This short story is dedicated to all the Postgraduates in all the specialities of Medicine.
This story is completely fictional. All the characters and situations are entirely fictional and do not carry any medical sense nor legal significance, and have been created only for the purpose of this story. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.
[Prologue:- This story is about the doctors who are NOT gods but humans. Human beings with all the characters, sentiments, feelings, emotions, beliefs and idiosyncrasies like the rest of us. This story is not just about the protagonist, or his mother or the intern but also about his junior, ‘Trauma’, and also the assistant to the obstetrician who are all human and doctors... but not gods.]
‘Hi Sir’ she smiles at me with her dimples showing off as she whizzes past me holding a lab sheet in her hand. I feel a breath of fresh air for a moment and feel relaxed forgetting the fact that I was working nonstop for eighteen hours and getting grilled by ‘Trauma’ in the OT. ‘Hello...’ I reply, but she’s gone already past me into the emergency lab. Well, what the hell... I still had two days to ask her out before she completed her internship postings in my unit. Every time I saw her she disturbed my thought processes. I now try and concentrate on the call I was given by my junior as I rush down to the Casualty from the OT.
The patient is almost breathing heavily as I can hear him at the emergency room door. My junior, a thin, tall, spectacled Bagalkot guy rattles off before I even reach the bedside ‘Eighteen year old male, RTA two hours ago, pillion rider, driver dead, pulse one twenty and going up, BP sixty by forty and dropping rapidly ....now not recordable, tachypnaeic, GCS fourteen, CVS and RS clear, no external injuries other than a bruise right chest, abdomen tap nil, fluids started with green needles ...’ ‘Heart, chest sounds?’ ‘Clear ree sara, nodeenree’ (Its clear Sir, I’ve seen it) but he hands me the steth. The patient is now restless and throwing his arms around. I try and listen to his heart in the emergency room with all the noise around. Multiple sounds ... from the surroundings, ‘whoooosh’ his left lung goes and with a slightly duller right side. I take out the steth and watch his chest. The ribs showing in his emaciated chest... the gap between the ribs on right side more than the left side..... ‘Large bore needles’ I call out ‘It’s a pneumothorax’, I quickly stab in two IV fluid cannula’s at the second (ICS Inter costal space) with the false hope of removing the air in his lungs as the nurses hold the boys limbs ... and as my junior searches for a large bore needle in the metal cupboard. Luckily I remember the blade in my pocket... I take out one and stab between the cannulae .... ‘aahhh’ the guy cries in agony as he experiences pain without any anaesthesia .... I take out my metal Jetter pen; take off the refill and stab the sheath in with all my weight... the muscles give way as I hear the soft whistle of escaping air...
I wipe away sweat from my forehead and foggy glasses and blood from my hands as I notice a middle aged man beside the bed in his torn shirt covering his mouth with a dirtied towel... and staring at me with bewildered eyes. My junior runs back to me ‘Saraa, large bore ...’
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I look at my mobile. 3:22am. ‘Vrrrrrrr...’ the vibrations in silent mode makes me almost drop the Android. ‘Trauma calling...’ Well, Trauma was my very sadistic very senior staff member. He was interested in trauma cases and derived extreme sadistic pleasure from traumatizing us with his trauma related patient management and questions. ‘Yes, Sir ....’ I’m now more humble than it sounds. ‘Yes Sir, coming Sir...’ The bloody quack wanted to do a quick rounds at this hour and so I run to the wards.
She’s there, in front of Trauma, both showing off their teeth and smiling at each other for some f**king silly reason I assume. His face turns ominous as he sees me; she acts serious as if she has not noticed me. He looks down at the patient and with his deep gurgling voice thunders ‘Ahh..., eega araam iddira?’ (How are you now?), the patient is almost in stupor and sleepy but manages to mumble ‘parvaagilla saar’ (not bad sir), ‘Passed flatus?’, before I realise that the question was directed at me Trauma asks ‘I’m not asking the patient if you have passed flatus’, She giggles. His face is shone as if he has won a battle. ‘Sir, he is taking orally ...’ He realises his mistake of misrecognition now ‘Ahhh... he is the intestinal obstruction patient, right?’ ‘Yes sir, the operated blunt trauma patient is on the other side...’ ‘Yes, of course, but the exams are fast approaching and you guys still have no wind of when patients break wind, ehh’ He chuckles at his own joke and she, somewhat strangely continues with her giggles.
Racing down to follow-up another patient at Casualty I curse Trauma immensely and request divine intervention in sending him back to his wife at Delhi or even to his getting-aborted-twice-a-year unmarried daughter who was ‘studying’ in the US of A. Trauma, as I understand him, he himself must be under a lot of trauma at present!
Oops! My Android! I remember keeping my mobile beside the Obstruction patient’s bedside... I rush back in haste. Just as I’m passing in front of the Duty doctor’s room I notice I’m attracted to something sounding familiar. I slow down in front of the dark room and listen to the familiar deep gurgling voice, paradoxically which is something like a whisper now. As I wonder with whom Trauma was talking at this hour I hear the attractive giggles, muffled at the same time!
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I walk in silence to the patient’s bedside; pick my Android which looks as if it was lying there orphaned. My assumption had come true. The whole world seemed as if motionless and insignificant now. Unknowingly I’m in my duty room tired... and almost deceived, gazing at my mobile pointlessly. And I don’t know why, at four in the morning and after forty days I remember her for the first time. I call my mom.
I hear a woman howling as my mother’s voice breaks in ‘One minute Putta...’ Yes, she still called me ‘Putta’. I wait as the howling gets intense and as my mother requests her assistant ‘...will you please continue with the delivery, I need to take this...’ a voice answers sincerely ‘No problem, ma’am’ ‘Yeah, call me if there is anything... I will be just outside’. As a practicing Obstetrician she was deliberate with her processes. I hear her ripping off her gloves as she comes back on ‘Studies chennagi nedeetha iddya putta?’ (How is your studies going Putta?)Is she worried about my studies more than me! ‘Huu... nedeetha ide.’ (It’s going on) I answer more vaguely. I hear her breathing softly now.
Silence.
More silence follows as I don’t know what to talk. ‘Avalu siglilva...?’ (You didn’t get her, right) ‘Aaa...’ I’m speechless, ‘hmmm... aa intern thane? Avaligintha olle hudugi sigthale bidu ninage... You are worth more than that girl. She didn’t deserve you!’ Again, I don’t know why but some tears rolled down my cheeks as my voice was caught in my throat. In the background the howling had stopped and I could now hear the first cry of the baby.
Forty days ago I had made a passing comment about my intern, and that’s it, now she knew the whole story! As I found it difficult to breath I quickly managed to utter ‘Will call you later mom’ and cut the call... and I broke down.
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I wait for some time to get ‘stabilised’ and wash my face before coming out of my room to see what my junior has done with the newly admitted patients. As soon as I come out I notice the middle aged man with the torn shirt sitting directly in front of the room on haunches. His eyes look sunken and bright at the same time now. He gets up seeing me. As I turn towards the Casualty he almost leaps to my feet to hold them together. I wait. He is now in tears as I feel the drops of warmth on my socks. He stutters between sobs ‘Devaru saar neevu, Devaru neev nange...’ (You are my god Sir) I hold him by his shoulders to lift him up. As he gazes at me and wipes his tears with his dirtied towel I slowly walk away from him to inspect a freshly wheeled-in young lady who is burnt from head to toe.
