz there will always be someone better or worse than you.

“Be the best YOU can be” she exhorted.

“Make sure you set your bar high. It’s important

To decide exactly what you want, to set your own goals,

To take calculated risks, a leap of faith ... be bold.

But when you compare yourself to another, ma petite

You limit yourself to that person’s dreams.
And since no two people are ever the same
There’ll always be a missing element that you’ll crave.

When you set your own goals,’tis  a different ball game, y’see
Each victory will help you some other to achieve.
With each success, you will always aspire for more
Then the sky’s the limit, to the heavens you’ll soar.

Liff As I Know It!